Rain

תפילת גשם בזכות האמהות | Prayer for Rain in the Merit of the Matriarchs by Rabbi Jill Hammer

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The time of Sukkot is a time of fullness and generosity, but also a time to pray for the coming season. Shemini Atzeret, the festival when we pray for rain, is an expression of our need for water, which in the Jewish tradition symbolizes life, renewal, and deliverance. Tefillat Geshem, a graceful fixture of the Ashkenazic liturgy, invokes the patriarchs as exemplars of holiness and model recipients of God’s love. This prayer uses water as a metaphor for devotion and faith, asking that God grant us life-sustaining rain. While its authorship is unknown, it is sometimes attributed to Elazar Kallir, the great liturgist who lived sometime during the first millenium. Each year, we are reminded of our people’s connection to the patriarchs and to the rhythms of water, spiritual and physical sources of life, through this medieval piyyut. While we know that rain is a natural process, formal thanksgiving for water as a source of life, energy, and beauty reminds us that our Creator is the source of our physical world and its many wonders. . . .

תְּחִנָה לְשַׁבָּת מְבָרְכִים רֹאשׁ חוֹדֶשׁ טֵבֵת | Tkhine for Shabbat Mevorkhim Rosh Ḥodesh Tevet (1877)

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To the best of my ability, this is a faithful transcription of the תְּחִנָה לְשַׁבָּת מְבָרְכִים רֹאשׁ חוֺדֶשׁ טֵבֵת (“Tkhine for Shabbat Mevorkhim Rosh Ḥodesh Tevet”) which appeared in תחנות מקרא קודש (Teḥinot Miqra Qodesh, Widow and Brothers Romm, Vilna 1877). English translation adapted slightly from Techinas: A Voice from the Heart “As Only A Woman Can Pray” by Rivka Zakutinsky (Aura Press, 1992). –A.N. Varady . . .

Actions de graces pour la récolte et Prière pour demander un bon hiver | Thanks for the Harvest, and Prayer for a Favorable Winter, a paraliturgical prayer for rain by Jonas Ennery (1848)

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This is a paraliturgical prayer for rain during the wet season, read during the festival of Sukkot, from Imrei Lev, a collection of teḥinot and paraliturgical prayers adapted for French Jewry by Jonas Ennery and Rabbi Arnaud Aron. The prayer does not appear in Hester Rothschild’s abridged English translation of Imrei Lev: Prayers and Meditations (1855). The translation provided here is from Isaac Leeser’s “corrected and revised” edition from 1866, albeit without the archaisms. –Aharon Varady. . . .

תפילת הודיה לגשם | Thanksgiving Prayer for Rainfall in Lands Where It is Needed, by Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

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A prayer of thanksgiving for when it rains in a land needing rainfall. . . .


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