Unless it’s your birthday or anniversary, you might not think that either December 4th or 5th are noteworthy days; but actually, last night and today do have liturgical significance for Jewish daily worship. It doesn’t involve any shofar blowing or lulav shaking, but if you participated in our Maariv (evening) minyan Wednesday night, December 4th, or in our Shacharit (morning) minyan Thursday, December 5th, or if you prayed at home or elsewhere, you probably noticed that in the weekday Amidah, in the ninth blessing, called Birkat Hashanim, which begins with the words Bareich aleinu (Make this a blessed year…), we began including a different phrase than what we had been reciting in that paragraph since last Passover. There are two options of words to include within that paragraph: from Pesach until December 4th, the words of the blessing are V’tein bracha, and the other part of the year we say the words V’tein tal umatar livracha. What is this blessing, why does part of the liturgy change, and what is the significance of December 4th in the Jewish calendar?
In the weekday Amidah, the middle thirteen blessings are petitions in which we ask God to bring about the redemption of our people. These supplications are in the plural form, thus each worshiper prays for the needs of all Israel. As one of the blessings that deals with general human material needs, the blessing of the years, Birkat Hashanim, is a prayer for prosperity. As befits the early agricultural society of Israel, emphasis is placed on the produce of the land, specifically in Israel, and the need for rain in the proper season. Whereas in the second blessing of the Amidah we praise God for God’s mighty powers including (from Shemini Atzeret until Peasch) being the One who is the source of rain, in the blessing of Birkat Hashanim we actually pray for rain and dew. In the summer months, when there is no rain in the land of Israel, we ask only for blessing.
So what is the significance of December 4th? The Talmud (Eruvin 56a) records that in the Babylonian Diaspora the date for adding the words in this prayer was determined by the Equinox of Tishrei (the Autumnal Equinox). These words asking for rain are added to this blessing sixty days after the Equinox, which usually corresponds to December 4th, to give pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem for the Sukkot Festival enough time to return to their homes in Babylonia before the beginning of the rain! It was also felt that any rain before that time would damage the date crop. When there is a civil leap year, however, the time for beginning the recitation is delayed by one day.
I hope you find this information useful as you recite the weekday Amidah! I also encourage you to join CBI’s morning and evening minyanim, which are always on Zoom (and also in person on Friday mornings!) to help ensure that we will have the necessary quorum of 10 adults to be able to recite these blessings together as a community.
Cantor Lorna Wallach
