Weaving Water: Ancient and Modern Prayers for Rain (Ritual Well)

(3) Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai Said: Three things are of equal importance, and these are them: earth, humankind, and rain. Rabbi Levi Bar Hiyya said: And these three are from three letters, to teach you that if there's no earth there's no rain, and if there's no rain there's no earth, and without either of them there's no humankind.

(10) For the land that you are about to enter and possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come. There the grain you sowed had to be watered by your own labors, like a vegetable garden; (11) but the land you are about to cross into and possess, a land of hills and valleys, soaks up its water from the rains of heaven. (12) It is a land which your God יהוה looks after, on which your God יהוה always keeps an eye, from year’s beginning to year’s end.

(13) If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving your God יהוה and serving [God] with all your heart and soul, (14) I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil— (15) I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle—and thus you shall eat your fill.

(16) Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. (17) For יהוה’s anger will flare up against you, shutting up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that יהוה is assigning to you. (18) Therefore impress these My words upon your very heart: bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, (19) and teach them to your children—reciting them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up; (20) and inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates— (21) to the end that you and your children may endure, in the land that יהוה swore to your fathers to assign to them, as long as there is a heaven over the earth. (22) If, then, you faithfully keep all this Instruction that I command you, loving your God יהוה, walking in all God’s ways, and holding fast to [God],

The Sages taught in a baraita: The first rain [yoreh] is called by this name due to the fact that it instructs [moreh] people to plaster their roofs and to bring in their produce from the fields to their houses and to attend to all their needs in the field before more rain falls. Alternatively, yoreh is referring to the fact that it moistens [marve] the earth and waters it to the depths, as it is stated: “Watering [ravvei] its ridges abundantly, settling down its furrows, You make it soft with showers, You bless its growth” (Psalms 65:11). Alternatively, yoreh means that it falls gently and it does not fall vehemently... Malkosh means that the rain falls so hard [kashe] and vehemently that it knocks down the houses, shatters the treesm causes the fruit to drop from the trees, washes the seeds away, and washes the trees away in a destructive manner... The school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: The last rain is called malkosh because it is a matter that fills out [memalle] produce in its stalks [bekasheha]. Although the stalks already exist from earlier in the year, it is this rain that causes the grain within to swell and fill them...

Rabbi Abbahu said: What is the meaning of the term for rainfall, revia? It is referring to a matter that penetrates [rove’a], i.e., which causes the earth to bear fruit...

And Rabbi Abbahu further said: For rainfall to be considered the first rainfall it must be sufficient to enter the ground and saturate it to a depth of one handbreadth. The second rainfall must be sufficient that the soil is moistened enough to seal the opening of a barrel with its mud.

What blessing does one recite over rain? Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: We thank you, O Lord our God, for each and every drop that You have made fall for us. And Rabbi Yoḥanan concludes the blessing as follows: If our mouth were as full of song as the sea, and our tongue with singing like the multitude of its waves, etc. And one continues with the formula of the nishmat prayer recited on Shabbat morning, until: May Your mercy not forsake us, O Lord our God, and You have not forsaken us. Blessed are You, O Lord, to Whom abundant thanksgivings are offered.

(2) We do not ask for rain, unless it is near the rainy season. Rabbi Yehudah says, "One who leads the last prayer [Musaf] on the last day of the festival [Shmini Atzeret/The end of Sukkot], mentions [rain], but the first one [the one who does the Shacharit service] does not. On the first day of Passover, the first [Shacharit morning services] still mentions it, but the last [Mussaf] one does not."

(3) [Starting] on the third [day of the month of] of Mar-Cheshvan prayers for the rain are to be said, but according to Rabban Gamaliel, on the seventh of the same month, namely, fifteen days after the feast of tabernacles, in order that the last Israelites might have reached the river Euphrates.

Rabbi Hanan of Zipori said in the name of Rabbi Shmuel bar Nahman: For four reasons did the Holy Blessed One revise things so that the land [of Israel] would only drink from above. 1) Because of violent people, 2) to wash away the harmful dew, 3) so that high elevations can drink like low ones, and 4) so that all would hang their eyes towards heaven, as is written, "to direct the lowly towards the exalted." (Job 5:11)