This week here in Israel we have quite appropriately have had our fair share of rain. With constant warnings going out about the state of the Kinneret (our largest lake) and our lack of water; any rain is good news.
At the end of our festive period we had the festival of Shmini Atzeret when we recited tefilat ha geshem, תפילת הגשם , the prayer for rain. Interestingly we don’t begin to include the prayer for rain in our daily prayers until two weeks after the festive period to allow the pilgrims who travelled by foot to the temple, to return home dry (outside of Israel there is a longer waiting period to allow for the longer travel times). This year the rains began to fall just three hours after the prayer for rain was instituted into the daily prayer!
The word גשם is composed of the shoresh (root) ג-ש-מ which also creates the words גשמי meaning materialistic and הגשמה meaning fulfilment. Rain allows for physical, materialistic growth and without rain it is clear that life would cease to continue. הגשמה is used in Hebrew to denote the fulfilment of a grand idea. It is only with rain that the fulfilment of G-d’s life cycle can continue and that our comfortable lifestyle can be sustained. At this time we remember countries less developed than ours, less able to deal with drought and additionally less blessed with rain.
Osnat
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