Pray for Rain

On Shmini Atzeres (say the eighth day of Succos) Jews start mentioning in their daily prayers that the holy One, blessed be He, brings back the wind and brings down the rain (משיב הרוח ומוריד הגשם). In the land of Israel on the seventh of Heshvan, we add a specific prayer for rain, “Give [us] dew and rain for a blessing (תן טל ומטר לברכה) on the face of the earth. Both become a regular insertion in the Shmone-Esre (sequence of 18 benedictions) and if one completely forgets to say it, the entire unit must be repeated.

Of the 63 chapters in the Mishna one is devoted to fast days. It discusses various types of disasters, however most of the text deals with drought. It is also one book of the 37 in the Babylonian Talmud and of the 39 in the Jerusalem Talmud. The subject of rain is clearly important to Jewish religious thought.

The Gemara (Taanis 19b) tells a story about a great tsadik, Nakdimon ben Gurion that in a year of sparse rain, the pilgrims to Jerusalem had no water to drink. To help them Nakdimon ben Gurion borrowed 12 cisterns of water from a Roman magnate, pledging him twelve large bars of silver if he did not return them in full by a specific date. The day arrived and there still had not been rain, consequently the Roman demanded the money. Nakdimon replied that the day was still not over. The Roman mocked him and thought there’s been no rain this year so it’s not going to rain today and left in a happy mood. Nakdimon then went to the Temple and profusely prayed to G-d for rain. In the afternoon clouds covered the sky and copious rain fell filling the twelve empty cisterns. When he returned the water, the Roman claimed that because it was dark a new day had begun therefore the contract was not properly fulfilled and demanded the collateral. With that the clouds cleared revealing the sun shining above absolving Nakdimon of any further responsibility.

The Mishna (Taanis 3:8) tells a similar story. It was a year of drought so the people asked the great tsadik, Honi Hamagel, to pray for rain. He then instructed the people to bring in anything that may be damaged in a storm then prayed for rain. When nothing happened he drew a circle, stood in it, and swore an oath to G-d that he would not leave the circle until proper rain had fallen. With that generous rains of blessing descended. The giant of the generation, Shimon ben Shetach, then commented if anybody else behaved like that, he would have excommunicated him. However, he cannot do anything about Honi, because when Honi pesters the Almighty, he is doing His will, like a child who pesters his father bit but is in fact doing what he wants. Concerning him it is written, “He will make his father and mother happy and gladden the one who bore him, (Proverbs 23:25).

The Chumash states that plants and trees did not initially sprout because it had not rained and that man had not yet been created. Rashi explains that the reason was because there was nobody to recognize the good that comes from rain. When Adam the first man arrived he knew that the world needs rain, prayed for it, and it came. From this the Gemara (Chulin 60b) concludes that HaKadosh Baruch Hu desires the prayers of the righteous. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov comments that it is very good if a person is able pour out his thoughts before Hashem yisbarach with pleading and feeling like a child who is pestering his father. He continues, has not Hashem yisbarach already called us children as it says, “children you are to Hashem your G-d”, (Devarim 11:1).

It comes out that praying for rain is one of the places where we begin to develop a personal relationship with the Almighty. The insertions are very simple, but are times when we forget them in the course of our dovening. At that point we must go through the bother of repeating the Amida in part or entirely. There has not been a drought in many decades so bad that people could not find water to drink. However it is not rare for the level of water in the Sea of Galilee to be low enough to cause concern. It’s at these times we recognize that rain really is important and cannot be taken for granted.

More generally there are times when we must contemplate our situation in view of what is really G-d’s will. It is better if the first time a person does some real soul searching that it is not in a time of personal crisis. In addition one who is skilled at this type of contemplation will become a wiser and better person.

לע"נ, הדוד ,שמואל בן נח ז"ל נלב"ע ט"ו אב תשס"ט,

Acknowledgements to websites: תורת אמת, וויקיטקסט, http://dictionary.reference.com/, http://hebrewbooks.org/,

וגם בדואר אלקטרוני  ניתן באתר http://dyschreiber.blogspot.co.il

Blogger English       http://dyschreiber.blogspot.com/2014/11/pray-for-rain.html

Blogger Hebrew      http://dyschreiber.blogspot.com/2014/11/97.html