"צהר תעשה לתיבה"
ר׳ אבא בר כהנא אמר חלון
ר׳ לוי אמר מרגלית
Make a tzohar for the ark:
R’ Aba bar Kahana said, “[Tzohar means] window.”
R’ Levi said. “[Tzohar means] precious gem.”
Targum Yonatan may be the first source to claim the tzohar was a luminous stone, pulled from the primordial river Pishon (T. Y. Genesis 6:16). This is elaborated on in Genesis Rabbah 31:11:
During the entire twelve months that Noah was in the Ark he did not require the light of the sun by day or the light of the moon by night, but he had a polished stone which he hung up – when it was dim, he knew it was day, when it was bright, he knew it was night.
צהר תעשה לתיבה “you are to provide means of illumination for the ark.” According to most opinions this is a reference to the window that Noach used later on to dispatch the raven and the turtle dove. During the period that this “window” was kept closed he suspended in that area a jewel which sparkled and provided interior lighting. When we understand this in this manner, our sages, some of whom spoke only of the jewel and others only of the “window,” are both correct, except that neither of them gave us the full explanation. When the Torah told Noach to provide interior lighting it was because during most of days of the deluge illumination from the sky was totally absent, neither sun, nor moon or stars being visible. Noach had to use his ingenuity to provide for interior lighting.
The Ba'al Shem Tov re-translates these 2 words – tzohar and tevah. Tzohar not only means window, but an illumination, a spark, a radiance, a transformative liminal moment, a transition from dark to light. And tevah is not only an ark, but a word and also the letters themselves. These letters are sparks, the building blocks of creation. So the story is not only about arks and windows, but also about sparks, words and letters that in combination re-enact every moment as a moment of creation.
A liminal window is always being opened to let our innermost being, our ecstatic outpouring of prayer and devotion, and the letters of our life ascend. We go from darkness in the world, the world of the flood, to light.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, "The Light in the Ark,"
https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/noach/the-light-in-the-ark/
Recall that Chizkuni said that Noah had a precious stone for the dark days and a window for when the sun shone again. Something like that happened when it came to Torah also. During the dark days of persecution, Jewish mysticism flourished, and Torah was illuminated from within. During the benign days when the world was more open to Jews, they had a window to the outside, and so emerged figures like Maimonides in the Middle Ages, and Samson Raphael Hirsch in the 19th century.
I believe that the challenge for our time is to open a series of windows so that the world can illuminate our understanding of Torah, and so that the Torah may guide us as we seek to make our way through the world.
On a slightly different note, the verse teaches us that we should “make a tzohar, a light, through the words [tevah].” Through the words of Torah that the Tzaddik learns, one can transform צרה†into צהר†— “calamity” and “disaster” can be changed into “radiance” and “light.”
Rachel Anisfeld ("The Story of Noah, the Story of Our Hearts", Lilith.org 10/23/2023)
We are, like Noah, surrounded by a flood, a flood of violence, death and destruction. And we are in danger of falling into this storm, being sucked under, emotionally flooded, overwhelmed by despair and dread and powerlessness.
God tells Noah to include in the ark a tzohar, which the gemara understands as a precious jewel to be set in the ark so that it shined katzharayim, as brightly “as the afternoon sun” (Sandhedrin 108b). The ark was to be aglow with light. Maybe you can imagine yourself this way, as a vessel of light, like the ark, a shining lantern, floating along on a wild dark sea. The raging waters threaten to overwhelm you, but you hold on to the light of love inside you with all your might, unwavering in your commitment. In the face of darkness, you are light. In the face of hatred, you are love, fierce unshakable love.
Amidst the concreteness of the images of violence and destruction that we see, this love may seem like a mirage. That’s ok. It does have an ephemeral quality to it, like the otherworldly light that shined through the prism of the precious gem. This light is a dream, a hope, an imagining. It comes to us from another plane and speaks another language. It is not of the storm, but is the boat that floats through the storm. If we lose ourselves in the storm, there is only storm. So now, especially in this moment, even if we are also by necessity in some way involved in the storm, we can still always hold fast to the light of love and kindness and hope, still cultivate it, treasure it, preserve it like a precious stone inside us. It may be otherworldly and ephemeral, but it is our essence. This is God in us.
Based on a source sheet by Rabbi Amy Bernstein "That's How the Light Gets In" which can be found here https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/600600?lang=bi