Rabbi Andrea’s Sermon 25th October 2025 / 3rd Cheshvan 5786

LEARNING FROM THE RAINBOW

This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Noach, is one of the richest in symbols and meaning. It tells two stories of humanity - one drowned, one divided - and between them stands the rainbow, keshet ba’anan, the sign of God’s covenant with the world.

After the Flood, when the waters receded, God placed a rainbow in the sky and said to Noah:

אֶת־קַשְׁתִּי נָתַתִּי בֶּעָנָן וְהָיְתָה לְאוֹת בְּרִית בֵּינִי וּבֵין הָאָרֶץ.

“I have set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.” (Genesis 9:13)

The rainbow is, however, a tricky topic. The Sages established a specific blessing to be recited upon seeing it:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, זוֹכֵר הַבְּרִית, וְנֶאֱמָן בִּבְרִיתוֹ, וְקַיָּם בְּמַאֲמָרוֹ.

“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who remembers the covenant, is faithful to His covenant, and keeps His word.” (Berakhot 59a)

Yet, in the same breath, the Talmud warns against gazing at a rainbow for too long: one who stares at a rainbow is spiritually censured (Chagigah 16a). According to halakhah, the blessing should be said quietly, without pointing the rainbow out to others, and without staring.

As a rule (see Maimonides), meteorological phenomena - including the rainbow - are to be understood as natural outcomes of the physical order God created, not as supernatural interventions or beings with agency.

So let us unpack what the rainbow truly is. It is born from the meeting of light and water - two elements that seem opposed yet together create beauty. It appears not in pure sunlight or pure rain, but in their combination. Here’s the thing about the rainbow: it exists only because opposites coexist - and that natural fact points to a profound meaning.

We tend to divide things: good and evil, us and them, light and dark. But the rainbow tells another story - a story of integration. To see the rainbow is to accept that reality is complicated, that opposites can coexist. The Torah invites us to hold contradictions.

There are always those who cannot bear such complexity - who wish to simplify the world by dividing, by labelling, by forcing a choice. In our time, we see this impulse in those who seek to separate the Jews of the Diaspora from the Jews of Israel, as if we were two peoples rather than one. They reject the complexity of Jewish life in Israel - its tensions, its moral challenges, its daily struggle to live in covenant within history - and instead prefer purity, slogans, and ideological comfort.

One of the most painful sights of these years of war has been the effort of a well-organised minority of anti-Zionists - indulged by complacent media - to deepen the divide between Israel and the Diaspora. They insist that Jews, to deserve a place in public discourse, must distance themselves from Israel and renounce Zionism. This is not acceptable. One can criticise the Israeli government - indeed, at times one must. But to deny Israel’s very existence as a crime against the Palestinians, to frame Zionism as a colonial project - this must be rejected loudly and clearly.

Our survival as Am Yisrael, the people of Israel, has always depended on our ability to stand together, even when we disagree.

Yes, we can disagree with the Israeli government; but we must not support any attempt to undermine the Jewish people’s right to a safe and secure homeland.

And we must name for what they are those who promote the dangerous utopia of a “bi-national” - that is, non-Jewish - state in the Middle East, a vision that would erase Israel’s Jewish character and endanger its people.

The Palestinian Constitution - that of the so-called moderate Abu Mazen - states explicitly that Sharia will be the source of legislation in the State of Palestine. Shall we remember the condition of Jewish life under regimes governed by Sharia? Are we truly supporting the creation of such a state? How many Jews would be allowed to visit, or even live, in Jerusalem if it became the capital of a state founded on Sharia law?

To imagine a future without a Jewish state is not realism - it is utopia. And utopias are dangerous.

Let me wear my academic hat, as someone who for ten years studied and taught the history of Jews in Italy during the Renaissance and the seventeenth century - allegedly a time of thriving Jewish culture and interreligious openness. 

Jewish history is a history of survival. 

There may not have been pogroms in seventeenth-century Italy, but there were preachers (the equivalents of today’s Guardian columnists) who instigated hatred against Jews, often portraying us - as today - as child-killers. There were no massacres, perhaps, but the danger was always present: you see it in letters between parents and children, in negotiations with the churches, in rabbinic responsa. Do we want to return to that time? Those who call themselves “not Zionist anymore,” who cultivate the utopia of Israel’s disappearance, must answer this question. They rarely do. Rather, they praise historical periods (like the Italian Renaissance) without even knowing what they are talking about.

