Fasting and Prayer: Drought and Crisis

 

Translated and adapted by Rav Eliezer Kwass

 

[The following article is based on a shiur by our teacher the Gaon Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik zt"l printed in "Shiurim Le-zekher Avi Mori", volume I, pp. 179-199.] 

 

            The 17th of Marcheshvan is a date which bears halakhic significance.  The mishna in Ta'anit teaches: "If the 17th of Marcheshvan arrived and it had not yet rained - [special] individuals began to observe three fast days."  These fast days are of the lenient variety.  Only eating and drinking are prohibited, and the fast is limited to the daytime.  If the drought continues until the second week of Kislev, the type of fast days decreed is of the stringent type; it begins at night and includes all 5 restrictions - eating and drinking, washing, anointing, marital relations and wearing shoes.  The gemara (Ta'anit 19a) limits this system of three fast days to a situation in which it had not rained at all until the 17th, "but if the first rain had already fallen, and they had sown and either the seeds had not sprouted or they sprouted but grew abnormally - we sound the alarm immediately."

 

            Rashi and Tosafot (18b, s.v. Matri'in) explain that "we sound the alarm immediately" means putting the stringent fasts into effect right away.  The rationale behind this explanation is clear: if the fields were sowed and the first rains fell and then stopped, there is a danger that the year's whole crop will be lost.  However, if it has not rained at all, the grain will not reach a critical stage until later in the season.  Only then, in mid-Kislev, are the most stringent fasts decreed.

 

            Our teacher Ha-gaon Harav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik zt"l has taught that a close reading of the Rambam reveals an approach that is the opposite of that of Rashi and Tosafot.  According to the Rambam, a complete communal fast day with all of its stringencies is decreed only if there is a total drought.  However, if some rains had already fallen and then the rainfall stopped, a lenient communal fast day is decreed - one which applies only during the daytime and without the added stringencies.  This approach demands an explanation.

 

            The Rambam sees the obligation to fast in times of trouble as based on Bemidbar 10:9: "When you go to war in your land against an enemy that oppresses you, you should sound the trumpets ("chatzotzerot") and be remembered before Hashem your God, and you will be saved from your enemies."  According to the Rambam this mitzva requires not only the blowing of trumpets but also the broader obligation of prayer, of crying out to God.  The sub-heading of Rambam's Hilkhot Ta'aniot, the laws of fast days, reads, "There is a positive commandment to cry out to God in any time of great trouble."

 

            In the body of Hilkhot Ta'aniot the Rambam does mention that the mitzva involves the act of blowing the trumpets, but it is clear that the true essence of this mitzva lies in crying out to God in prayer.  The sounding of the trumpets is only its external manifestation.  Hilkhot Ta'aniot (1:1) begins, "It is a positive biblical mitzva to cry out and blow the trumpets in a time of crisis."

 

            It is upon this foundation that the Rambam (ibid., 1:4) places the rabbinic obligation to fast in times of crisis: "And it is [a] rabbinic [commandment] to fast in the event of any crisis that befalls the community until they are mercifully answered from Heaven."

 

            According to this approach there is, apparently, no reason to distinguish between different types of crises.  The verse, "When you go to war in your land against an enemy that oppresses you," is explained by the Sifrei: "How do we know that this war includes blasts of the wind ("shidafon") or grain disease ("yerakon")...?  The verse says, 'against an enemy that oppresses you,' ("al ha-tzar ha-tzoreir etkhem") including any crisis  ("Tzar" is seen to mean a crisis ["tzara"], not only an enemy)."  Once the mitzva is expanded to all types of crises, why distinguish one from the others?

 

            However, the Rambam does, in fact, distinguish between different types of crises.  In the first chapter of Hilkhot Ta'aniot (1:8) he writes: "These fast days declared because of troubles ...  It is permissible to eat at night even though the following day will be a fast day - EXCEPT FOR FASTS OVER RAIN."  In other words, fasts over lack of rain, in contrast to fasts declared because of various other problems, begin at night.  He writes in the third chapter (3:11): "On all community fasts outside the Land of Israel it is permissible to eat the night before, like on other [minor] fast days.  For we only decree a fast day like Yom Kippur on the community in the Land of Israel, and only because of drought."  The extra prohibitions beyond eating and drinking (e.g. washing and the like) are reserved for fasts during a drought and do not apply to fasts over other crises.  [The Rambam's source for this law is R. Yirmia bar Abba's statement (Ta'anit 11b): "There is no communal fast in Bavel except for Tish'a Be-Av."  See the Ramban's comments there.]

