![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.keshertalk.com/nav-commenters.gif)
« A Half-Glass Full Look at the Housing Bubble | Home | Al Gore Polishes His Resume »
October 02, 2007
Rain
Rabbi Baruch Melman at Sefer Chabibi:
No more Tal. No more the prayers for dew.
We pray for the good stuff. Rain.
As farmers, we need the rain to ensure plentiful crops.
As herdsmen, we need good pasture to ensure good wool.For we are always connected to the ryhthm of seeding and harvesting. Gen 8:22 " ...for seedtime and harvest time, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall never cease from the land."
Rain spells the onset of winter, which means the end of summer.
Spring and fall are luxuries. We're just guaranteed the basic version: summer and winter.
According to The Moody Blues, Timothy Leary had already died, and yet I ran into him at a whole earth conference in the early '90's ...
Read the rest at the link, and don't forget to bookmark Sefer Chabibi Deepest Torah on your browser.
Remarks. For the uninitiated, Shemini Atzeret is the "eighth day of assembly" and the culmination of the festival of Sukkot, the Jewish holiday whose meaning is so secret even Jews don't understand it. Shemini Atzeret is also the day observant Orthodox Jews are most likely to get fired from their jobs, because I gave you two days of for your Jewish New Year, and another day off for Yom Kipper, and then you wanted two more days off at the beginning of this Sucko thing, and you want me to give you ANOTHER day off from work?
Anyway. Shemini Atzeret also features the extended prayer for rain:
On Shemini Atzeret, the traditional beginning of the rainy season in Israel, a special extended prayer for rain is added. On the first day of Passover, the traditional beginning of the dry season in Israel, a special extended prayer for dew is added. Both prayers are recited by the Reader during the repetition of the Mussaf Amidah.
And:
Since the Sukkah (and, by extension, pleasant weather) is no longer required, Jews begin to ask for rain during the Geshem prayer, which is recited in a distinctive plaintive melody during the cantor's repetition of the Musaf Amidah. In most synagogues the cantor is clad in a kittel, a symbol of piety, owing to the vitality of a positive judgment for rain. A brief mention of rain continues to be inserted in the Amidah until Passover.
Now, a final observation: The prayer for rain - mashiv ha-ruach u-morid ha-gehsem - also mentions wind.The Hebrew word for wind is ruach, which also means "spirit". And the Hebrew word for rain is geshem, which is also associated with the word gashmi, physical. We pray for both the spiritual and the physical; but as for the symbolism of the Jewish prayers beyond this, I leave that to you to interpret.
Asher Abrams | 10/02/07 at 10:31 PM | Categories: - Yamim Noraim
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.keshertalk.com/cgi-bin/mtb.cgi/6646
