Following Pesach Bnei Brak Mayor Rav Avrohom Rubinstein visited HaGaon HaRav Chaim Kanievsky Shlita to explain a problem concerning a mikve. On that day there was rain to the benefit of the new mikve on Bari Street in the Shuchun Gimmel area of the city.
Rubinstein explained “We need rainwater for the mikve, asking the Gadol Hador if it is permissible to daven for rain after Pesach towards filling the mikve. The rav is quoted as acknowledging that rain during the summer season is not a bracha, and therefore one may not daven specifically for rain to fill the mikve. The rav is then quoted adding the current rainfall would continue until the mikve is full.
The mikve is filling as it was a rainy Shabbos in Bnei Brak, Yerushalayim, Tzfas and elsewhere, and forecasters predict continued rainfall for portions of this week as well. This follows a week of unseasonably cold and rainy weather. For some, those aware of the rav’s words, the rainfall this late in the season comes as no surprise since the rav said it would be so.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
Bearing in mind that everything on the calendar comes out so early this year, it simply isn’t so late on the calendar for rain.
Mr. 147 your comment is total kefira! According to the Torah and mishna and gemara its not supposed to rain after pesach no matter when pesach falls out in the solar calender.
You think it’s early this year? Next year Rosh Hashanah is the night of September 4th. That’s the earliest it’s been in centuries. Chanukah falls before Thanksgiving.
However, you are correct that Pesach was early this year, and that is usually stops raining before Pesach. But we’re getting close to a month after Pesach and it’s still raining. This is kind of late, just not unheard of.
While Rosh Hashana and Chanukah will be the earliest we have ever seen, that will be adjusted when we hit two months of Adar after that. I believe that it is brought down somewhere (based on a gemara in Taanis?) that these rains after Pesach have special Beracha and medicinal qualities. I have seen Yerushalmiyim walking with their mouths open to catch the drops for that reason.