Rainbow Day is coming! Celebrate, learn, create!

I’m so excited to let people know about Rainbow Day – the 27th of Iyyar, and the 42nd day of the Omer.

For a few years now I’ve been working to make Rainbow Day a reality in the Jewish world. Rabbi Arthur Waskow first came up with the idea of using the dates of the flood story in 1981. But now I think we (the Jewish world) are ready to make it happen. I’ve been collecting prayers and rituals, lesson plans about seed-saving and hydrofracking, learning from Hoshea and Ezekiel, from Kabbalah and midrash, and project ideas that you can use to celebrate Rainbow Day and to remember God’s covenant with all creation. Many of the environmental groups that contribute to jewcology are contributing to the Rainbow Day project as well.

All of the material will end up in one PDF that you can download by the end of this week. Write to rebduvid86@gmail.com to contribute or to receive notices whenever there’s an update.

Here are the essential goals: 1) To get Rainbow Day on everyone’s spiritual maps. 2) To teach that the first and paradigmatic covenant in the Torah is not just with human beings, but with all animals and with the land. 3) To make sure everyone knows that there is a delightful blessing to say whenever we see a rainbow!

Go to http://jewcology.org/resource/Rainbow-Day to find out more about Rainbow Day and to access what we’ve put together.

What is Rainbow Day?

On the 27th day of the second month, Noah, his family, and all the animals that were with them left the ark (Genesis 8). Exactly one lunar year and ten days before—one complete solar year—the flood began on the 17th of the second month, the day before Lag B’Omer. When Noah and his entourage went out from the ark, God made a covenant, with the people, with all the animals and with the land, that there would never be again be a flood of water to destroy life on Earth. Rainbow Day is always the 42nd day of the Omer, the day after Yom Yerushalayim. This year Rainbow Day follows Memorial Day.


1 Reply to "Rainbow Day is coming! Celebrate, learn, create!"

  • Sarah Rivka Schechter
    May 22, 2011 (2:00 am)

    Haha, that’s awesome! 🙂 There’s a gigantic group camping trip in Washington state this summer called the Rainbow Gathering. My friend who invited us to go described it as a celebration of freedom of religion. Yes, there will be a whole group o Jews with a kosher kitchen, Shabbat observance, etc. http://www.welcomehere.org/


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