[Avodah] rain on succot

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 01:14:34AM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote:
: where to find it -- the idea that if you prepare the sukka and want to go in
: and make kiddush and have a se'udah there but then it rains, it's like "the 
: father who spits in his daughter's face," our offering is rejected, the bad  
: weather seems to indicate Divine displeasure with us. But this is only true 
: on the first night of Sukkos. It would be unreasonable to expect no rain for 
: the whole week, everywhere in the world where there are Jews...

Mishnah Sukkah 2:9 (trans. mine)
    All 7 days a person treats his sukkah [as though it were] permanent,
    and his home [as though it were] transitory.
    If rain falls, from when may one go in[to his home]? When the porridge
    becomes liquidy. They make a parable for it, what the thing is like:
    To a servant who came to pour wine for his master, and he pours the
    flagon in his face.

One could argue only the reisha refers to all 7 days, even though the
seifa is about how qeva is the reisha's "qeva".

Or one could argue it's only about EY, where siyata deShmaya is supposed
to be more obvious, and rain even in the later of chagei Sukkos is rare.
(I think Hoshana Rabba on Oct 25 2013 will be the latest in this 19 yr
cycle.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
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