The motif of rain (geshem) is eminently present throughout the holiday of Sukkot. Each of the Four Species we gather is the most water-dependent plant of its respective climate [1]; we utter a prayer for rain on Shemini Atzeret, the eighth day of Sukkot; and the porous Sukkot we build outside are vulnerable to rain, a challenge which occupies the rabbis of the Talmud in their discussion of the holiday [2].

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It is striking to notice that the word geshem shares its three root letters – gimel, shin, mem – with the word gashmius, or “materiality.” This term was historically used to disparage things considered too mundane or worldly (as opposed to an ethos of ruchaniyus, or “spirituality”), but reclaimed by Hasidic masters who grounded their mystical teachings and practices in the notion of avodah b’gashmiyus – the spiritual dimensions of encountering this-worldliness [3]. What might the connection be between these two entities of GeSHeM and GaSHMius?

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Though the etymological link may be coincidental [4], the empirically observable ties are clear: the source of all materiality, particularly in the natural world, is the rain that falls from the heavens to bring growth to forests and crops and to quench the thirst of humans and animals. This is the plain meaning of the ritual structure of the holiday: holding these four plants together is a stark evocation of what is at stake for us in the months ahead, the basis of our heartfelt petition for rain. We wave them in all six cardinal directions, as if to wiggle them in God’s face and say, “Remember these green plants? We could use some more of these – and will need plentiful rains to make it happen.”

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The Hasidic master R. Shmuel Bornsztain (1855-1926), the second rabbi of the Sochatchover dynasty known as the Shem MiShmuel, delves deeper into the mystical bond between geshem and gashmius. In a sermon from Shemini Atzeret 5677 (1916), he suggests that rain is the quintessential example of the realm of materiality, not just because of its physical form but because of the supernal essence that it contains. Picking up a Talmudic dispute about whether the earth “drinks” (i.e. receives rain) from the supernal waters in the heavens or from the waters of the ocean [5], he offers: 

 

Either way, these are both the words of the Living God, since the substance of the water is from the ocean, as we can sense, and its internal power is from the supernal waters. And therefore it is greater than the rest of the natural world: since water is the most material, there is more supernal power embedded in it – a heavenly depth garbed in earthly depth. 

 

That is why it is called gevurot geshamim [“the might of rain,” as in Taanit 2a], that it requires strength to descend; that God’s word overpowers [the rains] so that they descend against their will and not for their own benefit, because its [lofty] spiritual nature does not want to descend and debase itself into materiality (gashmius). [6]

 

Though the material substance of rain may come from the physical waters of the ocean, its spiritual essence originates in the upper heavenly waters. This spiritual essence is so potent that God must personally see to its manifestation in the material substance of rain as it descends into the physical universe. 

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The process that the Shem MiShmuel depicts here is representative of a broader Hasidic creation mythology and the accompanying understanding that the structures of the material world are encased forms of divine light. [7] The divine light of the universe is not found in a transcendent, unreachable dimension; it exists within, and in fact comprises, the world itself. Access to this light, according to the Hasidic masters, is achieved through the material world by encountering the spiritual dimension of this-worldliness, the aforementioned avodah b'gashmius.

 

This position, moreover, is no mere metaphor: general enjoyment of the material world, such as eating and drinking, is an essential part of accessing this spiritual vitality. A particularly illustrative example is found in the teachings of one of the earliest Hasidic masters, Tzvi Hirsch of Nadvorna (1740-1802), the Tzemach Hashem LeTzvi, a disciple of the Maggid of Mezeritch. On the biblical command that “you shall eat, and you shall enjoy, and you shall bless” (Deut. 8:10), he comments: 

 

This can be explained by way of a parable: the spring that flows when you draw from it constantly, it is then strengthened and flows always and increases… And when you don’t draw from it, it returns to its source. 

 

The parable corresponds to the following: when Israel is deemed fit to receive Divine Flow (shefa) [8], and they draw from the Flow, God’s Self overflows, [9] as it is written, “And you will draw joyfully from the springs of deliverance.” (Isaiah 12:3) It means to say: the spring [i.e. God] is in need of deliverance, and the deliverance is what is drawn from it. Therefore: eating and enjoyment are themselves embodied mitzvot. That is what “and you shall eat and you shall enjoy” means; in other words, these actions are embodied commandments, and “you shall bless” is a verbal one. [10]

 

Whereas one might think that the sole mitzvah present in this verse is the blessing after eating, the Tzemach Hashem LeTzvi asserts that there are actually two commandments: enjoyment of one’s food and the blessing afterwards. In his view, satiety itself is a mitzvah. There is divine fulfillment in the experience of the body; we don’t have to shun our taste buds to serve God, we may enjoy this world through consciousness.

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He also comments that when we delight in our food, we draw on the wellspring of blessing that flows down from heaven into the material world. This notion is quite radical: divine shefa is a well that we must draw from constantly, otherwise it grows clogged and “returns to its source.” The implication is that God needs our participation in the process of bringing shefa down to earth so that the spring of abundance does not dry up and cease to flow. To extend his point, the mechanism by which this happens is our engagement with the material world, with gashmius. Through this engagement, we open the heavenly channels and enable the shefa to descend. 

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Here rain comes back into the picture, emblematic as it is of this overall process. As the Sod Yesharim, R. Gershon Henoch of Radzin (1839-1890), puts it in a sermon on Shemini Atzeret, expounding on the difference between dew and rain:   

 

Why doesn’t Israel petition for dew as well? Because dew reflects the shefa that descends solely from God’s realm, which never ceases and has nothing to do with this request. This is why they petition for rain, which reflects the shefa that descends due to human effort. And God communicated to them that God will be like dew, which is to say that the same shefa that descends through human activity that is called geshem is also from God’s realm. [11] 

 

The Sod Yesharim declares that rain is a direct function of human activity and produces a corresponding flow of shefa from the heavens down to earth. Rain doesn’t always fall; it takes work from God’s partners in creation. To articulate this in conjunction with the insight from the Tzemach Hashem LeTzvi: God needs human participation to hasten the fall of rain and keep the channels of shefa open. 

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In this Hasidic light, the prayer for rain takes on significance of existential proportions: when we pray for geshem on Shemini Atzeret, we pray to unlock the mental block that separates us from understanding the divine practice of engaging with the world of gashmius. And we pray to reassert our position as God’s partners in the cosmic order, who play as much of a role in drawing down divine abundance into this world as God does. 

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It is therefore no coincidence that the prayer for rain was fixed to take place on Shemini Atzeret, rather than during Sukkot. Shemini Atzeret is compared in several places to an intimate feast between God and Israel [12], and the biblical word ateret is even glossed by Rashi as “a gathering for eating and drinking.” [13] The day that is compared to a banquet, where we eat and drink to satiety, is the natural place to implement a prayer for geshem, for the world of gashmius. 

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With this final move, the Jewish calendar thus builds a comprehensive arc out of the holidays of the month of Tishrei, epitomized by the phrase that we insert into the Amidah for rain: “who causes wind/ruach to blow and rain/geshem to fall.” The wind, ruach, represents the spiritual focus (ruchaniyus) of the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. These holidays are austere and ascetic, taking us out of this world to focus on otherworldly dramas, and are intensely important rites of spiritual purification on an individual and communal level. But these holidays are not the culmination of the season. They are succeeded immediately by Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret, which are oriented around the perpetual needs of this world: the spiritual and the physical are inextricable from one another. 

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In other words, the purifying rituals of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are spiritual preparation for the return to this-worldliness, for the petition for rain and abundance to flow down into the world, for the removal of the impediments that blind us to the holy delights of the world of gashmius.