Praying and Working for a Rainy Year - Sukkot

October 10-11, 2014 / 17 Tishrei 5775

Shabbat Chol HaMo’ed Sukkot

Torah Portion:  Exodus 33:12-43:26, Deuteronomy 16:13-17

Haftarah Portion: Ezekiel 38:18-39:16

“Praying and Working for a Rainy Year - Sukkot”

Dear Friends,

Many of the prayers and rituals that surround Sukkot focus on the prayer for abundant rain during the coming winter months. According to one Talmudic teaching (Sukkot 37b), we shake the Four Species (Palm, Myrtle, Willows, and Etrog) in all directions “to prevent harmful winds…and harmful dews.” Another tradition suggests that we shake the Four Species to indicate that God is everywhere and to pray that God will provide us with rain, abundance, and blessing in the coming year.  Now is also the time of year when we make an adjustment in the recitation of the Amidah/Standing prayer.  Throughout the spring and summer, we have been praying for dew.  With Sukkot and the start of fall and winter, we pray for rain – masheev haru’ah u’moreed hagashem.

Numerous Sukkot customs and prayers focus on the critical need for water in Israel and around the world. Yet, in addition to offering prayers, an innovative Israeli has created a system designed to conserve valuable water resources.

Israel is the leading nation in recycled wastewater, repurposing over eighty percent for agricultural use, far outpacing second place Spain, which reuses twelve percent. Besides the water we send down that drain, what about all the clean, drinkable rainwater that gets wasted when it is washed into storm sewers? Israeli high school teacher Amir Yechieli, founded Yevul Mayim in Jerusalem, and is developing a large-scale rooftop rain collection system. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports that in Israel alone, Yechieli’s water collection systems save about 100 days of water use a year at the schools where 120 of his systems are in operation. When installing a system in a school, he not only saves the school’s needed resources and Israel’s precious water, he also uses the system to teach students about water conservation and environmentalism. A number of African communities and schools have expressed interest in Yechieli’s simple system that uses small drums to filter rainwater and store it for future use. He hopes to install his systems in schools in Uganda and Haiti.

As we pray on Sukkot for an abundant, rainy winter, we also laud the efforts of a dedicated Israeli whose innovation is helping to conserve precious water resources in Israel and around the world.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Eitan Weiner-Kaplow