Today we start to study a new tractacte, Ta’anit, which opens with a declaration of God’s awesome power to bring rain, and the mystery of why it falls.
תענית ב, א
כְּתִיב הָכָא: ״עֹשֶׂה גְדֹלוֹת עַד אֵין חֵקֶר״, וּכְתִיב הָתָם: ״הֲלוֹא יָדַעְתָּ אִם לֹא שָׁמַעְתָּ אֱלֹהֵי עוֹלָם ה׳ בּוֹרֵא קְצוֹת הָאָרֶץ לֹא יִיעַף וְלֹא יִיגָע אֵין חֵקֶר לִתְבוּנָתוֹ״, וּכְתִיב: ״מֵכִין הָרִים בְּכֹחוֹ נֶאְזָר בִּגְבוּרָה״.
It is written here: “Who does great things that are beyond comprehension,” and it is written there, with regard to the creation of the world: “Have you not known? Have you not heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not grow faint or weary? His discernment is beyond comprehension” (Isaiah 40:28). This shows that both creation and rainfall are beyond comprehension.
Over the next several pages, the rabbis cite many further examples of this power.
תענית ז, ב
אָמַר רַבִּי חָמָא בְּרַבִּי חֲנִינָא: גָּדוֹל יוֹם הַגְּשָׁמִים כְּיוֹם שֶׁנִּבְרְאוּ שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ
Rabbi Hama son of Rabbi Hanina said: The day of the rains is as great as the day on which the heavens and earth were created…
אָמַר רַב אוֹשַׁעְיָא: גָּדוֹל יוֹם הַגְּשָׁמִים, שֶׁאֲפִילּוּ יְשׁוּעָה פָּרָה וְרָבָה בּוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״תִּפְתַּח אֶרֶץ וְיִפְרוּ יֶשַׁע״. אָמַר רַבִּי תַּנְחוּם בַּר חֲנִילַאי: אֵין הַגְּשָׁמִים יוֹרְדִים אֶלָּא אִם כֵּן נִמְחֲלוּ עֲוֹנוֹתֵיהֶן שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״רָצִיתָ ה׳ אַרְצֶךָ שַׁבְתָּ שְׁבִית יַעֲקֹב. נָשָׂאתָ עֲוֹן עַמֶּךָ כִּסִּיתָ כל חַטָּאתָם סֶלָה״.
Rabbi Oshaya likewise said: The day of rain is great, as rain even facilitates salvation, which is fruitful and multiplies on that day. It is a time of God’s favor, when salvation is brought forth into the world, as it is stated: “Let the earth open that they may bring forth salvation” (Isaiah 45:8).
And according to Rabbi Tanhum, a rainy day demonstrates that “all of the Jewish people’s transgressions have been forgiven.” It is like another Yom Kippur.
Rabbi Tanhum bar Hanilai said: Rain falls only if the Jewish people’s transgressions have been forgiven, as it is stated: “Lord, You have been favorable to Your land; You have turned the captivity of Jacob; You have forgiven the iniquity of Your people; You have pardoned all their sin. Selah”
why it rains
With science explaining more and more, the role of God seems to be rapidly shrinking. And the rain is a perfect example. We once thought that the only explanation for rain is that it is brought by God. We now understand that rain falls when water droplets condense onto one another within a cloud. Eventually these droplets grow too heavy to stay suspended, and they fall to the ground as rain. There are also larger regional effects, for example, like low pressure barometric systems whose origins lie in the irregular way in which the sun heats the surface of the earth. And then there is the El Nino climate pattern, which might not have done much to change the weather in the ancient Near East, but certainly cannot be ignored. It is caused by the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. “The 1997-98 event produced drought conditions in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Peru experienced very heavy rains and severe flooding. In the United States, increased winter rainfall hit California, while the Midwest experienced record-breaking warm temperatures during a period known as “the year without a winter.” How then, might we think about the awesome power of God to bring rain, when we know so many of the steps that are involved?
The God of the Gaps
The God of the Gaps, in which God is invoked to explain that which science had not yet been able to, seems to have been first invoked by Nietzsche (1844-1900): “[I]nto every gap they put their delusion, their stopgap, which they called God." (Friedrich Nietzsche, The Portable Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufman (London: Penguin, 1988), 204). But to use God to explain that which our incomplete knowledge cannot is doomed to give the divine an ever-shrinking place. The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was murdered by the Nazis in 1945 understood this very well. “For the frontiers of knowledge are inevitably being pushed back further and further,” he wrote in his Letters from Prison, “which means that you only think of God as a stop-gap. He also is being pushed back further and further, and is in more or less continuous retreat. We should find God in what we do know, not in what we don't know. God wants us to realize his presence, not in unsolved problems but in those that are solved. “ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (New York: Touchstone, 1997, 311).
The challenge, then, for moderns, is not to view God as the source of rain because we don’t understand why it rains. It is to understand everything about the weather, and still allow Him a place. And that is far harder.
