Abstract: This short essay considers our physical and spiritual dependence on rainfall, and the connection to contemporary water-use issues.

The Forgotten Language of Rain

by Jeremy Benstein

Even after there's Mideast peace, and we're all sitting comfortably in the shade of our vine and fig tree, there's one aspect of Israeli life that will be a constant source of anxiety: water. And unlike, say, Egypt or Iraq, Israel is dependent on one kind of water supply: rain. Our mightiest streams are tiny trickles compared to the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates. Whether it takes water from the perennially depleted Kinneret, or from rain-nourished underground aquifers - Israel, to quote the Torah portion of Ekev, "drinks the rain."

The Torah emphasizes the theological significance of this fact. Deuteronomy 11:10-13 says: "For the land... is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come. There the grain you sowed had to be watered by your own labors... [here] a land of hills and valleys drinks the rain of heaven for its water. It is a land that the Lord your God looks after...." Rain - the physical connection between heaven and earth - is the most direct expression of the Divine abundance that we experience in the natural world. It represents the relationship between God and the land, between God and the Jewish people - and the special connectedness of Jews and the Land of Israel. The centrality of rain in Jewish tradition only makes sense when seen as part of a local, indigenous culture and society. It might be said that we speak the very language of rain. Classic Hebrew boasts of at least six different words for liquid precipitation (geshem, matar, yoreh, malkosh, revivim, se'irim) which denote different times and intensities of rainfall. The simple words for wind and rain, ru'ah and geshem, are the metonymic Hebrew terms for spirit and matter - gashmi'ut referring to the physicality of the natural world.

Rain and justice

In a passage made well-known through its inclusion in the Shema prayer, the Torah ties the Divine outpouring of rain to the moral level of society: "If, then you obey [My] commandments... I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain (yoreh) and the late (malkosh)... and thus you shall eat your fill. Take care not to be lured away... for [God] will shut up the skies so there will be no rain and the ground will not yield up its produce" (11:13-17).
For many people today, modern "sophistication" precludes literal acceptance of such straightforward theodicy. As an environmentalist, aware of the deep connections between societal and environmental ills - as in the case of urban sprawl or of rampant consumerism - I have no doubt that the moral tenor of relationships in society has deep implications for a healthy environment. The reverse may be true as well. Prof. Eliezer Schweid points out possible political ramifications of a people's exclusive dependence on uncertain rainfall: "According to the Biblical stories, in the great riverine countries a nation's sense of ownership of its land and mastery of its destiny is reinforced, leading to the development of tyrannical regimes and slavery. In lands that drink rainwater… man constantly senses his dependence on God, and for that reason such a land will sustain a regime of justice free of subjugation." Whether one accepts this rather extreme form of environmental determinism or not, dependence on rainfall, and in general on the natural world and its resources not humanly produced or controlled, had an existential significance for Jews in their land.

Irrigating highways

Or so it did in antiquity. But does it still? Here the Biblical and environmental "agendas" come together: Both abhor human arrogance and warn of its consequences. Deuteronomy 8:17 warns of one whose affluence has bloated his ego and boasts: "My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me." Israelis may still have a very healthy obsession with the seasonal level of the Kinneret, and thus a certain recognition of dependence on powers beyond our control. But as Israel's economic affluence grows (for some), based particularly on the abstractions of technology, the spiritual connection to the natural world is increasingly abandoned as archaic, as is human humility and a sense of dependence on nature. An indication of this is the steady disappearance of farming, the ongoing productive relationship between people and the soil, from the Israeli landscape, in favor of upscale housing and high-tech industries. As a result, the physical, gashmi, side is adversely affected as well: Land that once thirstily "soaked up" rainfall, whose healthy forests and abundant topsoil made optimal use of scant, inconsistent precipitation, is increasingly covered in highways, parking lots and buildings, leading to wasteful runoff, increased flooding and water shortages. A deep-rooted environmental response, healing the rupture between adam and adamah, human and earth, must relate to the spiritual no less than the physical, the ru'ah along with the geshem.

Dr. Jeremy Benstein is Deputy Director of The Heschel Center and author of The Way into Judaism And the Environment.