Mi Yodeya is a question and answer site for those who base their lives on Jewish law and tradition and anyone interested in learning more. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Many rainbows occur after a thunderstorm, but, not necessarily. Should one make a new bracha each time he sees a rainbow even if it's many times in the same day?
Does it matter if the rainbow is associated with the same storm system or not? I.e. either the viewer follows the storm, or a rainbow forms, it disappears and then a new one forms from the same storm?
It seems to me that it can be deduced from the wording of the Mishna Brurah (229 s.k. 2) that one does not make multiple brachos on a single rainbow:
ולא דמי לכל הנך דקי"ל בהו דפעם אחת בחודש די לברוכי דכאן הקשת שבירך עליו חלף והלך לו
Regarding your second question, Ketzos HaShulchan (66 s.k. 26) writes (he believes that this is the opinion of the Shaarei Teshuvah) that one should make a bracha on each rainbow even if the clouds have not dispersed in between the appearance of each one.
Halachipedia, basing its reading on Mishna Brurah, says you can say the b'racha more than once in a day and, technically, even over the same storm if you took your attention away between sightings, though they conclude that it's once per rainbow and it has to clear before you can say a second b'racha:
Mishna Brurah 229:2 writes that even within 30 days one can make the Bracha again upon seeing another rainbow similar to the laws of seeing lightning and hearing thunder where the original sight has ended. [In glosses 'BeYitzchak Yikarei' to MB (loc. cit.) Rav Nebenzahl] writes that the number 30 used by the Mishna Brurah wasn’t specific since it’s possible to make the Bracha more than once in a day. [(]See Vezot HaBracha (pg 156, chapter 17) who quotes Mishna Brurah as saying that one can make another Bracha as long as one removed one’s mind from the rainbow. However, the language of Mishna Brurah implies that the rainbow must clear up before one can make another Bracha.[)]
Others are of the opinion that even without taking focus off the cloud one may make the blessing again as long as the cloud disappeared and then reappeared (KeMareh HaKeshet 12:22).
