Post by Rabbi Neil on Jun 9, 2022 16:35:58 GMT
The official dates for the North American Monsoon Season are June 15th to September 30th, although as any resident of New Mexico will tell you, the actual start of the monsoon season varies from year to year. Officially, though, monsoon season starts in the middle of next week. How to respond from a religious perspective?
The beginning of Tractate Taanit in Talmud asks when we should start praying for rain. Rabbi Eliezer says it should be from the first day of Succot while Rabbi Yehoshua says it should be from the last day of Succot since rain during Succot, while you’re outside sleeping in your Succah, would be a sign of a curse, not a blessing. Rabbi Eliezer’s answer is fascinating – he says that we do not pray for rain but, rather, we mention rain during our regular prayers. The two men are coming from differing perspectives. For Rabbi Yehoshua, mentioning rain in our prayers is a way of literally praying for rain to fall, whereas for Rabbi Eleazar, mentioning rain in our prayers is a way of acknowledging blessings in their right time. Rabbi Eleazar’s perspective rather reminds me of a story I heard years ago. In it, a modern day community that wanted to pray for rain. They recited the prayers, performed the rituals, but no rain fell. They didn’t understand why. A child told them that it was because they didn’t believe in their prayer. The elders of the community were appalled and insisted that they did. “If you really believed your prayers would work,” said the child, “you would have brought umbrellas.” The community seemed to be thinking like Rabbi Yehoshua, but praying like Rabbi Eleazar!
Later in the same Tractate of Talmud (7a), we learn that Rabbi Abbahu taught that a day of rain is greater than the resurrection of the dead, because the resurrection of the dead affects only the righteous, whereas a day of rain affects all. This connection between the resurrection of the dead and rainfall is why we recite the blessing for rain in the second paragraph of the Amidah, which traditionally talks of God m’chayyei hameitim, bringing life to the dead… words which are changed in our siddur to m’chayyei hakol, bringing life to all.
Tractate Ta’anit mentions rain many times, including the time when the community needed to pray for rain and turned to a man named Choni to do so (19a, 23a). When no rain fell, Choni drew a circle and stood inside it and prayed to God that he was praying on behalf of all the people. He promised not to move from the circle until it rained. A tiny trickle of rain fell. Choni responds with a further prayer that he did not pray for that kind of rain but, rather, for rain that filled cisterns, ditches, and caves. Rain began to fall so heavily that house started to be flooded. So, Choni prays again that he did not pray for that kind of rain either but rather for rain of benevolence, blessing and generosity. It’s a lovely story that reiterates an important message of Judaism that rain can be for blessing but it can also be for curse, like rain on Succot as I mentioned before.
In Midrash (GenR 13:3), Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says three things are of equal importance – earth, humanity and rain. Rabbi Levi bar Chiyya adds to that that if there’s no earth then there’s no rain, if there’s no rain than there’s no earth, and without either of them, there’s no humanity. Rain, especially lack of rain, reminds us of our fragility. Tractate Ta’anit continues that Rabbi Eliezer decreed a series of thirteen fasts on the community but still rain did not fall. At the end of the last fast, they community began to leave the synagogue but he shouted after them, “Have you prepared graves for yourselves?” At that point, the people burst into tears, and rain fell.
I don’t believe in a simplistic cause-and-effect of our prayers and I don’t believe that we can repent and then rain will start falling. That would render prayer as magic instead of self-reflection. I also think that Rabbi Eleazar’s idea that we mention rain in our prayers because it’s the appropriate season lacks something personal. Ultimately, praying for rain reminds us of our fragility, and I think that’s an essential part of prayer. But this last reference, that the people cried and rain started to fall, might be helpful in inspiring a sense of climate humility. For all of human history, the weather has been a significant determining factor in whether entire civilizations thrived or failed. There is no doubt in my mind that the Biblical connection of rain as a result of our good deeds and lack of rain as a result of our misdeeds is a theological response to human fragility in the face of environmental change. Many Jewish environmentalists use such texts to show that the way we behave affects the planet, and that’s obviously true. The more greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere, the more global temperatures rise and the more global rainfall patterns shift. For some communities, that shift means that average annual rainfall increases but for others, like ours, it means that average annual rainfall decreases. In his 2006 book The End of Nature (p.40), Bill McKibben says (p.50) that “by changing the weather, we make every spot on earth man made and artificial. We have deprived nature of its independence, and that is fatal to its meaning. Nature’s independence is its meaning; without it there is nothing but us.” There is nothing but us.
Rain that falls now is in part because of its natural cycle and in part because we have interrupted that cycle. Nature is no longer nature – everything in the natural world is now affected by humanity. When crops fail due to lack of rain, we can no longer ask God to help make it rain when we ourselves helped create the drought. But if that’s the case, how can I bring back the prayer for rain in our service that clearly focuses on God and not on us? My hope is to frame the prayer in a traditional liturgical language, while the intention of the prayer is reflective. To put it another way, if we are God’s hands – as a number of people in our community like to express – then when we pray to God for rain, we are really both acknowledging our fragility and also our responsibility in having shifted the natural cycle. That fragility, that humility, takes us away from our proud and clever inventions that we thought would help us transcend nature, and that responsibility helps us recognize that we need to change the way we interact with the natural world.
This Shabbat, we reintroduce a prayer for rain not during the timing of traditional rains in Israel, but during the timing of traditional rains here in Santa Fe. For every day that rain does not fall during that season, we need to not expect a Divine miracle but, rather, we need to commit ourselves to not disrupting the natural cycle any more. We pray to God for rain because we acknowledge how much we need it, and how much we have failed in our duty to preserve the world. May rain fall upon our community as a blessing, and may we through our prayers remind ourselves of our fragile place on this earth. And let us say, amen.
