On Rosh Hashanah, Jews around the world will come to synagogue to pray and to hear the blasts of the shofar: tekiah (one long blast), shevarim (three short blasts) and teruah (nine staccato blasts). Many understand this ritual as a “wake up” call: to imminent judgment, God’s dominion, perhaps even a foreshadowing of the messianic era. In the hands of the Zohar, the shofar blasts are given an even deeper and more complex web of meaning.
The Zohar sees the world and, similarly, Jewish texts, words and ideas as intimately and electrically interconnected. In a remarkable passage that typifies zoharic imagination, the Hebrew word keshet — which also means both the sort of bow used to shoot arrows and also a rainbow which arcs across the sky — is decoded as an acrostic for the three foundational shofar blasts:
- K = teKiah
- Sh = SHevarim
- T = Teruah
In the context of Genesis, the rainbow, which appears in the sky after the flood waters destroyed all human beings except Noah and his family, is described as a sign of God’s covenant and a promise not to repeat that particular act of destruction. In the Zohar, the rainbow becomes so much more: a bridge of sacred light and sound that spans the terrestrial and celestial realms. But the passage goes further:
The rainbow is a sign of tekiah, shevarim, teruah. And these are the sign of the chariot of the patriarchs. Tekiah belongs to Abraham. Shevarim to Isaac. Teruah to Jacob.
This wedding of sight and sound reveals the Zohar’s delight in drawing profound correspondences between visual and auditory manifestations of divine presence, weaving together cosmology, liturgy and now also patriarchal symbolism into a unified mystical vision.
A threefold structure pervades Zohar. Here, we have three patriarchs, three shofar sounds, three aspects of the divine rainbow. The rainbow is nothing less than a visual manifestation of the patriarchal “chariot” (merkavah) that bears divine presence. In the hands of the Zohar, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are not simply historical figures but archetypal forces whose characteristics correspond to specific modes of divine revelation. The assignment of tekiah to Abraham reflects his role as the initiator of covenant — the pure, unbroken blast that opens sacred time. Isaac receives shevarim, the broken sounds that echo his own near-sacrifice and embodies the divine attribute of gevurah (severity). Jacob, renamed Israel after his wrestling with the divine messenger, is associated with teruah, the staccato bursts that mirror the struggle and triumph of our eponymous ancestor.
The Zohar continues its exploration of these triads:
And three colors appear in it: white, red, and green.
These hues correspond to specific sefirot, emanations of God, and their associated divine attributes. White embodies chesed (loving-kindness), red represents gevurah (severity), and green signifies tiferet (beauty), the harmonizing principle that mediates between the extremes. The rainbow’s chromatic spectrum thus becomes a visual theology, displaying the divine attributes in perfect balance.
The keshet is not only an expression of cosmic harmony and sacred triads. It also contains a dualistic meaning, signifying both a peaceful rainbow and dangerous bow. These two sides are teased out of the juxtaposition of two scriptural passages. First, we have 1 Samuel 2:4: “From the side of severity, it is called ‘the bow of the mighty is broken.'” And then, Ezekiel 1:28: “From the right side, ‘like the appearance of the bow that appears in the cloud on a rainy day.'” These two verses are understood to reveal the rainbow’s capacity to manifest either divine judgment or mercy, depending upon the circumstances that attend its appearance. “How’s the weather?” suddenly takes on a whole new meaning:
When it appears on a rainy day, it shows mercy. When it appears without rain, it shows judgment. Mixed between rain and sun, it shows judgment and mercy combined.
The rainbow, thus, has become a divine barometer, whose meaning fluctuates according to atmospheric conditions. Rain transforms the rainbow into an instrument of divine compassion, while its appearance in clear skies portends judgment. The most complex manifestation occurs when the rainbow appears amid mixed weather conditions, displaying the intricate interplay between divine justice and mercy that governs cosmic order.
Is your head alight with a stunning array of new images and connections? Welcome to the Zohar, which has drawn Jewish readers and seekers into its depths for centuries — offering a panoply of insights that create new meanings, deepen understanding and spark continual amazement.
All of the Zohar’s images and insights are available to us to bring into our own lives as we approach Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Judgment. For me, the Zohar’s understanding of the rainbow’s dual capacity to manifest either divine judgment or mercy speaks with particular resonance to our current historical moment. As around the globe we navigate the complexities of war and peace, of survival and moral responsibility, the ancient wisdom encoded in this teaching reminds us that the challenge facing us as a people is not to choose between judgment and mercy, but to discern when each is called for and how they might be held in dynamic tension. Like the rainbow that bridges heaven and earth, rain and sun, our responses to existential threats must embody both the strength to defend what is sacred and the wisdom to preserve what is human.
The shofar blasts that will echo in our ears this Rosh Hashanah — tekiah, shevarim, teruah — remind us that our piercing calls to the Divine carry within them the voices of our ancestors, each contributing their own understanding of how divine justice and compassion must be calibrated for the survival and flourishing of our people.
This piece was originally published as part of an original series produced by My Jewish Learning and Sefaria called A Year of Zohar: Kabbalah for Everyone. Sign up for the entire series here.
