69. Rabbi Aba said that in Gehenom, there are compartments upon compartments, seconds, thirds, and so on until seven - the friends have already explained this issue. Blessed are the righteous who guard themselves from the sins of the wicked and do not follow in their paths nor defile themselves. For when a person who has become impure dies and passes onto the World of Truth, he goes down into Gehenom. There he descends, until he reaches the lowest compartment.

70. And there are two compartments close to each other that are called Sheol and Avadon. Whoever reaches Sheol is judged and punished there and is then raised to a different, but higher, compartment. This continues until he is released from there. But those who go down and reach Avadon are never raised from there again. That is why it is called Avadon (Eng. 'perdition'), because they are lost there forever.

71. Come and behold: Noah the righteous warned the people of his generation, but they did not heed him until the Holy One, blessed be He, brought the punishment of Gehenom upon them. What is the punishment of Gehenom? It is water and fire; the first is cold, the other boiling. And all of that generation were sentenced to punishment in Gehenom and lost from the world.

72. After that punishment, the world was able to exist and function correctly. Noah entered the ark and brought into it all the species of creatures. So, of course, Noah was a fruit tree yielding fruit, MEANING THAT HE WAS YESOD WHO IS CALLED RIGHTEOUS. And then all the species of the world emerged from the ark just as it happened above - MEANING JUST AS IN YESOD AND MALCHUT ABOVE.

73. Come and behold: when the fruit tree yielding fruit, YESOD OF ZEIR ANPIN, is joined with the fruit tree, WHICH IS MALCHUT, then all the species of above - great and small living creatures and all their varieties - come forward, each with other members of its species. As it is written: "Both small and great beasts" (Tehilim 104:25). So was the case with Noah and the ark. They all emerged from the ark, MEANING THEY ALL WERE CORRECTED WHILE THEY WERE IN THE ARK. IT IS THE SAME WITH THE OFFSPRING ABOVE, WHO RECEIVE THEIR CORRECTION FROM MALCHUT. And the world existed just as IT DID above. And this is why Noah is called a husbandman, that is the husband of the earth, and "a righteous man," MEANING THAT THE RIGHTEOUS ARE JUST, AS IS YESOD ABOVE, as has been previously explained.

74. Rabbi Chiya said: For 300 years before the Great Flood, Noah warned them to change their ways but they did not listen to him until the time when the Holy One, blessed be He, had finished waiting for them to repent. THIS IS AS WRITTEN: "AND HIS DAYS SHALL BE A HUNDRED AND TWENTY YEARS" (BERESHEET 6:3). Then they were lost from the world. Come and behold: IN THE PREVIOUS WEEKLY PORTION, it is written: "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them" (Ibid. 1), who they went naked in front of everyone. And then, what is written? "And the sons of Elohim saw the daughters of men (Ibid. 2). This was the main cause THAT BROUGHT THEM to continue sinning until it finally caused them to be destroyed. And because of that they followed the Evil Inclination, held fast to its trunk and roots, rejected the holy faith from among themselves, and became defiled. So it is written: "The End of all Flesh is come before Me" (Ibid. 13), to teach that they were guilty.