Remembering Morid Ha’gashem

This week on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, daf yomi participants studied Maseches Ta‘anis, daf zayin. The daf starts off by describing the importance of rain to the world. Rav Yehudah says (as Maharsha explains it) that a day on which rain falls is as important to the physical body as is the day that the Torah was given important to the soul. The daf ends by mentioning that the solution for a time of drought is abundant prayers for rain.

Prayers for rain occupy an important part of Shemoneh Esreih. As is well known, in the United States we begin adding the phrase “And give dew and rain for blessing” to the ninth blessing of Shemoneh Esreih on the night of December 4 (or December 5 in the year before a civil leap year). This request for rain is so integral to our prayers that one who concluded his silent prayers (by saying “Yihyu leratzon imrei fi...”) and forgot to add this appeal for rain must recite the entire Shemoneh Esreih again.

Likewise, if someone forgot to add the phrase “Morid ha’gashem”—“He makes the rain descend” and already concluded his prayers, he must recite the entire Amidah again. If someone is uncertain whether or not he recited Morid ha’gashem, the halachah is as follows: If he has already been reciting Morid ha’gashem for 30 days, we assume that the proper recital has become habitual and that he said it. If he has been reciting Morid ha’gashem for less than 30 days, then it is assumed he recited what he was accustomed to—i.e., he did not say Morid ha’gashem—and must consequently repeat Shemoneh Esreih.

Sefer Ishei Yisrael (23:34) writes as follows: If someone began Shemoneh Esreih with intent to say Morid ha’gashem (less than 30 days after we begin to include it) and, immediately after concluding his prayers, he is uncertain whether or not he said it, he must assume that he did not say it. If, however, his doubt arises some time after his prayers, he can assume that he said Morid ha’gashem. What is the explanation for this?

Tova W. was a Jewish girl who lived in Memphis in the 1960s. Her father ran a liquor store there. On April 4, 1968, when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot on the balcony of a nearby motel, one of her father’s workers called him to tell him what had happened. Afraid that riots might break out, he quickly closed his shop and headed home. Meanwhile, Tova W. and her mother had plans for the day to shop for a new dress for an upcoming simcha. They heard what happened from a newscast on the radio. The advice being offered on the radio was to stay home; most people heeded this warning. Tova W. and her mother, however, stubbornly refused to let a little civil unrest deter them from their shopping plans.

They made their way to a clothing shop and found an appropriate dress to buy. They paid in cash. Back then, receipts were handwritten, and the proprietor of the store was in such a rush to close that he ushered them out of the store without a receipt. They went home only to discover their angry father/husband already home. He told them how stupid it had been to venture out in the city at a time of crisis, and he refused to grant them entry into the house. He told them that if they really liked it so much outside, they could stay outside. After enough time to let the lesson sink in, he let them in the house.

After Tova W. made herself at home, she tried on the dress, only to discover that it was too big; she had to exchange it. But she had no receipt! This turned out not to be a problem, as the shopkeeper remembered the two crazy shoppers who had ventured out to buy a dress amid the unrest following King’s shooting.

The shopkeeper remembered them because things out of the ordinary tend to stick in a person’s memory. Upon concluding one’s prayers, if an individual had in fact said the appropriate phrase which he was not yet accustomed to saying, he should remember that he did so. The fact that he is in a state of doubt so soon after his prayers can only mean that nothing out of the ordinary was recited and that he said what he was in the habit of saying. However, the addition of a phrase to Shemoneh Esreih is not so exceptional that he is expected to remember it a while later. So if the doubt only creeps up on him sometime after his prayers, he can rely on his original intentions of saying the correct phrase.

I hope you find this article to be at least somewhat exceptional. Have a good Shabbos.