Rainbows as Tools in My Own Struggles

(B’zchut Refuah Shleima for HaRav Simcha Leib Yosef Gad Ezrah ben Shaina Chana, who has consistently encouraged my to look inside myself when gleaning insights from Torah)

Hashem uses the rainbow as a symbol that He will not destroy the world again. Therefore, it seems to me that we can look at the rainbow and understand how to deal with our issues that need fixing. Here are a few ideas:

1.     A rainbow is created when white light (a mixture of all the visible colors) is split into different wavelengths (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet). We can start addressing our struggles by breaking them down into manageable parts, and clarifying the roots of the problems. This makes me think of the Ketores that needed to be finely ground, breaking it all down. Furthermore, I find it interesting that the rainbow is beautiful and pleasant to look at; maybe that is a message that all of our parts are beautiful even if imperfect.

2.     A rainbow is an arc that is a part of a whole circle. From the appropriate angle, one would be able to see a full circle rainbow. Often, when we see a rainbow, we aren’t seeing the “full circle”. When we struggle, we can picture the image of a rainbow- knowing that we are only experiencing a part of a bigger picture. This can give us the hope and bitachon in Hashem that we can use our struggles to become our best. It’s also interesting that the bracha on the rainbow mentions Hashem’s reliability in keeping His word ונאמן בבריתו״ -”– a reminder that Hashem is trustworthy in general and doing all for our best. “ולא נבוש כי בך בטחנו”, we say in Shmone Esrei. We can also use that bracha as a reminder to become more reliable ourselves in keeping Hashem’s Torah.

3.     As a rainbow is not linear, it has a part that goes up and a part that goes down. When trying to work on ourselves, it can sometimes feel like we go down at times, we cycle. Our growth is not linear and it can help when we remember that we all go up and down. שבע יפל צדיק וקם (משלי). I also find it intriguing that in the Bracha of על הצדיקים in Shmone Esrei, we include ourselves and we end “ברוך אתה . . משען ומבטח לצדיקים”. We can all rely on Hashem to help us in our struggles and perhaps all be a “צדיק” – one who gets up after falling.

4.     Rainbows come when there is sunlight while there is rain, perhaps a signal to us that when things seem cloudy and stormy, we can try to find the light in our situation to trigger our turnaround.