Chief Rabbi of Israel Rav Kalman Ber issued a psak to start saying the prayer for rain due to the shortage of adequate rainfall this year so far. Rav Ber points out the farmers who are desperate for water. Everyone should pray Hashem should have mercy on His netion and His land and rain down upon us rains of blessing.

Due to the shortage of rain while we have already arrived at the middle of the month of Kislev, the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Rav Kalman Ber and Rav Dovid Yosef, has issued a psak that the prayer "Aneinu" for rain should now be added to our daily services.

A couple weeks back the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Ravvi Dovid Lau, paskened that the special prayer for rain should be added to our prayers considering the dry winter. The Eida Hachareidis also called on people to add the prayer for rain to their supplications.

The Rabbanut, led by Chief Rabbis Rav Yosef and Rav Lau, has called upon the praying public to pray for rain, each community according to its nusach and style.

INN is reporting that Rav Yitzchak Zilbershtein, in his shiur on Shabbos, paskened that people should start adding the special entreaty for rain in their Shmoneh Esrei prayers as of today, Sunday.

Sorry, but I have to say it. This Carmel storm, what was expected to be the storm of the century, or maybe the storm of the year, has been nothing but a dud. Just some regular winter weather -  a little bit of cold and wind, a couple days of sporadic rains, and that's about it. 

After 20 days have passed with no rain Israel, and one on the horizon for the immediate future, Rav Yaakov Chaim Klein, the rav of Moshav Yesodot, has issued a psak calling on the public to add the special prayer for rain (VaAneinu Borei Olam...) in Shmoneh Esrei.

compare these two pictures..
the top picture is the Tiberias coastline, one year ago - January 2019
the bottom picture is the same Tiberias coastline today - January 2020

an amazing difference from just a few weeks of rain...though I do feel a little bad for all the people/businesses/city that invested money in building a boardwalk and structures and sites that are now destroyed and under water...

photo credit: Yuval Gesser)

During the stormy weather on Shabbos, the poor infrastructure in parts of Tel Aviv failed, as it does just about every year during the few days of heavy rains... the streets of some Tel Aviv neighborhoods resembled Venice more than Israel. People could be seen kayaking and boogie boarding down streets that were turned into rivers. Sadly, it generally also leads to some tragedy every year. This year, among the tragedies, was a particularly horrific one as a couple, both 28 years old, died in an elevator when they went down to the building parking lot, below ground level, to check on their car. The entire parking level was completely flooded and the elevator got stuck int he water and flooded. Both of them died in the elevator from hypothermia (initial reports said they drowned in the elevator, but it seems they died of hypothermia). Emergency services had been called but it took them way too long to get their, due to all the flooding and dangers and blocked roads everywhere else on the way.

Without laying blame anywhere, and without knowing all the facts, and according to news reports an investigation is now under way to determine where the failure was that caused this tragedy who who was responsible for whatever that failure was, I saw this news report that made me wonder.

In the first ten or so minutes they show some of the craziness around Tel Aviv, and what happened in the elevator. They also talk with the owner of the building, just a year old - the building, not the owner - and that is the part that makes me wonder....

take a look for yourself...

She seems awfully defensive, to me. Screaming wildly and blaming the mayor for the infrastructure failure and flooding. It seems to me like she is trying to deflect any liability from herself.

I get people are upset. Who isn't? Who wouldn't be? She seemed a little over the top, to me, and a bit crazed in her attack on the mayor.

Maybe the mayor is responsible. I don't know. Maybe the owner of the building is responsible, in part perhaps, as the report suggests the drains in the parking level were all blocked and that is being checked. Maybe the national government is responsible. I don't know. It cannot be easy to rip up the infrastructure of an "old" city like Tel Aviv and redo it. I don't know who is responsible, but the owner looks, to me, more concerned with deflecting blame away from herself.. Maybe only one of them is responsible, or maybe all of them are each partially responsible. Or maybe none of them are and this is simply what the insurance companies call "an act of God".

What do you think?