But let us talk about 2025, and our life here in the UK. I am sorry to bring bad news, but things look grim. Since October 2023, the UK has faced a sustained surge in antisemitism linked to the Israel–Hamas war, with the CST recording record or near-record numbers: almost 2,000 incidents in the first half of 2024, and 1,521 between January and June 2025. Campus and community reports describe a harsher climate for Jewish students and families, and surveys suggest that many British Jews feel less safe.

Public sentiment has tilted toward a Palestinian framing that casts Israel as a colonial oppressor and recasts some antisemitism as “resistance.” This narrative dominates protests and much online discourse, normalising rhetoric that too often blurs into hatred. The result is a UK environment in which Jewish visibility carries greater risk, and communal life requires heightened security.

Antisemitism is endemic. There has never been a generation in the Diaspora untouched by it - whether in lighter (if such a thing can be said of racism) or heavier forms.

Its cause is not Israeli policy. Rather, Middle Eastern politics - combined with disastrously poor Israeli public diplomacy - have given a green light for underlying antisemitism to surface. 

A world without antisemitism is a utopia; we must adapt to reality and prevail. And the notion that the end of Israel would end antisemitism is another utopia - a very, very dangerous one.

So what shall we do? Once again, let us look to this week’s Torah portion.

At the end of the portion, the Torah presents another story - the Tower of Babel. Humanity, now united under one language and one purpose, sets out to build a tower “with its top in the heavens.” God descends, confounds their speech, and scatters them across the earth.

It might seem that this generation deserved the same fate as the generation of the Flood - total destruction. Yet God does not destroy them. He divides them, yes, but gently. The text says nothing of death or punishment, only dispersal.

The generation of the Flood was destroyed because violence filled the earth. Humanity had lost its capacity to coexist. Every person lived for himself; every heart was filled with corruption. But the “rainbow generation” - Noah’s descendants - was meant to build something new: a world that could live with difference, with nuance, with diversity.

Why the different treatment? The Sages ask: what was the difference between the generation of the Flood and the generation of Babel? Why did humanity deserve to die before the Flood - when only Noah and his family survived - while the builders of Babel survived divine anger, suffering only confusion and dispersion? We would expect a much harsher punishment for their arrogance!

Here lies a fundamental insight. The generation of the Flood was filled with hatred and corruption; they could not live together. But the generation of Babel, for all their arrogance, worked together. They sinned through pride, not through cruelty. They dreamed of reaching heaven, not of destroying one another. And for that reason, God did not wipe them out. Their unity, however misguided, was still precious in His eyes.

This is an extraordinary lesson. The Torah teaches that even flawed unity is better than perfect division. God can work with people who stand together - even if their vision is mistaken - but not with people who hate one another.

The comparison between these two generations teaches us something vital for our time: we must strengthen our communal cohesion and our bond with Israel. We must invest in Jewish education - in our schools, youth movements, and synagogues - so that our children grow up knowing they belong to one people, am echad, whether in Israel or in the Diaspora. The relationship between Israel and the Diaspora must serve as a living classroom in complexity and realism. It must teach our young people to resist utopian simplifications and to embrace the hard work of solidarity, of building community, of standing with our people in difficult times.

The rainbow calls us to something humbler and harder: to live within complexity. Utopia means “no place.” Covenant means this place - this moment, this struggle, this community. The rainbow teaches us to live here, not in dreams.

When we see a rainbow, we recite a blessing:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה׳ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, זוֹכֵר הַבְּרִית, וְנֶאֱמָן בִּבְרִיתוֹ, וְקַיָּם בְּמַאֲמָרוֹ.

“Blessed are You, Lord our God, who remembers the covenant and is faithful to His word.”

We bless not only the beauty, but the faithfulness - God’s decision to remain in relationship with a world that is broken and complex.

That is our mission as Jews today: to live faithfully in a world of contradictions, to build bridges across divisions, and to stand together as one people - Israel and the Diaspora, light and water, faith and struggle - united in the covenant of God. And this mission requires the effort, the courage, and the loyalty of us all.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Dr. Andrea Zanardo, PhD