The beginning of Tractate Taanit in Talmud asks when we should start praying for rain. Rabbi Eliezer says it should be from the first day of Succot while Rabbi Yehoshua says it should be from the last day of Succot since rain during Succot, while you’re outside sleeping in your Succah, would be a sign of a curse, not a blessing. Rabbi Eliezer’s answer is fascinating – he says that we do not pray for rain but, rather, we mention rain during our regular prayers. The two men are coming from differing perspectives. For Rabbi Yehoshua, mentioning rain in our prayers is a way of literally praying for rain to fall, whereas for Rabbi Eleazar, mentioning rain in our prayers is a way of acknowledging blessings in their right time. Rabbi Eleazar’s perspective rather reminds me of a story I heard years ago. In it, a modern day community that wanted to pray for rain. They recited the prayers, performed the rituals, but no rain fell. They didn’t understand why. A child told them that it was because they didn’t believe in their prayer. The elders of the community were appalled and insisted that they did. “If you really believed your prayers would work,” said the child, “you would have brought umbrellas.” The community seemed to be thinking like Rabbi Yehoshua, but praying like Rabbi Eleazar!
Later in the same Tractate of Talmud (7a), we learn that Rabbi Abbahu taught that a day of rain is greater than the resurrection of the dead, because the resurrection of the dead affects only the righteous, whereas a day of rain affects all. This connection between the resurrection of the dead and rainfall is why we recite the blessing for rain in the second paragraph of the Amidah, which traditionally talks of God m’chayyei hameitim, bringing life to the dead… words which are changed in our siddur to m’chayyei hakol, bringing life to all.
Tractate Ta’anit mentions rain many times, including the time when the community needed to pray for rain and turned to a man named Choni to do so (19a, 23a). When no rain fell, Choni drew a circle and stood inside it and prayed to God that he was praying on behalf of all the people. He promised not to move from the circle until it rained. A tiny trickle of rain fell. Choni responds with a further prayer that he did not pray for that kind of rain but, rather, for rain that filled cisterns, ditches, and caves. Rain began to fall so heavily that house started to be flooded. So, Choni prays again that he did not pray for that kind of rain either but rather for rain of benevolence, blessing and generosity. It’s a lovely story that reiterates an important message of Judaism that rain can be for blessing but it can also be for curse, like rain on Succot as I mentioned before.
In Midrash (GenR 13:3), Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says three things are of equal importance – earth, humanity and rain. Rabbi Levi bar Chiyya adds to that that if there’s no earth then there’s no rain, if there’s no rain than there’s no earth, and without either of them, there’s no humanity. Rain, especially lack of rain, reminds us of our fragility. Tractate Ta’anit continues that Rabbi Eliezer decreed a series of thirteen fasts on the community but still rain did not fall. At the end of the last fast, they community began to leave the synagogue but he shouted after them, “Have you prepared graves for yourselves?” At that point, the people burst into tears, and rain fell.
I don’t believe in a simplistic cause-and-effect of our prayers and I don’t believe that we can repent and then rain will start falling. That would render prayer as magic instead of self-reflection. I also think that Rabbi Eleazar’s idea that we mention rain in our prayers because it’s the appropriate season lacks something personal. Ultimately, praying for rain reminds us of our fragility, and I think that’s an essential part of prayer. But this last reference, that the people cried and rain started to fall, might be helpful in inspiring a sense of climate humility. For all of human history, the weather has been a significant determining factor in whether entire civilizations thrived or failed. There is no doubt in my mind that the Biblical connection of rain as a result of our good deeds and lack of rain as a result of our misdeeds is a theological response to human fragility in the face of environmental change. Many Jewish environmentalists use such texts to show that the way we behave affects the planet, and that’s obviously true. The more greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere, the more global temperatures rise and the more global rainfall patterns shift. For some communities, that shift means that average annual rainfall increases but for others, like ours, it means that average annual rainfall decreases. In his 2006 book The End of Nature (p.40), Bill McKibben says (p.50) that “by changing the weather, we make every spot on earth man made and artificial. We have deprived nature of its independence, and that is fatal to its meaning. Nature’s independence is its meaning; without it there is nothing but us.” There is nothing but us.
Rain that falls now is in part because of its natural cycle and in part because we have interrupted that cycle. Nature is no longer nature – everything in the natural world is now affected by humanity. When crops fail due to lack of rain, we can no longer ask God to help make it rain when we ourselves helped create the drought. But if that’s the case, how can I bring back the prayer for rain in our service that clearly focuses on God and not on us? My hope is to frame the prayer in a traditional liturgical language, while the intention of the prayer is reflective. To put it another way, if we are God’s hands – as a number of people in our community like to express – then when we pray to God for rain, we are really both acknowledging our fragility and also our responsibility in having shifted the natural cycle. That fragility, that humility, takes us away from our proud and clever inventions that we thought would help us transcend nature, and that responsibility helps us recognize that we need to change the way we interact with the natural world.
This Shabbat, we reintroduce a prayer for rain not during the timing of traditional rains in Israel, but during the timing of traditional rains here in Santa Fe. For every day that rain does not fall during that season, we need to not expect a Divine miracle but, rather, we need to commit ourselves to not disrupting the natural cycle any more. We pray to God for rain because we acknowledge how much we need it, and how much we have failed in our duty to preserve the world. May rain fall upon our community as a blessing, and may we through our prayers remind ourselves of our fragile place on this earth. And let us say, amen.