There are three rainfalls in Israel at the beginning of the winter. First, the fields are plowed and sown. Then the rains come and water them, and the growth shows in the spring.There are many different opinions as to the days when these rains are expected to fall. But what practical significance does it have?
For the early rainfall, the answer is clear: it falls at the beginning of the rain season, and we need to know when to start praying so that this rain should indeed come. For the last one, it is also apparent: if no rain fell by then, unique pious individuals would begin to fast.
The question is about the middle one: why do we need to know when to expect it? It turns out that the knowledge of this date is also essential in many places of the law. For example, for vows: if one vows not to eat a particular fruit until the rains come, it is presumed that he meant the middle ones. It also matters for gleanings. Usually, gleanings are reserved exclusively for the poor. However, when even the poor abandon and no longer collect them, anyone can take them. When the last, slow and meticulous poor go through the fields, nobody else hopes to find a significant amount of gleanings. Then the legal owners of them - the impoverished - despair of finding any more and give them up. This gives the grains the legal status of ownerless and thus available to anybody. What is the date for that? - The time of the second rain.
When one sees the rain after a period of drought, he should say, "Blessed is God for every drop of rain." In Israel, where showers are scarce, one actually says this when he sees the first rain in the rainy winter season.
Art: Rainy Night by Childe Hassam
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