I don’t remember exactly at one point in my life I started paying attention to the weather, appreciating weather changes and patterns, with a special affinity for rainy days (and snow, of course!).
While I relish and delight in sunshine, soaking in that vitamin D — in fact, one of the long running nicknames I have been called by a close friend is “sunshine” or “sunshine girl,” it’s my tenderness and fondness for rainy days that has steadily increased over time.
It doesn’t get better than leaving my window open to hear the soft lulling whoosh of the cars on Central Park West drive by on rainy days, as I fall asleep or wake up to this soothing sound. I intentionally keep the window open to fall asleep and awaken to the joy of this lullaby gifted by nature.
Apparently, there is a name for finding joy and peace of mind on rainy days: “pluviophile.” Who knew there is an actual definition and identity for it? Apparently, I’m part of the pluviophile tribe.
I recall the very first time I experienced a meditation or mantra for rainfall in a ritual of Judaism. I had always loved the Sukkot holiday’s poetic Prayer for Rain and Passover’s Prayer for Dew.
It was when I was 17 years old. Somehow I had the honor to be a guest for a Simchat Torah holiday meal at the home of the rabbi of my childhood neighborhood. He is a distinguished judge on the Jerusalem Torah courts, hailing from generation upon generation of an old Jerusalemite family.
“Mashiv ha-ruach u-morid ha-gashem” he and his sons kept chanting with fervor throughout the meal. In-between the courses and in-between the holiday melodies came their strong, repeated bellows “mashiv ha-ruach u-morid ha-gashem!” In total, 100 times. These declarative cries of G-d as the source of wind and rain were pretty densely laced throughout the meal.
That is how I learned about the custom to articulate this phrase, which highlights the change of seasons.
The phrase is a declaration, a praise of G-d. Curiously, we do not actually insert the prayer for rain to fall — “ve-ten tal u-matar li-vracha” until a couple of weeks later.
When I think about the declaration of G-d’s power over wind and rain that we just recently began saying as a community on Sukkot, yet delay the actual prayer for rain, I find the reason very compelling. It’s intrinsic to the land of Israel.
Sukkot, one of the three pilgrimage holidays that brought Jews from across the land of Israel — and even beyond — to Jerusalem, meant that in Temple times, hundreds of thousands of travelers were on the dirt paths and muddy roads, going home after Sukkot. Travel then meant walking by foot. Exposure to the elements.
Out of consideration for the pilgrims returning home after Sukkot, we delay the prayers for rainfall, so as not to inconvenience the exposed road travelers to the unpleasantness of getting soaking wet, traveling for days, or perhaps catching cold or getting sick. Imagine traveling home for days, possibly loaded with family and even some cattle, worriedly eyeing the sky for any sign of rain or darkness, versus a pleasant if tiring trek in crisp sunshine.
It is this care for the difficulty that rain would pose for road travelers that determines the onset, the timing, for rainfall prayers.
The underlying faith in prayer this ritual reveals is astounding.
After a season full of prayer, after the Days of Awe, we departed with much of their message illustrated and distilled within this seemingly technical and logistical final prayer ritual that we take with us into winter.
We truly do believe in the power of prayer! So much so that we delay it, lest the power of the community’s prayer come to be, and, in this case, cause distress. The assumption behind this logistical delay is clear: As soon as the community prays for rain, it shall rain.
But if so, one might argue, so be it. After all, rainfall is essential to life on earth. Still, we delay it, out of concern not to cause harm or anguish to the Sukkot pilgrims.
One of the key themes of Yom Kippur is atonement, forgiveness. Tradition privileges interpersonal transgressions and hurt over transgressions committed between man and G-d. A perpetrator of hurt must appease and secure forgiveness from the aggrieved party, no one else can supplant that role — not even G-d. The accountability must be taken on earth, here, between humans. Whereas sins committed before G-d relate to the celestial realm.
With this in mind, the departure from Sukkot leaves us with a message of taking care of others’ needs, need that would fall as fundamental on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
It’s these twin teachings that might be encapsulated in the idea of delaying the prayer for actual rainfall.
Interestingly, on Yom Kippur, the High Priest’s prayer includes a verse about overriding the desires of travelers for delayed rainfall. Yet the law dictates: delay the prayer.
This dialectical tension found within the Days of Awe prayers, between the High Priest considering the needs of the world, of the community, versus the practical law that considers the needs of vulnerable individuals, is very meaningful and insightful, ultimately reflecting Jewish law’s compassionate sensitivity to those in need.
Once the season of the High Holiday concludes, we are all travelers in time, living within the emotional landscape of not knowing what the pending year will bring, be it in the blessed rainfall of life, or not.
I hope this year will be a year of shelter from any strong or destructive rains, and instead bring the joy of calm, musical, rainy days of joy, calm, replenishment and blessing.
The kind of days that apparently turned me into a pluviophile.
P.S. As I pen this column, I see we are expecting our first Denver snow this year tomorrow, and by the time you read this you may have already received its magic.
Copyright © 2022 by the Intermountain Jewish News
