double rainbow

[cellio]

A few days ago I saw a double rainbow while at work -- and just a few days after Noach, the torah portion I chanted last week, too. I can't remember seeing one of these before "in person". The primary was pretty bright; the secondary, less so.

I then learned that the traditional Jewish view considers rainbows to be a bad omen. Why would that be, I wondered? I mean, they remind us of the covenant God made with Noach -- remembering a divine covenant is a good thing, right? It turns out this has been asked about on Mi Yodeya (also here).

Part of the answer is that the rainbow indicates there's cause for divine wrath -- the rainbow reminds us and also God of the promise. There are also sources that say that the rainbow looks like part of the divine form seen through prophecy, and we shouldn't be staring at the divine form.

I was going to ask my question before finding those. In doing some basic research to ask my question, I came across something that let me answer a different question. So my curiosity still managed to contribute to the site a little.

N.B.: Many Jews know this but, in my experience, many others don't or just never noticed: God promised in that covenant not to destroy the world again with a flood. Fire, meteor impacts, snowball Earth, and other calamities are still on the table.

Comments

[goljerp]

I would also like to point out that the promise is that G-d wouldn't destroy the world with a flood. If we make the oceans rise because we don't pay attention to climate science, that's our own fault.

[digression]And, yeah, sure, G-d could perform a miracle, but it's a well known principle in the Talmud that we do not rely on miracles. I seem to recall a funny talmudic story around that. My mangled recollection is that it goes something like this: Rabbi A and Rabbi B are celebrating purim, drink too much, and A kills B. But then Rabbi A prays for a miracle, and Rabbi B comes back to life. The next year, Rabbi A asks Rabbi B to celebrate purim together. B declines; asked for a reason, reminds A that he was killed the previous year. A points out that it turned out OK in the end, to which B cites the fact that we do not rely on miracles.[/digression]

[cellio]

I would also like to point out that the promise is that G-d wouldn't destroy the world with a flood. If we make the oceans rise because we don't pay attention to climate science, that's our own fault.

Yup. Snowball Earth due to the Milankovitch cycle is on God; snowball Earth due to nuclear winter is on us. The command to care for the earth wasn't rescinded after the flood.