It’s a little phrase, really.
Beginning with a special prayer for rain during the musaf service of Shemini Atzeret (a service which I had the honor of leading this past Saturday morning), we add a short insertion to the daily liturgy during the Amidah, the standing prayer:
Mashiv ha-ruach u-morid ha-gashem - [You] Who causeth the wind to blow and the rain to fall.
We’ll continue to stick that phrase in our daily prayers until the Passover holiday in spring. It heralds the rainy season in the Land of Israel; the insertion is simply a gentle reminder to the Big Guy that, since it is the rainy season and all, to please, ahhhh, make sure it rains.
Given the exceptionally moist weather here in the Ay-Tee-Ell these past few weeks, when our rabbi asked me to lead the musaf service and recite the Geshem prayer, I asked him - jokingly, of course - whether that was really a good idea. And he gave the expected response: It’s for the Land of Israel, not us.
But this morning, after awakening to a deluge of Noahide proportions, I could not help but wonder...
...’cause whatever I said Saturday, it worked. Big time.
Beginning with a special prayer for rain during the musaf service of Shemini Atzeret (a service which I had the honor of leading this past Saturday morning), we add a short insertion to the daily liturgy during the Amidah, the standing prayer:
Mashiv ha-ruach u-morid ha-gashem - [You] Who causeth the wind to blow and the rain to fall.
We’ll continue to stick that phrase in our daily prayers until the Passover holiday in spring. It heralds the rainy season in the Land of Israel; the insertion is simply a gentle reminder to the Big Guy that, since it is the rainy season and all, to please, ahhhh, make sure it rains.
Given the exceptionally moist weather here in the Ay-Tee-Ell these past few weeks, when our rabbi asked me to lead the musaf service and recite the Geshem prayer, I asked him - jokingly, of course - whether that was really a good idea. And he gave the expected response: It’s for the Land of Israel, not us.
But this morning, after awakening to a deluge of Noahide proportions, I could not help but wonder...
...’cause whatever I said Saturday, it worked. Big time.
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