Israel's rabbis occasionally declare a day of fasting and prayer in the hopes that it could bring rain to the country in a drought. What is the religious doctrine behind such a calling?

Having recently returned from Israel, I am pleased to report that our prayers have been answered.  Mt. Hermon was covered in 30 cm of snow and most of Israel received a significant amount of rainfall.  The aquifers are being renewed and Lake Kinneret has risen by 3 cm thus averted the impending ecological disaster.

Jews praying for rain in times of drought is not a new phenomenon.  It dates back to the early rabbinic period some two millennia ago. The Mishnah Ta’anit is preoccupied with just this procedure.  Prayer and fasting and the blowing of the shofar are all included the rituals to combat drought.

The underlying religious doctrine, however, is more complicated.  The Torah (Deuteronomy 11) teaches that the withholding of rain is a direct result of national infidelity.  In other words, drought is a consequence of sin.  Hence, the remedy for drought is not prayer but repentance.  Presumably, the rituals mentioned in the Mishnah are predicated on adequate repentance.  However, if, as our tradition teaches, the sum total of annual rainfall is predetermined by God at Sukkot, then no subsequent prayers or procedures should be able to change that fact.  Otherwise, a significant theological challenge would result.  If God’s decision on rainfall can be changed by prayer it suggests that God did not anticipate the possibility that prayers would be offered and accepted, thus calling into question His omniscience.  Fortunately, our tradition has chosen to set aside this headache in favour of a favourable practical outcome.

The Israeli rabbis acted in accordance with an ancient practice mentioned in the Mishnah, the authoritative codification of Jewish law that was edited around the year 200 C.E. The text, found in the Mishnah’s tractate Ta`anit 1:5 (the word ta`anit literally means “a fast”), specifies that if the seasonal rains do not come to the land of Israel by the first of the month of Kislev, “the beit din (the rabbinical court) decrees three public fasts.” These fasts are from sunup to sundown.  More severe fasts are decreed in the event the drought continues beyond this point. November 18 was 11 Kislev on the Jewish calendar.

The “religious doctrine” behind this practice, of course, is that droughts can be seen as divine punishment for the sins of the community. This fast, like the more severe fasts on Tisha B`av and Yom Kippur, are aimed at atoning for those sins so that God will send the desperately needed rain.  Many of us, for good reason, no longer accept this doctrine in its literal form. We do not accept the idea that the natural universe works in accordance with human morality. Simply put: droughts, earthquakes, and volcanoes happen because they happen and not because we cause them by our evil behavior. On the other hand, there can be great moral and symbolic value in using natural calamities as moments to spur reflection and introspection. Besides, given what we’re learning about climate change, who is to say that our actions on this earth don’t contribute in some significant way to drought? Perhaps it’s not a bad idea to use the absence of rainfall – which ought to occur by this time of the year in Israel – as an opportunity to consider the effects of human activity upon the natural environment in general and upon climate in particular.

It could just be, in other words, that the Rabbis were on to something.