Drawing Water from the Well of Salvation

§ The mishna taught: And the High Priest recites a brief prayer in the outer chamber. The Gemara asks: What does he pray? Rava bar Rav Adda and Ravin bar Rav Adda both said in the name of Rav that this was his prayer: May it be your will, Lord our God, that this year shall be rainy and hot...

For you are Hashem our God, who makes the wind blow and makes the rain descend.

For blessing, and not for curse.

For life, and not for death.

For plenty, and not for scarcity.

(1) ויהי הגשם על הארץ AND THE RAIN WAS UPON THE EARTH — But later on (v. 17) it says. “And the Flood was upon the earth”! But the explanation is this: when He poured down the water at first He made it fall in mercy (gently), in order that if the people would repent, it might prove a rain of blessing; but when they did not repent it became a destructive flood (Genesis Rabbah 31:12) .

(2) At four times the world is judged: On Pesach, for the crops. On Shavuot, for the fruits of the tree. On Rosh Hashnah, all the world passes before Him like sheep...And on Sukkot, they are judged for the water.

And for what reason did the Torah say: Pour water onto the altar in the Temple on the festival of Sukkot? The Holy One, Blessed be He, said: Pour water before Me on the festival of Sukkot so that the rains of the year, which begin to fall after Sukkot, will be blessed for you.

Rabbi Avin says, the situation on Sukkot can be allegorized to two parties who come before a judge, and they do not yet know who has won. The one who exists holding their weapon we know to be the victor. At the conclusion of Rosh Hashana, we do not know how God has judged our case, but when Israel emerges with their lulavim and etrogim in their hands, we know that Israel has emerged victorious.

(2) At the departure of the first holy day of Sukkot, they would descend into the women's court, and they would arrange there a great arrangement. And four golden candelabras were there, and four golden basins at their heads, and four ladders to each one, and [upon them were] four of the rising youth of the priesthood, and in their hands were jars of oil holding one hundred and twenty logim [a liquid measure], which they would pour into each of the basins.

(3) From the worn out pants of the priests and from their [worn out] belts they would tear [pieces], and they would [use them as wicks to] light with them. And there was not a courtyard in Jerusalem that was not illuminated by the light of the place of [water] drawing.

(4) Pious people and men of [great] deeds would dance before them with lit torches in their hands, and says before them words of song and praise. And the Levites [would play] with lutes, and harps, and cymbals, and trumpets, and countless musical instruments, upon the fifteen steps which descent into the women's court, corresponding with the fifteen songs of ascents in the Psalms, that upon them the Levites would stand with their musical instruments and sing.

GEMARA: With regard to the customs accompanying the drawing of the water, the Gemara asks: From where are these matters derived? Rav Eina said that it is as the verse states: “With joy [sason] you shall draw water out of the springs of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3), indicating that the water was to be drawn from the spring and the rite performed in extreme joy.

... They [the Sages] said: Anyone who has never seen the rejoicing at the place of [water] drawing, has never seen rejoicing in all his days.

And two priests would stand at the upper gate, which descends from the court of the Israelites to the women's court, with two trumpets in their hands. When the rooster [first] crowed, they would blow a tekiyah [a steady blast], and a teruah [a broken blast], and [another] tekiyah. When they arrived at the tenth step, they would [again] blow a tekiyah, and a teruah, and a tekiyah. When they arrived at the court, they would [for a third time] blow a tekiyah, and a teruah, and a tekiyah. They went on, blowing and walking, until they arrived at the gate that goes out to the east. When they arrived at the gate that goes out to the east, they turned their faces westward [towards the Temple], and said, "Our ancestors, who were in this place, their backs were [turned] towards the Temple of Hashem, and their faces eastwards, and they would bow eastward to the sun; but we, our eyes are [raised] towards God." Rabbi Yehudah says: they would repeat and say, "We are for God, and our eyes are towards God."

(1) In the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, I was sitting at home, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me, and there the hand of the Lord GOD fell upon me. (3) He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by the hair of my head. A spirit lifted me up between heaven and earth and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the Penimith Gate that faces north; that was the site of the infuriating image that provokes fury...(16) Then He brought me into the inner court of the House of the LORD, and there, at the entrance to the Temple of the LORD, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men, their backs to the Temple of the LORD and their faces to the east; they were bowing low to the sun in the east.

The straightforward reading of the passage is that it is stated as a warning, for God means to say to them that, "if you observe all of the commandments then you shall possess a land flowing with milk and honey", for God will grant the rains of your land in their due season and the land shall give forth its produce. But realize that this new land is not like the land of Egypt that can be irrigated from the water channels and reservoirs like a garden of vegetables, but it rather is a land of hills and valleys that gets its water from the rainfall and in no other way. It therefore always requires God's sustaining hand to provide it with rain, for it is a very arid land that needs rainfall all of the year. If you abrogate the will of God so that He will not sustain it with desirable rains, then it becomes a poor land indeed, that can be neither planted nor cultivated, and no crops shall grow upon its slopes...

This section therefore provides a warning in accordance with the laws of nature and from it we may deduce that even though God is capable of all things and He could effortlessly destroy the inhabitants of Egypt and dry up their rivers and channels, nevertheless the land of Canaan would be more quickly lost should He withhold His powerful rains. The ill person requires more merit and prayer that God should heal her than the well person requires, in order to preserve his healthy state. So too is the divine measure concerning the poor and the wealthy, though God illuminates the eyes of both.