Shabbat Chol HaMoed Sukkot - 5783

Shabbat Chol HaMoed Sukkot - 5783

Rabbi Hal Miller

Water and Sukkot

The Mishnah (Rosh Hashanah 16a) reads, "At four points is the world judged,

on Pesach for grain, on Shavuot for fruit of the tree, on Rosh Hashanah all who

come into the world pass before Him ... and on Sukkot they are judged for water."

We see this occurring in a few ways. During the mussaf service on Shemini

Atzeret, we begin saying mashiv ha'ruach and v'tein tal u'matar, the chazan begins

his repetition of the shemoneh esrei with a special prayer for rain, and we do the

water libation in the Temple. What is behind all this attention to water? Why

specifically during this holiday?

To begin, there is no direct Torah commandment to do these things. Commentators

find all sorts of allusions in the text, rather it is part of the oral tradition coming from

Moshe on Mount Sinai, as explained in Talmudic sources such as the Mishnah

quoted above. There, the Gemara quotes a Baraita, "And why did the Torah state

make water libations during the festival? The Holy One, blessed is He, said, libate

water before Me on the festival so that the annual rains be blessed for you."

We can easily find a logical reason for praying about water at the end of Sukkot.

While rain during the holiday is considered bad, as soon as the people return home

from Yerushalayim and the festival, the rainy season begins. But we do not rest on

logical reasons.

Another Baraita tells us that Rabbi Akiva compared this with the omer of barley on

Pesach. The reason there is that we may be blessed with a good grain crop. So too

here, we should be blessed with abundant rainfall for next year's crop. This is a

reason for doing it, asking for the blessing, but it still falls into the logic camp

regarding the timing.

Going back (or skipping ahead) to Bereishit [1:9-11 and 2:5] we see that although

God created the waters, the trees, and the vegetation, He did not provide rain for

them until man existed to work the fields and pray for the rains. Now we begin to

see some more in-depth reasoning. God wants man to pray for the things he

needs, so that he will appreciate what God does for him.

Ramban gives us another reason in his commentary on Devarim [28:12]. "As you

are toward Me, so will I be toward you. If they open up their hands and give charity,

I too, will open up My hand." If Israel will be charitable with the other nations, God

will provide the rains we need for our crops.

The Sfas Emes adds another point to this Ramban. When God created the waters,

He divided them into the upper waters and the lower waters, but the lower waters

complained that they were not given as much honor as the upper. God promised

that the lower waters would be given the position of being absolutely necessary to

the continuation of the world by tying them to the seasons. Thus, our logical reason

of the timing of the rainy season actually supports the Torah reasons!