[Avodah] rainbow

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 07:31:49AM -0800, saul newman via Avodah wrote:
: -- MIME section 1 text/plain --------------------
: 1.  you see a rainbow in the sky after the rain . you believe:
: 
: a. the RBSO was going to at this moment destroy the world, but then the
:    rainbow reminded Him not to

I don't think this has much iteral meaning. G-d doesn't need reminders,
he doesn't change his mind in a literal sense, etc...

: b. the RBSO set up the rainbow of a reminder of the time of the Flood
:    and His promise not to repeat it

: c. the RBSO set up a physical principal that light bent at a certain
:    angle by dispersed water produces a rainbow

or
d. the RBSO set up a physical principal that light bent at a certain
   angle by dispersed water produces a rainbow, which He made into
   a reminder of the promise by pointing it out as such to Noach.

This is shitas haRamban.

Another possibility (a rationalist take on b) is that the physics
underlying rainbows existed since Maaseh Bereishis, but the humidity in
the air and/or the altitude or thickness of the cloud layer didn't cause
rainbows after a rain. Then, after the climate change brought about by
the mabul, rainbows started happening.


A second take on (b):
R/Dr Eliezer Ehrenpreis suggested that many of the values we consider
physical constants declined over time. A one example, h-bar, the minimum
possible uncertainty in a quantum duality (eg position and momentum)
didn't reach a microscopic size until some time during the 6 days of
bereishis. And the speed of light (which only has meaning in proportion
to other constants) declined over time, giving a false reading for the
age of the universe if you assumed it was really constant. And also
making the entire line between yeish and ayin, between tohu vavohu
and existence, blurry to the point of meaningless. That is why
"tohu vavohu", the non-existence is defined in terms of chaos. (I
recall REE asking, if all is void, what is being chaotic?)

So they asymptotically reached current values, and the laws of physics
didn't act as we expect them to until "yom HAshishi" -- the hinted-at
real end of creation, Matan Torah.

And REE believed that the visible portion of the spectrum caused by
raindrops in the air reached a noticable width only at the end of
the mabul.

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter