The Prayer for Dew and Rain
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A. OverviewThe month of Heshvan is without festivals and is, for this reason, known as Marheshvan – a hint of the mundane, rather than the sad. However, in addition to meaning "bitter", the prefix also means "a drop of water". While the Prayer for Rain is recited on Shemini Atzeret ("as soon as the lulav is laid down" – i.e. in Israel), when we are no longer commanded to dwell in the Succah, the regular Amidah prayers include only the phrase:
The agricultural environment was and is part and parcel of all the Jewish Festivals. There are also specific celebrations and moments connected with water, and the blessing of rain, including: the Prayer for Dew on Pesach and its inclusion in the Amidah; Tashlich on Rosh Hashanah; Simchat Bet Hashoeva during Succot; the Prayer for Rain on Shemini Atzeret; the different date for its inclusion in the Amidah; Tevilah (ritual immersion). In Biblical and Bet Hamikdash (Temple) times, two weeks therefore intervened between Shemini Atzeret before the prayer for rain to fall was pronounced, in order to allow all the pilgrims who had ascended to Jerusalem to return to their homes - and their largely agricultural livelihoods and ordinary lives – even as far away as the Fertile Crescent. This was also of spiritual significance – a return to the profane and a memory of the holy. [The discussion in the Talmud demonstrates that the date was empirically deduced.] Many commentators mention that the date of the prayer also coincides with the Parshah (weekly Torah reading) of Lech-Lecha, in which Abram is commanded to leave his homeland (the Fertile Crescent) in order to go to the Land, which is then promised to him and his descendents – an ascent in holiness - and that the prayer holds the same significance. The Tal Umatar prayer was said throughout the millennia of Jewish Exile from Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), but has returned to its full significance in modern Zionism and Israel. In the Diaspora, the first of which was in Babylon, where rain was not needed so early or so urgently, this prayer was inserted at a later date, in the evening of the sixtieth day after the autumn equinox – December 5th (6th preceding a leap year; 4th in the centuries further from the leap year correction century). The date was originally set according to the Julian (not Gregorian) calendar. The only other Jewish prayer linked to the solar calendar is Birkat Hachamah (blessing the sun) in Nisan, once every 28 years. B. Online ReferencesShema Yisrael Chabad-Lubavitch Online Kitzur Shulchan Aruch Sephardic Institute Virtual Bet Midrash - Yeshivat Har Etzion Rabbi Eliezer Segal Torah Org OU/NCSY |
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