[Avodah] rain on succot

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 09:24:01AM -0400, T613K at aol.com wrote:
: I think the premise of the question is incorrect. Sukkos falls late-ish
: once in a while only because we stuck in an extra month to make
: Pesach fall late so that Pesach would be in the spring and not in the
: winter. However normally Sukkos is an autumn, not a winter, festival,
: and the calendar is so arranged that it normally is not [yet] the rainy
: season when Sukkos comes. It's /not/ "supposed" to be a holiday of the
: rainy season.

But HQBH obviously knew about Tishrei being late in the season as a
consequence of Nissan having to be chodesh haAviv. I would be forced to
conclude it is "supposed" to be that way. There is no "pesiq reishei"
or mis'aseiq WRT HQBH. All side-effects are part of the design.

All derashos aside, there is a simple reason for why Sukkos is when it
is. After all, it has an agricultural component; Chag haAsif has to be
at the time of asifah. And, while wallowing in our financial success,
the tendency toward crediting "kochi ve'otzem yadi" is balanced with
4 minim, with the sukkah reminding us the true Source of security, in
short that there is another Shutaf in one's success. This message must
be at the time of asifah, and thus at the edge of the rainy season.

For historical data of when the rainy season started over a 30 yr
period, see http://geo.haifa.ac.il/~kutiel/JAE-2004-59.pdf .
> The rainy season starts on the first day in which the rainfall amount
> equals or exceeds a specified threshold value. For example, for
> the lowest daily threshold (0.1 mm), the first day with a measurable
> rainfall (3.7 mm) at KRAN in 1982/83 was 28 September, or the 28th day
> (Table 1). For the 10mm daily threshold, this happened on 24 October
> (the 54th day), and for the 20mm daily threshold on 9 November (the
> 70th day). The first accumulated amount of 20mm in consecutive rain
> days within a rain spell (hereafter ARWS) was obtained 1 day earlier,
> on 8 November (0.3 + 14.3 + 6.4 = 21.0 mm), or the 69th day. New data
> series were created from these dates and arranged

Since yoreh is described as the first rains and as particularly heavy,
it would seem that a normal first rain was more like the early Nov date,
and thus the rain on 24 Oct was out of season. As was this year's
sunshower in Y-m on erev RH.

(BTW, it was pointed out to me in private email that while Oct 25th is
the latest date for Hoshanah Rabba for the foreseeable future, it didn't
happen in 2005.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             With the "Echad" of the Shema, the Jew crowns
micha at aishdas.org        G-d as King of the entire cosmos and all four
http://www.aishdas.org   corners of the world, but sometimes he forgets
Fax: (270) 514-1507      to include himself.     - Rav Yisrael Salanter