While the time for beginning to mention God’s power to bring rain in our prayers has a dramatic introductory piyyut (see my work here for a version with Immahot), the time when we begin actually asking for said rain is unadorned by any poetry, and is simply a change in one phrase in our liturgy. Therefore, inspired by a Facebook post by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (who since wrote his own version here), I wrote the following piyyut over the course of 5785, to be added to the Maariv service on the evening when one begins praying for rain in their location. Each stanza of the piyyut is intended to be added before the ḥatimah of each of the four blessings surrounding the Maariv Shema. I have signed my name to the acrostic, and provided a translation that highlights said acrostic and structure. May we have a year of abundance and goodness.

On Shemini Atseret, one is supposed to begin mentioning rain in the second blessing of their Amidah prayers (Ta’anit 2a). In many communities, this is liturgically marked by a poetic introduction in the repetition of the Amidah, called Geshem, specifically with the piyyut “Zekhor Av” written by Rabbi Eleezer BeRabbi Kalir, which alludes to the references of our forefathers’ relations to water. One feature of this poem is that it utilizes an alef-bet-ical acrostic, and while there are various modern adaptations that include biblical women, those break the acrostic. This is my attempt to compose a version including stanzas for our foremothers, while maintaining the acrostic by writing the women’s stanzas as a backwards acrostic (i.e. starting from tav and going to alef). This backwards acrostic containing the foremothers is then interspersed with Kalir’s original.