9 myths
Myths, legends, and mystical writings about Rainbow from across Jewish tradition.
9 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines rainbow, drawn from the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Talmud, Kabbalah, and later Jewish literature. Each story below synthesizes primary sources into a single narrative; follow any myth to read it, and from there into the source passages behind it.
God dictated the words let us make man, and Moses stopped writing. Heretics will read that and claim there are two powers, he said.
A prophet stood in the Temple court wearing a wooden yoke on his neck. Another prophet walked up, tore it off him, and smashed it in front of the crowd.
The flood began and ended on the same calendar day. Noah counted the mirrored year from inside the hull, and the bow held judgment on a leash.
After the flood God sets a war-bow in the cloud, point turned from earth, so Noah's shaking household can trust the world will not drown twice.
Noah opens the ark window a last time; the dove finds home and does not return, while covenant waters fall or rise with the mark Israel keeps.
Elijah brings a great sage to Rabbi Shimon, who asks only whether the rainbow has appeared, then refuses a face heaven still needs to warn.
A heretic mocked rising from dust until a king ordered a palace from nothing, while Shimon bar Yochai's merits kept the rainbow from the sky.
In a palace no one else may enter, a thousand halls deep in longing, the Messiah weeps and waits for the sign that his hour has come.
Off the ark, Noah taught his sons to bury blood in dust, and heaven answered with a bow, a feast, and a warning about the days they would lose.
