אֶת־קַשְׁתּי נָתַתִּי בֶּֽעָנָן וְהָֽיְתָה לְאוֹת בְּרִית בֵּינִי וּבֵין הָאָֽרֶץ

וַיּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים זֹאת אֽוֹת־הַבְּרִית אֲשֶׁר־אֲנִי נֹתֵן
בֵּינִי וּבֵינֵיכֶם וּבֵין כָּל־נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה אֲשֶׁר אִתְּכֶם לְדֹרֹת עוֹלָם׃

I have set My bow in the clouds, and it shall serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.12 God further said, "This is the sign that I set for the covenant between Me and you, and every living creature with you, for all ages to come.

The sign of the covenant between God and humanity was established after the Flood. That seems to indicate that, according to the Bible, there were no such things as rainbows before the Flood! I find this very hard to believe as it would indicate that the laws of physics suddenly changed after the Flood and that, all of a sudden, there were would be the refractive characteristics of water acting upon light that would be different after the Flood as opposed to before!


So, once again, we have a problem in the text. How are we to confront this problem?


I would like to offer one possibility.


We look at the things in all sorts of ways. What may appear to you and I as a tree may be a special place where a first kiss occurred. A knick-knack on a shelf may mean nothing to most people but, to its owner and protector, might be a valuable connection to the past. A person, a family, a people can all determine what something means to them because they look at something in a whole new way. The same thing happened to rainbow. The laws of physics did not change; rather the way the biblical authors looked at that refracted light made the rainbow something special, indeed. It was now a promise of something bigger not simply the aftereffects of a summer rain.


Rashi, the mediaeval commentator par excellence, points out that when the ext says, "for all ages to come" there is a problem with the text. Here is what he says: "for all generations to come" It [the word דֹרֹת] is written defectively [without the letter “vav”] because there were generations that did not require the sign because they were completely righteous, such as the generation of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, and the generation of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (Gen. Rabbah 35:2).


Rashi is citing the Midrash that tells us that the rainbow is a sign for all generations to warn them about the consequences of their actions. But the word "generations" is written defectively to teach that there are generations that did not need these warnings for they were completely righteous.


I don't know of any completely righteous generation or completely righteous people. But our tradition teaches that, indeed, there were at least two totally righteous generations. We can learn something from this.
Maybe we can extend the meaning of the rainbow a bit based on what Rashi teaches us: Perhaps the rainbow can be a sign that impels us to become one of those generations that need not be given such a sign. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were so righteous that we didn't need any such warnings?
It would be wonderful never to need such warnings. But I am afraid we are a long way from such a time. Our earth is getting more polluted by the minute. We are in danger of contaminating our environments beyond their ability to repair themselves in a timely fashion, and we seem to be intent of consuming without regard to consequences.


When the earth was destroyed by the Flood, the Bible tells us that "violence filled the earth" and God washed it away with the waters of the Flood. There is violence upon the earth and there is violence to the earth. The rainbow stills stands as a visible warning that the earth can take only so much violence to it. God help us ever we ever look up and don't see the rainbow after the rain - for it would mean that even the clouds are poisoned. The next destruction of the earth will not come from God - it will come from us and the last words uttered by God may very well be, "Why didn't you listen?"