 | In these anxious days, some see our world teetering on the brink, fearing the worst. While Jewish life teaches resilience, emotions of anxiety and fear are real. Maybe that's why the arc of Jewish wisdom reminds that even after the most destructive storm there's a new light, and a promise, and a rainbow. |
By Rabbi David Evan Markus
Noah 5785 (2024)
Click here for last year's Dvar Torah on this portion, "Make a Little Birdhouse in Your Soul"
Our stories (midrash) reflect our identity, values and aspirations – and we need them now. The story of Noah is prescient as climate change raises sea levels and anxiety rises that storm tides – both literal and political – could engulf the world.
Noah's ark has a few spiritual purposes. One is to carry Creation from pre-history to Western monotheism's launch with a Voice calling Avram (Avraham) from the city of Ur "to a land that I will show you." (Tune in next week.) Another is to set a covenant with all humanity. Before any mention of Israel or Jews or anyone who'd become them, Torah sets down a covenant with Noah that the world will continue. All humanity is in it together.
And then there's the rainbow after the flood? After Noah emerged from the ark (Gen. 9:11-16):
Noah 5785 (2024)
Click here for last year's Dvar Torah on this portion, "Make a Little Birdhouse in Your Soul"
Our stories (midrash) reflect our identity, values and aspirations – and we need them now. The story of Noah is prescient as climate change raises sea levels and anxiety rises that storm tides – both literal and political – could engulf the world.
Noah's ark has a few spiritual purposes. One is to carry Creation from pre-history to Western monotheism's launch with a Voice calling Avram (Avraham) from the city of Ur "to a land that I will show you." (Tune in next week.) Another is to set a covenant with all humanity. Before any mention of Israel or Jews or anyone who'd become them, Torah sets down a covenant with Noah that the world will continue. All humanity is in it together.
And then there's the rainbow after the flood? After Noah emerged from the ark (Gen. 9:11-16):
| וַהֲקִמֹתִי אֶת־בְּרִיתִי אִתְּכֶם וְלֹא־יִכָּרֵת כָּל־בָּשָׂר עוֹד מִמֵּי הַמַּבּוּל וְלֹא־יִהְיֶה עוֹד מַבּוּל לְשַׁחֵת הָאָרֶץ: וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים זֹאת אוֹת־הַבְּרִית אֲשֶׁר־אֲנִי נֹתֵן בֵּינִי וּבֵינֵיכֶם וּבֵין כָּל־נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה אֲשֶׁר אִתְּכֶם לְדֹרֹת עוֹלָם: אֶת־קַשְׁתִּי נָתַתִּי בֶּעָנָן וְהָיְתָה לְאוֹת בְּרִית בֵּינִי וּבֵין הָאָרֶץ: וְהָיָה בְּעַנֲנִי עָנָן עַל־הָאָרֶץ וְנִרְאֲתָה הַקֶּשֶׁת בֶּעָנָן: וְזָכַרְתִּי אֶת־בְּרִיתִי אֲשֶׁר בֵּינִי וּבֵינֵיכֶם וּבֵין כָּל־נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה בְּכָל־בָּשָׂר וְלֹא־יִהְיֶה עוֹד הַמַּיִם לְמַבּוּל לְשַׁחֵת כָּל־בָּשָׂר: וְהָיְתָה הַקֶּשֶׁת בֶּעָנָן וּרְאִיתִיהָ לִזְכֹּר בְּרִית עוֹלָם בֵּין אֱלֹהִים וּבֵין כָּל־נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה בְּכָל־בָּשָׂר אֲשֶׁר עַל־הָאָרֶץ | I establish My covenant with you: no more will all flesh be cut off by flood waters, no flood again will destroy the earth. God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I make between me and you and all life with you, for all generations. I set My bow in the cloud as a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. When I bring clouds on the earth the bow will be in the cloud, and I will remember My covenant between Me and you and all life that waters not flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the cloud, I will look at it and remember the eternal covenant." |
Our ancestors' midrashim about the rainbow speak pivotally to us today. The Creator God won't destroy, they wrote, but the Creator God doesn't inhibit human free will. It's on us to tend and defend our world. The rainbow is a reminder to us.
But, our ancestors realized, Torah's text doesn't quite say that. Torah says that God will see the rainbow and God will remember the covenant. Does God need a reminder?
Rashi thought so – but then again, Rashi was a literalist. In the late 11th century, Rashi wrote that the rainbow would come when God has it "in mind to bring darkness and destruction upon the world" (Rashi Gen. 9:14). In this view, the rainbow is God's self-restraint.
The pastoralist in me both loves and recoils at this explanation. I love that Torah models a divinity (and thus also a humanity) that can be angry enough to want the destruction of anger's object, yet self-restrain for the sake of the higher purpose of covenantal relationship. As spiritual teacher Alan Morinis teaches, anger can be healthy: anger can be holy jet fuel to make needed change and hold wrong to account. Hostility, however, is another matter.
