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The main episode in this week’s parshah is the story of the deluge. In brief, due to man’s wicked ways the earth had become entirely corrupted and God decides to start over. Because Noach was a “righteous” and “perfect” man, as the Torah describes him, he is spared along with his family. God asks him to build a large ark in which he, his family, and all the species of animals would reside throughout the duration of the flood.

After the flood is over, God promises to never again destroy the world and establishes a covenant between Himself and creation in order to uphold this promise. God also chooses a sign that will act as a reminder for this covenant, as the Torah states:

“And God said ‘This is the sign of the covenant… I have set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign… And it shall happen, when I place a cloud over the earth, and the rainbow will be seen in the cloud, I will remember My covenant…And the rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look upon it to remember the everlasting covenant…” [Genesis: 9: 12- 17]

Most of us remember hearing the story of Noach and the flood at some point in our lives, and how God chose the rainbow as the symbol that God will never bring a flood upon the earth again. But contrary to what most of us were told, it is not the “rainbow” alone that acts as this symbol. When examining the verses quoted above, every time God mentions this sign, it is described as “the rainbow” along with “the cloud”. So, it is not merely the “rainbow” that acts as the symbol of God’s covenant, but the “rainbow in the cloud”. Now that this has been clarified, we may ask: why was it that God chose this symbol in particular as a reminder for His covenant to never again destroy the world? What is it about the “rainbow in the cloud” that relates to this covenant?

Before we answer this question we must first understand what a rainbow is, what a cloud is, and exactly how these phenomena are brought about.

Rainbow: An optical phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Cloud: A visible mass of droplets or frozen crystals floating in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Interestingly, both rainbows and clouds are formed through water droplets; whereas rainbows are formed by sunlight refracting through droplets, clouds are formed by the accumulation of droplets. By comparing these phenomena even further, one may notice that they perform the exact opposite function in regards to sunlight! Rainbows are formed by droplets that allow sunlight to pass through them, however clouds are formed by droplets that cluster together and prevent sunlight from passing through!

The “rainbow in the cloud” was chosen as a symbol for God’s covenant for this very reason! God brought destruction upon the entire world only because of man and his evil ways. But if man ever reaches this corrupted state again, which it surely has time and time again, why won’t God bring destruction upon the world again? Because it is now within man’s power to change. It is within man’s power to change his ways and start the world over again by transforming the evil into good. This is the message of the “rainbow in the cloud”. Those droplets that can act in unison to obscure light in this world can be the very same droplets that can act in unison to allow light to shine through in this world. So it is with man. This human race that can fall so low into a heavy state of corruption that obscures God’s light in this world, is the very same human race that can mend their ways by transforming the evil within them, thus causing God’s light to shine forth in this world (*see footnote*).

From this week’s parshah we are meant to remind ourselves and internalize God’s greatness through the power He demonstrates by changing the world. But we are also meant to remind ourselves how God has, to a certain extent, relinquished this power to us, and that the fate of the world truly rests in our hands.

Good Shabbos

NZL

*A look closer at these words conveys the message further: The rainbow in the cloud. The idea is that even though an individual appears to be a cloud for he is one who obscures light through his actions, nevertheless, we must believe that deep down there is a rainbow in that cloud.