Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site lsuc.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!dave From: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish Subject: Re: ten tal u'matar Message-ID: <1025@lsuc.UUCP> Date: Tue, 7-Jan-86 15:21:11 EST Article-I.D.: lsuc.1025 Posted: Tue Jan 7 15:21:11 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 7-Jan-86 17:49:08 EST References: <970@lsuc.UUCP> Reply-To: dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto Lines: 135 Summary: long comment from Jay Shachter A few weeks ago I asked why the solar calendar was used, rather than the lunar calendar, to set December 4 for beginning to say v'ten tal u'matar. I received the following reply by private mail and have been given permission to copy it to the net. (I might add that Mr. Shachter often has valuable things to say in reply to net postings, but always chooses to end them by private mail rather than posting.) Dave Sherman ========================================= >From: pesnta!amdcad!ihnp4!ihlpa!humbert (Jay F. Shachter) >Date: Wed, 11 Dec 85 08:56:27 pst >To: ihnp4!pesnta!lsuc!dave >Subject: Re: ten tal u'matar >In-Reply-To: your article <970@lsuc.UUCP> > >It isn't always December 4. In the 19th century, it was December 3. In the >22nd century, it will be December 5. > >Many people are confused about this one, so I feel obliged to reply to your >question, since I am sure that nine-tenths of the replies on the net will be wrong. > >`Vten tal umatar' is a request for rain. It is not primarily a praise >of God, Who is so mighty that among other things he causes the rain to fall -- >we do that elsewhere -- it is a request for rain. As you probably know, >prayer, as defined by the Tora, consists of three components: praise, request, >and thanks, and they must be recited in that order. When the Sages implemented >the `Amida prayer, in the time of Ezra, they conceived of the first three >benedictions as praise, the last three benedictions as thanks, and the middle >benedictions as requests. The distinction may not be obvious to you, but >that is how we should conceive the prayer (e.g., the final benediction is not >primarily a request for peace; it is primarily an expression of gratitude to >God for bringing and continuing to bring peace). > >Well, when do you ask for rain? Obviously, when you need it. Asking for >something when you need it is, after all, a Scriptural precept, whereas >reciting the `Amida is only a Rabbinic precept. Asking for something when >you don't need it is meaningless hypocrisy. When do you need rain? If >you are a farmer, you need rain during the growing season. Even if you are >not a farmer, you need rain during the growing season, because your food >depends on farmers' growing their crops. > >Seasons are not lunar events. They occur on the solar calendar. The question >is not why Jews within the Exile begin asking for rain on a day determined >(approximately) by the solar calendar. The question is -- Why do Jews in Israel >begin praying for rain on a day determined by the lunar/solar calendar? Well, >part of the reason is that Shmini `Atseret is determined by the lunar/solar >calendar, and people may want to be in Jerusalem for Shmini `Atseret (although >they don't have to be), and then they may need as much as two weeks to get >home. We don't want to ask for rain in Israel while pilgrims are still on the >road. The other part of the reason is that, the closer you get to the Equator, >the less pronounced are the seasons. At the Equator there are no seasons at >all (no one can detect the difference in solar radiation between the Earth at >aphelion and the Earth at perihelion). Notice that the inhabitants of Arabia >never developed a solar calendar, because the solar year was not a meaningful >unit for them. Although Israel is not a tropical country, the seasons are >sufficiently mild that it's okay to be a few days off, solarly speaking, when >you start to ask for rain (please forgive the neologism). If the seasons were >more pronounced, then the day would have to be precisely calculated in the >solar calendar, regardless of whether that meant praying for muddy roads for >the returning pilgrims. > >Babylon is a bit further north than Israel (although not quite so far north >as people think, because to travel from Babylon to Israel you first have to >go northwest and then southwest to avoid the desert, giving people the >impression that caravans from Babylon are coming from the north). In Babylon >the seasons are more pronounced than they are in Israel. Also, you don't have >to worry about pilgrims on the roads when Shmini `Atseret comes late in the >year. Therefore the Jews in Babylon did the logical thing, and decided that >in their country they would begin asking for rain on a day determined by the >solar calendar. > >Now we get to the part about which many people are confused. I found much >ignorance of this topic, even among yeshiva educated people, even, in fact, >among rabbis. The law, as it was enacted in Babylon, is that one begins to >pray for rain sixty days after the autumnal equinox. Now, the first thing >that anyone will notice who has a calendar, the ability to count, and curiosity >(the last attribute appears to be particularly lacking among yeshiva-educated >people) is that December 4 is not 60 days after the autumnal equinox. In other >words, December 4 is the wrong date -- in fact it is wrong by quite a bit. >Well, you see, we don't use the real autumnal equinox. We use a `statutory' >autumnal equinox. The `statutory' equinox is based on the assumption that a >solar year is exactly 365 1/4 days long. To calculate this year's statutory >equinox, you just add 365 days and 6 hours to last year's statutory equinox. >As you probably know, however, the solar year is really (approximately) 365 >days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds. So the Julian approximation of >365 days 6 hours will gain approximately 1 day every 128 years (and you can >therefore calculate from this year's statutory equinox just how many years >we have been using this approximation). > >The Sages knew that 365 1/4 days was just an approximation, and they knew >that it would gain a day every hundred or so years. They could have been >more accurate had they wanted to be. They deliberately chose the simplest >reasonable approximation so that people could easily calculate the statutory >equinox (remember, this was before the Hindu-Arabic number system). They >did not want to make the law so hermetic that certain communities would not >observe it correctly. Another thing they did, to simplify calculation, is >to implement the concept of the `statutory sunset' which always occurs at >18:00. Thus, whenever the statutory equinox falls at 21:00 it is considered >to have fallen after sunset, and whenever it falls at 15:00 it is considered >to have fallen before sunset, regardless of when the sun actually sets in your >location. You will notice that eventually the statutory equinox will fall so >late in the year that we will have to start asking for rain after Passover -- >i.e., we will have to start asking after the time when we have to stop asking. >Our Sages expected that the Messiah would come long before that happened. >After the Messiah comes no Jew will reside in Exile, so the problem will disappear. > >Now you know all about Babylon. What about Toronto? What about Chicago? >What am I doing asking for rain in Chicago in the dead of winter, when nothing >grows? The answer is that, theoretically, I shouldn't be doing so. The custom >has arisen, among Jews all over the world, to ask for rain at the same time >that the Jews in Babylon ask for rain. There is no basis in law for this >custom. I will repeat that sentence, so you will know that I did not mistakenly >say something I did not mean: There is no basis in law for this custom. >A community should pray for rain when it needs rain. Several outstanding rabbis >attempted during the Middle Ages to correct this erroneous custom, but none >succeeded. No such attempts have been made in the past couple of hundred years, >because if the earlier rabbis who commanded the loyalty and respect of their >communities failed to change their custom, then the custom is surely too ingrained >to be changed by today's leaders. This is unfortunate, but when this state of >affairs improves it will lead to the coming of the Messiah, after which (as stated >earlier) the problem will disappear. > >What do we do in the meantime? How can we pray for rain if we don't need it? >How can we pray for rain if we not only do not need it, but also if rain would >be absolutely harmful to the local agriculture? Well, you will notice that the >times of the year when Jews in Exile pray for rain is a proper subset of the >times of the year when Jews in Israel pray for rain. Whenever we are praying >for rain in Toronto, they are also praying for rain in Israel. So, if you cannot >sincerely ask for rain where you live, because it might cause harm to the crops, >then think about Israel, not your own area, when you say `vten tal umatar'. > > jfs -- { ihnp4!utzoo pesnta utcs hcr decvax!utcsri } !lsuc!dave