[Avodah] Announcing Geshem

[Akiva Miller]

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In Dec 2011, in the thread "Announcing Tal Umatar", I asked why halacha
demands such critical announcements for starting and stopping the prayer
for Geshem, yet no formal announcements at all for starting and stopping
Tal Umatar. I got no response at all.

I asked the same question again in Oct 2015, in the thread "Announcing
Geshem". This time I did get one response, from R' Micha Berger, who wrote:

> Well, it does make sense to me that baqashos have a level of
> personalization that we do not find in shevach. I can insert
> whatever baqashos I want to add for birkhas hashanim, so things
> are more fluid there.
>
> My question is more your first one -- why must shevach be communal?
> Not making up your own adjectives for G-d, I understand; but even
> if I were to switch without everyone in the qehillah doing so yet
> (because of the lack of announcement), I wouldn't be doing that...

His answer seems very similar to what I found in a teshuva from Rav Hershel
Schachter,
https://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/950285/rabbi-hershel-schachter/piskei-corona-9-hallel-on-pesach-night-and-tefillas-tal/
released just yesterday, on how we should handle the switchover this coming
Pesach, when most of us will have no effective tzibur for the announcement.

The brackets are mine, parentheses are Rav Schachter's.

> There is a big difference between She'eila (V'sen Tal Umatar
> Livracha) and Hazkara (Mashiv Haruach). See what I wrote in
> the name of our Rav [Soloveitchik] in MiPeninei HaRav (section
> Tefila, number 5), that changing the descriptions of Hashem
> (from Mashiv Haruach to Morid Hatal) requires Reshus Hatzibur,
> and an individual is not allowed to make changes on his own.

So to answer *my* question, Tefilas Geshem and Tefilas Tal are not
informational. They don't simply inform us about the change, they
*authorize* the change. And that authorization is not needed in Barech
Aleinu.

And to answer RMB's question, I'd suggest learning that section of
MiPeninei HaRav.

(Rav Schachter did give his views there about what we should do in our
private Musafs this coming yom tov, but I need to learn it a few more
times, and understand it better, before I comment on it.)

Akiva Miller
Stay Home - Save Lives

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