Everyone marvels at the beauty of a rainbow—its perfect arc, its radiant colors. Yet, in truth, the rainbow doesn’t exist out there. The spectrum of color is not a property of the sky; it is a property of our mind.
When light of different wavelengths strikes our eyes, our brains interpret these frequencies as color—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. But outside our perception, there are no colors, only electromagnetic waves. The redness of a rose, the blueness of the sky, the violet of twilight—none of these exist without consciousness to perceive them.
Whenever my wife or I took one of our children—then a toddler—for a walk and he saw a flower or the amber sky at sunset, he’d inevitably exclaim, “Colorful-beautiful!” as if colorful and beautiful were synonymous. Indeed, colors make things beautiful. But things have no color—our minds make them colorful and, therefore, beautiful. Beauty is truly in the eyes (or, more precisely, the mind) of the beholder.
The world is both a prism and a mirror: what we see “outside” is, on one hand, a refraction of the Divine filtered through the prism of vessels (kelim), and on the other, a reflection of our perception. The rainbow, then, is not merely an atmospheric event but a revelation that requires a beholder—or, in the words of physicist John Wheeler, a “participating observer.”[1] Light meets water, physics unfolds—and yet beauty exists only when seen.
Metaphorically speaking, Creation itself is a kind of Divine rainbow. The Infinite Light refracts through countless vessels, creating the appearance of multiplicity and color. But those colors are not self-existing—they are how the Divine becomes known. G-d “needs” us—our consciousness, to be exact—to complete, as our sages teach, the act of Creation: to perceive, reveal, and celebrate its beauty and purpose.
Takeaway: When you see a rainbow—or a rose, or the face of a friend—remember: beauty is not “out there”; it is born in the meeting of light and awareness. Creation without consciousness is invisible. Our task is to see—to make the hidden radiance real, the world beautiful… by perceiving and appreciating its beauty. To perceive beauty is itself an act of co-creation. When you smile at a red rose, you make G-d smile too.
[1] Wheeler, J., Foundations of Physics, 1978.