Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 8:9 tells one of the most delicate scenes in all of Torah. Noah sends out a dove, a yonah, to see whether the earth is ready. The Targum says she found no rest for the sole of her foot, and so she returned to the ark. And then, in a gesture the Aramaic lingers on, Noah reached out his hand, and took and brought her unto him into the ark.
Picture Noah's hand at the hatch. He does not scold the bird. He does not throw her back out. He reaches, he catches her, he carries her in. The verse is a portrait of tenderness across species. The man who survived the end of the world has not hardened. If anything, the Flood has made him more careful with small things.
Jewish tradition has long read the dove as a symbol of Knesset Yisrael, the soul of the community, sent out into a world that offers no resting place. The takeaway the Maggid leaves on this verse: when the dove comes back, receive her. Do not mistake exhaustion for failure. Noah understood that a bird who flies home is telling the truth, and he opened his hand.