Last winter was particularly harsh, with little rainfall. The regular water shortage in the country was exacerbated by the minimal rainfall last winter.

This years rainfall, so far, is well above average. The rivers are flowing, the Kinneret is rising, and all is good again.

Last winter, Minister of Agriculture Uri Ariel called for a prayer service because of the shortage. Ariel came under heavy criticism for trying to solve the problem, as a minister, by calling on people to pray.

Now that we are having a winter blessed with plentiful rain, Minister Uri Ariel is now calling for a mass prayer service at the Kotel to express our gratitude to Hashem for the rain. The mass prayer service will be held at the Kotel on Tu B'Shvat. That is, unless the Beis Hamikdash gets built first, though I am not sure why we no longer need to say thank you for the rain if the Beis Hamikdash gets built.

I don't have the necessary connections up there to know if it is last year's service that helped with this year's rains, but it can't hurt to say thank you...

Rav Menachem Perl, Director of the Tzomet Institute, has issued a psak that people working the meteorological services are allowed to measure the levels of rainfall on Shabbos.

After being asked what is allowed and in what way, Rabbi Perl went to the national forecast headquarters in Bet Dagan to see how the measuring of rainfall is accomplished. The people measuring the rainfall use some sort of device that catches the rain and directs it via a metal pipe into a bottle. They then pour the collected rain water, in the morning, into some sort of measuring container, record the numbers, and report it to the national headquarters.

Rabbi Perl decided that even though Chazal say it is prohibited to measure on Shabbos, lest it cause you to write the measurements down, or possibly as being similar to work done during the weekdays, filling the bottle to be measured after Shabbos was never prohibited. Because measuring rainfall is a public necessity, as the rain levels are used to determine climate issues and then extrapolated to agriculture and all sorts of other public needs in settlement, economics and whatnot, this is considered a public need and a necessity for dealing with mitzvos.

So, rabbi Perl concluded, the people measuring the rainfall can put their empty bottles out on Friday and replace it on Shabbos morning with another empty bottle. Tranfering the collected water to the measuring container should be done after the conclusion of Shabbos and only then report it to headquarters.
source: INN

 The Iranians are now accusing the Israelis of stealing their clouds. Actually,stealing clouds and/or extracting from the clouds the ability to create rain or snow.
sources: Times of Israel, Newsweek

I am pretty honored. They must think we are extremely smart and talented. I think this, stealing clouds, would be even more difficult than stealing all those documents about their nuclear program from right under their noses.

The only problem is that if we are stealing their rain and snow clouds, how come we are in the 5th year of a drought here in Israel and have to cut our showers down to 2 minutes,flush the toilet with the the half drain and turn off the water while brushing our teeth?

it only rained a few drops in Bet Shemesh, but in many parts of the country we have had significant amounts of rain today and yesterday... yes, in the middle of June!

the pictures above are from Sderot

The water authorities are calling on the people of Israel to take care to cut out as much waste of water as possible and to lessen their usage of water as much as possible. After 5 consecutive years of drought, the water situation in Israel is at its worst ever (in the 70 years of measuring) with all water levels being registered at historic lows. Minister Yuval Steinitz says that our water reserves are meant for a year or two years worth of water, not for 5, so the situation is currently extremely dire.

While they are looking for more solutions, they continue with desalinization and other solutions currently in effect.

To that end, the water authorities are calling on the public to put forth efforts to conserve more water. They suggest fixing any leaks that one might have in a home and not let them continue, such as toilet or faucet leaks - a dripping faucet can waste up to 60 liters of water a day. They encourage the public to flush using the small handle on the toilet, saving 18 liters a day. They are discussions with the various local authorities about limiting the usage of water in public gardens and parks. They ask for people to make efforts to shorten their showers by 2 minutes.
source: TheMarker

The obvious question is, if you already take just a two minute shower, should you stop showering altogether? if you take a 4 minute shower, can you get by on a 2 minute shower?