 

            At the beginning of the second chapter (2:1) the Rambam lists those events which demand the declaration of a fast day: "These are the crises over which the community must fast and sound the trumpets - threat from enemies of Israel, war, plague, ... and drought."  Further on in the chapter (2:15,16) the Rambam elaborates: "What is meant by [fasting] 'over rain?'  If there were excessive rains to the degree that it distressed them - they should pray concerning them...  If grain sprouted, then the rains stopped and the crop began to dry out, they should fast and cry out [in prayer] until rain falls or until the crop [totally] dries out."

 

            The subject of this last halakha in the Rambam is the situation we quoted at the beginning of our discussion - grain which began to grow but whose growth was halted by the rainfall stopping.  In contrast to this situation, the Rambam, in the beginning of the third chapter of Hilkhot Ta'aniot, describes a situation of complete drought: "If rain does not fall at all from the beginning of the rainy season: If the 17th of Marcheshvan arrives and rain has not yet fallen, talmidei chakhamim alone fast on Monday and Thursday and the following Monday ..."

 

            The Rav, zt"l, divined the essence of these two halakhot from their placement in the Rambam.  The problem of rain that started and then stopped prematurely appears in the second chapter, along with other crises like the sword, plague, wind and crop disease.  Over these we fast (a minor fast) immediately.  In contrast, a drought involving a total lack of rainfall from the beginning of the rainy season is brought in the third chapter.  Only there does the Rambam enumerate the order of fasts mentioned in the mishnayot of Ta'anit, culminating in the most stringent.  The Rambam apparently distinguishes between no rainfall and discontinued rainfall.  Why?

 

            At the beginning of Hilkhot Ta'aniot (1:2,3) the Rambam explains the biblical source of crying out in prayer and sounding the trumpets: "This is part of the process of repentance.  When a crisis comes and they cry out in prayer and sound the trumpets, all will know that trouble came about because of their evil actions ...  This will cause them to remove the trouble from upon themselves.  However, if they do not cry out and do not sound the trumpets and say, 'This is just a natural occurrence, the problem is mere happenstance,' this is criminal indifference and causes them to cling to their evil ways and will only bring on more troubles.  This is what the Torah means when it says, 'If you remain indifferent (be-keri) to me, then I will be indifferent to you in fury (chamat keri)' (Vayikra 26:27-28).  In other words, when I bring about a crisis so that you should repent, if you say that it is a mere chance ('keri') I will add to it the fury of that 'chance'."

 

            When the Rambam sets out to define the types of troubles which generate the obligation of prayer and the sounding of trumpets, he uses terms which relate clearly to God's providence over His creatures.  It is as if God (as it were) is knocking on the doors of our hearts and asking, "Return, return from your evil ways."

 

            When there is no rain at all, the spiritual problem is on a completely different plane, and there is, therefore, a need for a very different type of human reaction.  In parashat Eikev (Devarim 11:10-12), the Torah says: "For the land to which you are going to, to inherit it, is not like the land of Egypt which you left, where you sow your seed and then irrigate it with your feet like a vegetable garden.  The land to which you are passing over to go and inherit is a land of mountains and valleys, where you drink water from the rain of the heavens.  It is a land which Hashem your God looks after; constantly Hashem your God's eyes are on it, from the beginning of the year until its end."

 

            These verses express the uniqueness of the Land of Israel where Divine Providence is felt clearly and continually, and one of its main expressions is through rainfall.  The Rav, zt"l, learned from here that the lack of rain is a sign of the absence of the Divine Presence.  When rain does not fall at all - everything is dry, there is no voice from Heaven, no response.  Total drought cannot be included in the list of war-like crises, for war is an expression of Providence, a Divine reaction to our deeds.  This is not the case with a total lack of rain which expresses, God forbid, a state of "hester panim," a hiddenness of the Divine Face.  It follows naturally that the obligation and nature of fasting for total drought are completely different from those that apply to "providential" crises like war, plague, blight and the like.  The prototype of such a fast is Tish'a Be-Av which exemplifies the hiddenness of the Divine Presence.

 

            Lately, we have witnessed much rainfall, yet one calamity follows the next.  [The above was said at the end of a week in which two soldiers in Tzahal - Nachshon Wachsman and Nir Poraz, Hy"d - were killed by terrorists, and twenty-two Jews were killed in a tragic terrorist attack in Tel Aviv - ed.]  It is our obligation to properly assess the import of the events and to discern their spiritual significance.  Providence is, as it were, at our door, knocking - painful and shocking knocks - and demanding, "Return to me and I will return to you."  We have begun to cry out in prayer and to sound the alarm, and we must continue.  May it be that through the merit of our sounding of the chatzotzerot, our prayer and our cries, we should be able to see the fulfillment of the promise at the end of that verse in Bemidbar, "You will be remembered before Hashem your God and you will be saved from your enemies."

 

(This article originally appeared in Alon Bogrim #5, Kislev 5755, pp. 107-109.)