A Little Rain, A Lot of Humility - Wednesday Kavvanah, 5/2/2012

Yesterday morning as I was preparing to leave for morning minyan, it was raining quite heavily.  Our gutters have not yet been cleaned of the spring debris, and so the water was spilling out of them, flowing down the windows, and leaking into the dining room, where a small puddle was gathering.  Hmm, thought I.  No matter how great the structures we build around ourselves, no matter how much we try to seal ourselves off from the forces of nature, Creation always manages to find its way in.

As regular readers of this blog know, I am a scientific person.  I cannot deny that for this world to make sense, the laws of physics dictate that (for example) the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, and the universe 14 billion or so.  I am wary of theologies that mandate checking the intellect in favor of blind faith, or even those that attempt to square science and religion where they seem to conflict.

But certain poetic / midrashic approaches always appeal to me; creative ideas about the ways through which God enters our rationality, just as the rain finds its way into the rabbi's parsonage.  It is indeed possible to clothe ourselves in logic, in academic scaffolding, and thereby ignore the still, small voice of the Divine.  However, even those of us whose understanding of the world seems waterproof occasionally find ourselves dripping wet, and particularly in the context of loss or joy or life's milestones.  Those are the times that we are most likely not only to seek friends and family, but also to let God in. 

In every morning service, just after the morning berakhot / blessings, we read (or more likely mumble) the following:

הֲלא כָל הַגִּבּורִים כְּאַיִן לְפָנֶיךָ וְאַנְשֵׁי הַשֵּׁם כְּלא הָיוּ וַחֲכָמִים כִּבְלִי מַדָּע וּנְבונִים כִּבְלִי הַשכֵּל

Compared to You, all the powerful are nothing, the famous, insignificant; the wise lack wisdom, the clever lack reason.

This brief passage, stuck in the middle of a great deal of text, deserves more attention than it ever gets.  A little dose of humility in the morning, a reminder of the long view, helps us to see that no matter what we achieve or own or create, there are even greater things, and this is an invaluable principle to carry with us into the day as we work, learn, and love.  Sometimes we need that rain.

~

Rabbi Seth Adelson

You Can't Always Get What You Want, So Don't Ask (for too much) - Tuesday Kavvanah, 4/24/2012

Did you notice? Morning minyan for the past week and a half (since Pesah) has been SIX WORDS shorter! Truly amazing! I have accomplished so much with that extra time.

From whence comes the savings? There are two places in the Amidah where we no longer ask for rain (in Israel). Well, actually only one of them is a request; the other is a mere mention. At the beginning of the Gevurot  paragraph, the second berakhah of the Amidah, we have been saying the following since Shemini Atzeret:

מַשִּׁיב הָרוּחַ וּמורִיד הַגָּשֶּׁם

Mashiv haruah umorid hagashem.
God causes the wind to blow and the rains to fall.

And we have been making the following request since Dec. 4:

וְתֵן טַל וּמָטָר לִבְרָכָה

Veten tal umatar livrakhah
And give us dew and rain as a blessing

The first has been eliminated completely, and the second shortened to the perfunctory and vague veten berakhah / give us blessing.

Why the change?  There is a rabbinic principle (e.g. Mishnah Berakhot 9:3) that one should not offer a tefillat shav, a prayer in vain. That is, we cannot request something from God that cannot naturally occur, like rain in Israel during the summer, or that one's 2-year-old will not throw a tantrum when denied a lollipop.

As a guiding principle to tefillah, I have found that it is more effective to think of statutory prayer as maintenance rather than asking for things that you do not have.  Isn't it wonderful, say the words of the siddur, that the sun came up this morning, that I had the energy to get dressed and venture out, that I had food on my plate, and that this world is filled with unmeasurable quantity of blessing.

There is always a place for making requests outside of the traditional framework, but it is nonetheless a good idea to consider very carefully what we ask for; the reasonable request has a better chance of being heard.


~
Rabbi Seth Adelson

We Will Seek No Rain Before Its Time - Wednesday Kavvanah, 12/7/2011

Coming to the end of the second rainy day in a row, this rabbi wonders if it might not be sheer coincidence that two nights ago we began the seasonal addition of "veten tal umatar livrakhah" ("and grant dew and rain as a blessing") into the sixth baqashah / request of the weekday Amidah.  Of course, says my rational side, God does not really work that way, and anyway the request is for Israel, not here.

Meanwhile, the very idea that we make this request at all is curious.  The obligation to do so is described in Mishnah Ta'anit, accompanied by an explanation for its timing:


אין שואלים את הגשמים, אלא סמוך לגשמים
They only ask for rain when it is close to the rainy season. (Ta'anit 1:2)

Israel, though located in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, does not receive any rain at all from roughly March to October.  One might think that we should ask for rain year-round, because every little bit helps.  And given how important rain was to the livelihoods of our agricultural ancestors, it might be expected to be a consistent theme in daily prayer.

But there is also a rabbinic principle that we should only tell others what they are ready or willing to hear, and extending that logic to prayer, we should only make requests are within the realm of possibility.  There is no point in asking for rain in the Israeli summer, because it simply isn't going to happen.  By the time we start adding this to our weekday tefillot, there is a good chance that rain might fall.

So regardless of how wet it might be in New York, now is absolutely the time to pray for rain.  Stay dry!


~
Rabbi Seth Adelson

Tuesday Morning Kavvanah, 12/14/2010

I returned from Israel a few days ago. There is now a serious drought in Israel; the winter rains have come late, and the greatest fire in Israel's history happened while I was there.

Sometimes its the little things that we forget to be thankful for. We need rain, and Israel needs rain more than most places. We of course ask for rain in our liturgy, as the Mishnah instructs us to do (both in Berakhot and Ta'anit).

To us, rain is a little thing, a minor annoyance. To our ancestors, it was everything. Don't forget to be grateful for the little things.