In Israel it is very rare for rain to fall after Pesach. The Gemara calls it a siman klala, though I heard in a drasha recently (though I dont remember what the source was) that this does not apply within the first 50 days after Pesach (I think it was 50, maybe 30), and if the farmers say they need the rain, it is not considered a bad omen even after that.

However, it is still very rare. In past years when it rained in the month of Iyyar, we learned of a segula of the chida that drinking from the rainfall is a segula for good health, or a refuah, based on an acronym and a passuk.

Today it has rained across Israel, and might rain some more tomorrow, though it is not yet Iyyar - it is still the month of Nissan. So, what segula do we associate with this?

It turns out that this too is a segula for health matters, even though it is not yet Iyyar. The sites are quoting Rav Pinchas of Koritz who wrote that when it rains between pesach and Shvuos it is good for healing all the ailments, unlike any other medical treatment, and that is to stand out in the rain, reveal one's head partially in order to allow it to rain on your head, and to open your mouth and let some rain fall into your mouth from the right side. After Shvuos, some rains are still good for healing.
sources: Behadrei and Kol Hai News

If you want to try this sgula out, it seems at least harmless and is free to try, so go for it while you still have a chance!

these images are from Bnei Braq this morning after heavy rains caused some serious flooding in the central region.

The worst part of this is that most of that water will go to waste..

I am not one to argue with Rav Shteinman, but this is just strange..

Ladaat is reporting that during the holiday of Sukkos, after the early rains, one of the UTJ askanim of Jerusalem went to Rav Shteinman. Among other things, this anonymous askan asked Rav Shteinman about the heavy early rains that caused people to not be able to eat in the sukka - many could barely even eat the minimum kzayis before having to run inside. As well, many sukkas were blown over by the strong winds. This askan asked Rav Shteinman in what we need to strengthen ourselves - what does this indicate as to what problems we are having?

Rav Shteinman responded that because it affected the entire city, it is a public problem rather than a localized, personal problem. He then blamed the mayor, Nir Barkat, as the cause for the rains and winds preventing people from eating in the sukka. "when there is a mayor like that, everybody knows the reason".

Did he actually say it or not is obviously a question when dealing with an anonymous quote. Besides for that, assuming he did say it, I guess we can count on a rainy winter this year. Interesting that all the rain dances, such as the various prayers, aravos, helicopters with mekubalim, and all sorts of other stuff, we do, and most of them dont work, at least not obviously, but just having Nir Barkat as mayor brings rain. Also weird that at the beginning of the winter, when we are always in a drought status, or close to it, the rian is considered bad that someone has to be blamed for it. I get that it prevented a mitzva, but still - the country always desperately needs rain...

Perhaps Nir Barkat will be able to boast in his next election campaign that he was even able to bring the rain.

It seems the first rains of the season, which were unusually heavy for the time of year but did not seem so major to me, caused about 6 million shekels worth of damage to Israeli agriculture.

my thoughts:
1. they should have kept shmitta. then this damage would have been lessened, or it wouldnt even matter.
2. don't these farmers know that come October the weather changes and rain begins to fall? How come every time it rains we have to hear about how much damage it did to crops - don't the farmers expect and prepare for rain? don't they own a Farmer's Almanac?

It sometimes bothers me how the Litvishe have become so Hassidishe in recent years, and the trend seems to be continuing.. it manifests itself in many ways, and in some ways they have even become more hassidishe than the hassidishe..

For some reason rain and mikva seems to be a common theme for the new hassishe rebbes.. Last year we had Rav Chaim Kanievsky promising rain for a new mikva.. this year we have Rav Shteinman promising rain for a mikva..

According to Bechadrei, prior to the last set of rains right before Purim, an organization dealing with the building of new mikvaot went to Rav Shteinman. They expressed their concern about the dry winter, in light of the amount of rain water needed for the opening of some new mikvaot that were under construction.

Rav Shteinman, reportedly, smiled and said there will still be more rain coming. Sure enough, just a few days later, and another storm with a weeks worth of rain hit Israel. On Purim, after the storms concluded, Rav Shteinman expressed satisfaction that the cisterns for the mikvaot had been filled.