If so, then the rainbow arches atop the world so God will "see" humanity through the rose-colored glasses of a rainbow emerging precisely out of storm clouds. In this way, the rainbow is a reminder that the Sacred sees us in our best possible light, coaxing us to become so. In that same spirit, the rainbow reminds us to re-fashion our vision of each other accordingly.
But these points reveal a problem in Rashi's explanation. If the rainbow was a reminder for God, then why would God would tell Noah, much less make a rainbow visible to us? It's why centuries of rabbis piled on against Rashi's explanation. By the 14th century, Rabbeinu Bahya said flat-out that Rashi was wrong: "There can be no doubt that the phenomenon of the rainbow as a symbol of the new relationship between humanity and divinity was meant to reassure humanity" (RB on Gen. 9:13). In this view, the rainbow is for us.
Humanity has a long history of "creating" the God we need. I imagine that Rabbeinu Bahya, writing in the early years of the Inquisition's antisemitic brutality, needed a God who wouldn't destroy and would assure us so. We all need assurance that a worthy future is possible – whatever storms may rage.
Rainbows appear in Jewish spirituality at moments of peak transcendence. Ezekiel struggled to explain his mystical vision of radiant glory: his only metaphor was the rainbow: "Like the appearance of the rainbow shining in the clouds on a day of rain, such was the appearance of God's surrounding radiance" (Ezek. 1:28). As we saw on Yom Kippur, the countenance after total forgiveness was "like the rainbow in the clouds."
Far be it from me to presume to know the Mind of God. And far be it from me to know what what the days and weeks ahead will bring. What I do know is that rainbows have captured Jewish and human imagination throughout history. There are reasons that Dorothy sang "Over the Rainbow" in The Wizard of Oz, why Finian's Rainbow is named that, and why the song "Look to the Rainbow" was its enduring hit. Science confirmed long ago that a rainbow is the glory of light hiding in plain sight.
There's more than we can see with our routine vision. Come what may, there can be a worthy future ahead if we will open our soul vision to see.
But, our ancestors realized, Torah's text doesn't quite say that. Torah says that God will see the rainbow and God will remember the covenant. Does God need a reminder?
Rashi thought so – but then again, Rashi was a literalist. In the late 11th century, Rashi wrote that the rainbow would come when God has it "in mind to bring darkness and destruction upon the world" (Rashi Gen. 9:14). In this view, the rainbow is God's self-restraint.
The pastoralist in me both loves and recoils at this explanation. I love that Torah models a divinity (and thus also a humanity) that can be angry enough to want the destruction of anger's object, yet self-restrain for the sake of the higher purpose of covenantal relationship. As spiritual teacher Alan Morinis teaches, anger can be healthy: anger can be holy jet fuel to make needed change and hold wrong to account. Hostility, however, is another matter.
If so, then the rainbow arches atop the world so God will "see" humanity through the rose-colored glasses of a rainbow emerging precisely out of storm clouds. In this way, the rainbow is a reminder that the Sacred sees us in our best possible light, coaxing us to become so. In that same spirit, the rainbow reminds us to re-fashion our vision of each other accordingly.
But these points reveal a problem in Rashi's explanation. If the rainbow was a reminder for God, then why would God would tell Noah, much less make a rainbow visible to us? It's why centuries of rabbis piled on against Rashi's explanation. By the 14th century, Rabbeinu Bahya said flat-out that Rashi was wrong: "There can be no doubt that the phenomenon of the rainbow as a symbol of the new relationship between humanity and divinity was meant to reassure humanity" (RB on Gen. 9:13). In this view, the rainbow is for us.
Humanity has a long history of "creating" the God we need. I imagine that Rabbeinu Bahya, writing in the early years of the Inquisition's antisemitic brutality, needed a God who wouldn't destroy and would assure us so. We all need assurance that a worthy future is possible – whatever storms may rage.
Rainbows appear in Jewish spirituality at moments of peak transcendence. Ezekiel struggled to explain his mystical vision of radiant glory: his only metaphor was the rainbow: "Like the appearance of the rainbow shining in the clouds on a day of rain, such was the appearance of God's surrounding radiance" (Ezek. 1:28). As we saw on Yom Kippur, the countenance after total forgiveness was "like the rainbow in the clouds."
Far be it from me to presume to know the Mind of God. And far be it from me to know what what the days and weeks ahead will bring. What I do know is that rainbows have captured Jewish and human imagination throughout history. There are reasons that Dorothy sang "Over the Rainbow" in The Wizard of Oz, why Finian's Rainbow is named that, and why the song "Look to the Rainbow" was its enduring hit. Science confirmed long ago that a rainbow is the glory of light hiding in plain sight.
There's more than we can see with our routine vision. Come what may, there can be a worthy future ahead if we will open our soul vision to see.
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