“[As explained in the previous post, the month of Cheshvan serves as an example of how we must engage with, and interact in, this physical world in order to elevate the realm of the material to the realm of the spiritual.]

In Israel, we add a request for rain to our prayers starting from the 7th day of Cheshvan [this prayer is added on December 4th outside of Israel].

The Hebrew word for ‘physicality, ‘gashmiut‘, literally means ‘raininess,’ the word for rain being ‘geshem‘.

[This is in contrast to other languages, that translate the word gashmiut as something material, aka, something that can be owned or consumed.]

We see rain as the physical manifestation of the life force at its very source, it is the source of being and becoming.

When we open our minds to see the rainfall for the blessing it is, each time it rains, our awareness is altered. The Talmud tells us that rain is an enormous statement of God’s presence in the day-to-day world…”