On Shemini Atzeret we started saying משיב הרוח ומוריד הגשם (prayer for rain) in Shemoneh Esrei. This week, Parshat Bereishit tells us about the first rain that ever fell on the world, and why it was held back until a person was there to pray for it.
וְכֹל שִׂיחַ הַשָּׂדֶה טֶרֶם יִהְיֶה בָאָרֶץ וְכָל עֵשֶׂב הַשָּׂדֶה טֶרֶם יִצְמָח כִּי לֹא הִמְטִיר ה’ אֱ-לֹהִים עַל הָאָרֶץ וְאָדָם אַיִן לַעֲבֹד אֶת הָאֲדָמָה׃ בראשית 2:5
The grasses of the field hadn’t grown, because Hashem had not brought rain upon the earth, and there was no man to work the ground.
But, we just read that on third day the Torah already said וַתּוֹצֵא הָאָרֶץ דֶּשֶׁא, “the earth brought forth grass” (1:12). How can the Torah now tell us, on the sixth day, that nothing had grown yet?
Rashi – The Grass Waited for Adam
Rashi, based on the Gemara (Chullin 60b), explains that on the third day the plants came up only as far as the surface of the ground and stopped there until the sixth day. Why did no rain fall? לְפִי שֶׁאָדָם אַיִן לַעֲבֹד אֶת הָאֲדָמָה, וְאֵין מַכִּיר בְּטוֹבָתָם שֶׁל גְּשָׁמִים. There was no one to work the land, and no one to recognize the good of rain. וּכְשֶׁבָּא אָדָם וְיָדַע שֶׁהֵם צֹרֶךְ לָעוֹלָם, הִתְפַּלֵּל עֲלֵיהֶם וְיָרְדוּ. When Adam came and understood that rain is a basic need of the world, he prayed for it, it fell, and the trees and grass grew.
Notice the order in Rashi’s peirush. First comes hakarat hatov, recognizing the good. Then comes tefillah. Only then does the rain fall. The Gemara in Chullin gives the reason in the words of Rav Assi: לְלַמֶּדְךָ שֶׁהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מִתְאַוֶּה לִתְפִלָּתָן שֶׁל צַדִּיקִים, “to teach you that Hashem desires the prayers of the righteous.” The world was finished, and it was still waiting for one thing: a person who would recognize what he was given and ask for it.
Ramban – A Field Needs Someone to Work It
The Ramban, offers another explanation. The plants did come out fully formed on the third day. Our pasuk is telling us something profound: there was no one to plant and sow, and nothing would continue to grow until moisture rose from the ground and man was formed to work the land. That is why the pasuk says שִׂיחַ הַשָּׂדֶה, “shrub of the field,” and not “of the ground.” A sadeh is land that is worked. That is how the world runs: the moisture brings the rain, and the rain brings the crops. Like Rashi, the Ramban is saying that creation was built and needed a person to cultivate it.
Rabbeinu Bachya – “Siach” Means Prayer
Rabbeinu Bachya asks why the pasuk says שִׂיחַ הַשָּׂדֶה (shrubs) rather than עֲצֵי הַשָּׂדֶה, (trees)? This is because siach is related to לָשׂוּחַ בַּשָּׂדֶה (Bereishit 24:63), when Yitzchak went out to the field to daven. Chazal read that word as prayer (tefilat mincha – afternoon prayer). The Torah is hinting that every tree and plant praises Hashem in its own way.
The Netziv – Parnassah Comes Through Avodah
The Netziv (Ha’amek Davar) builds on this point. Siach means fixed, regular tefillah, which Chazal call avodah shebalev, the service of the heart. He explains that from the very beginning of creation, Hashem set things up so that a person’s livelihood (parnassah) comes through avodah: the korbanot in their proper place, or tefillah in every place. So when the pasuk says וְאָדָם אַיִן לַעֲבֹד אֶת הָאֲדָמָה, the Netziv reads it as: there was not yet any person who needed this kind of avodah, meaning tefillah. Man didn’t yet exist.
The Gemara in Berachot (35b): כָּל הַנֶּהֱנֶה מִן הָעוֹלָם הַזֶּה בְּלֹא בְּרָכָה כְּאִילּוּ גּוֹזֵל לְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא וּכְנֶסֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל. Whoever benefits from this world without a bracha is as if he steals from Hashem and from Klal Yisrael. The Netziv explains why it is stealing. A bracha is not only a thank-you. It is what brings more blessing into that food. A person who skips it is holding back the natural order of good that Hashem wants to give us. Think about that the next time you say a Shehakol for your morning cup of coffee – as if the coffee itself wasn’t pleasing, Hashem wants to add even more good when we have proper Kavanah (intention) in our brachot (blessings).
The Malbim – Geshem and Matar
The Malbim adds a distinction between two kinds of rain. There is natural rain that comes from the vapor rising from the earth, which he calls geshem, and he says it carries no blessing. And there is rain that comes from Hashem’s direct providence, matar, which carries blessing. That second kind, the Malbim says, falls only through a person’s merit and his tefillah. That is why the pasuk uses the Name Hashem Elokim, the Name of providence, when it says לֹא הִמְטִיר.
We will feel this in our own davening very soon. In Eretz Yisrael, וְתֵן טַל וּמָטָר לִבְרָכָה begins on the seventh of Cheshvan, and in chutz la’aretz in early December. We ask for matar, and we ask that it come livracha.
Two Sides of the Same Middah
Now look at what happens to that same Adam, the one whose recognition brought the first rain, less than a chapter later. When Hashem asks him whether he ate from the tree, he answers:
הָאִשָּׁה אֲשֶׁר נָתַתָּה עִמָּדִי הִוא נָתְנָה לִּי מִן הָעֵץ וָאֹכֵל׃
“The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” (3:12)
Rashi says it in three words: כָּאן כָּפַר בַּטּוֹבָה, “here he denied the good (of Hashem).” The Gemara (Avodah Zarah 5a–b) says that Moshe Rabbeinu called Bnei Yisrael כְּפוּיֵי טוֹבָה בְּנֵי כְּפוּיֵי טוֹבָה, ungrateful children of an ungrateful father, and the proof that Adam was ungrateful is this very pasuk.
The Ramban explains what Adam meant: “the woman whom You, in Your honor, gave me as a helper, she gave it to me, and I thought that whatever she told me would be for my help.” Chazal call this ingratitude because in effect Adam was saying to Hashem: You caused me this stumbling, since You gave me the wife who gave me bad advice. The greatest gift Adam had received became his excuse.
Here is the main point. Hakarat hatov and taking responsibility are really one middah. A person who truly recognizes what he has been given cannot turn around and blame the Giver. And a person who blames the Giver has, in that moment, stopped seeing the gift. Adam at his best recognized the good of rain and prayed, and the world began to grow. Adam at his lowest pointed at his gift and at Hashem, and the world was cursed: אֲרוּרָה הָאֲדָמָה בַּעֲבוּרֶךָ (3:17).
From Tishrei to Cheshvan
This year, Shabbat Bereishit falls on Erev Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan. We leave a month full of Yamim Tovim and enter a month with none. The question for Cheshvan is whether the teshuva of Tishrei carries over into ordinary days.
Bereishit gives us a simple tool for this. Three times a day, every time we say Mashiv haruach u’morid hageshem, we repeat Adam’s first tefillah: we recognize that rain is a need of the world, and we ask Hashem for it.
May we merit to recognize every gift that Hashem gives us, to daven for what we need with a full heart, and to receive גִּשְׁמֵי בְרָכָה, rains of blessing, in their proper time.
Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov,
Moshe
Tishrei 5787