Rabbi El’azar said: ‘And why, Father, is it forbidden to gaze at the rainbow?’
Rabbi Shim’on said to him: ‘Because, my son, there are ‘husks’, that become enclothed in it, and that are in it, which are: (Ez. 1:4) a tempest wind...... a great cloud, and a sparking fire, and a ‘glow’ (nogah) round about it. And this is what Ezekiel, peace be upon him, saw.
For he said: And I saw, and behold a tempest wind coming from the north... (ibid.) This is the ‘line of chaos’ (tohu), the green husk of a nut, a ‘green line’.cxxviSee ibid. 12a The great cloud is the second, white, husk of a nut, and this is a ‘void’ (bohu). And the sparking fire is the third husk of a nut – and this is ‘darkness’. And a glow round about it... – this is the fourth husk of the nut, which is united with the ‘fruit’∞moḥa. And from the midst of it like the ‘electrum’∞ḥashmal – this is the ‘fruit’∞moḥa of the nut, and this is Y-A-Q-D-V-N-Q-Y.