Berakhot 104

6:
We must now consider the other verb that is used in our mishnah concerning rain: 'we ask for rain during the "blessing of the years"'. The berakhah here referred to is the sixth berakhah of the middle section of the Amidah as it is recited on weekdays (the ninth counting from the beginning of the Amidah). In this berakhah the blessing that is invoked upon the years is the blessing of prosperity: may every year – and this present year in particular – be a prosperous one, with a successful harvest and a plenteous supply of food for all. The agricultural ambience of this berakhah is obvious, but that should not obfuscate for us the general meaning of the berakhah. And it should certainly make very obvious why the special request for a generous rainfall was allocated to this berakhah: without a suitably wet winter there can be no hope for a successful harvest and the economic boon that would come in its wake. That is why we "ask" God to "grant the blessing of rain upon the soil" in this berakhah.

7:
We must now consider when this is done. It would be folly to ask for rain during the summer months: in Eretz-Israel not only would that be be asking for something miraculous, but it would also be asking for a catastrophic miracle! Just as rain is desperately needed at the appropriate time (and not too late!) so it would wreak economic havoc if it came at an inappropriate time during the summer when the harvests are being gathered in – wheat in the early summer and fruits in the late summer. If one were to judge by purely agricultural considerations the right time to start "asking" for rain would be the same as the time we start "mentioning" it: at the end of Sukkot. This festival celebrates the completion of the fruit harvest "at the end of the [agricultural] year" [Exodus 23:16]: there is nothing more to do in the fields until the end of winter. However, there are not only agricultural considerations at work here. We saw in the previous shiur that it was human considerations that led the "mentioning" of rain to be postponed from its logical starting-point on the first day of Sukkot to Shemini Atzeret/Simĥat Torah at the end of the week: we do not want it to rain while we are living in our Sukkah!

8:
It is a similar human consideration that leads to the postponing of our "asking" for rain from the end of Sukkot. When the Bet Mikdash was in existence Sukkot was without doubt the most joyous of all the festivals. Just as people came from all over Eretz-Israel to celebrate Pesaĥ in Jerusalem, so people came from all over the Jewish world to celebrate Sukkot in Jerusalem. The pilgrims – thousands of them every year – had to make their way back home in organized caravans. Heavy rainfall while they were on their journey would cause them great distress and hardship: the dirt tracks would become mud-bound and then invisible. So it was a distinct sense of fraternity that led the Jews in Eretz-Israel to wait for another fifteen days after Simĥat Torah before starting to "ask" for rain. By that time, they reckoned, the pilgrims should have managed to get home to even the most distant locations. Here is a wonderful example of the implementation of the maxim kol Israel ĥaverim [all Jews are bonded in friendship]. Thus it is that the date 7th Marĥeshvan was set for "asking" for the winter rains to come to Eretz-Israel [ Ta'anit 10a] – and that is the date upon which the Jews of Eretz-Israel start adding this request to the ninth berakhah of the Amidah to this very day.

9:
Not so the Jews of the Diaspora. Originally the term Diaspora referred specifically to Babylonian Jewry, and in Babylon (Iraq) the need for rain was not as great as in Eretz-Israel [Rashi, Ta'anit 10a], so there it was established that they would "ask" for rain on from the sixtieth day after the autumnal equinox, when winter would be well set in. There were opinions expressed that just as the Jews of Babylon set the date for their "asking', so the Jews in every place should set the date according to their own needs and experiences; however, that was not the opinion that prevailed, and it became the established custom in all parts of the Diaspora to follow the Babylonian custom.

10:
This means that outside Israel the starting date should be sixty days after the autumnal equinox, which falls on September 20th every year: 20th November. However, since the solstices and equinoxes of the Jewish calendar are still calculated according to the old Julian calendar, there is now a fifteen day delay (4th/5th December) – and in the next century (which is only four years away) an extra day's delay will be added. I have only added this long excursus in order to explain why in the prayer-books of the Diaspora there is always that peculiar note giving dates according to the Gregorian calendar!

To be continued.