Sukkot Water/Rain Ritual

Sukkot Water Ritual and Prayers for Rain– Choose Life!

Here folks, since I am in the wilderness with limited internet access and having to send things when I can, even when they are unfinished, is the short version of the water ritual/prayers for rain I have been working up out here for you all out there!  A teaching about the background and context for these ancient prayer forms and their relevance to our lives today is forthcoming as a workshop for the Eugene community this year, and in development for the greater community for next year.  As I know some of you are planning your community Sukkot ritual(s) now, and are waiting for this, here it is the brief outline.  Also I am sending this to some of my own teachers, maybe they also have some thoughts or resources to add.  Hag Sameach Ya’ll!  –Sarah

I.  Blow the Shofar.

The Ancients blew the shofar for darn near every important occasion, be it peace or war.  Why?  Because blowing the shofar is cool and it is definitely the thing to do when one wants to connect up with Creation, or with one’s self, or with others.  For the Hebrew soul the shofar is the supreme activator, the resonator, par excellance.   It activates the Mother elements of Creation, Fire/Water/Air, composed within the breath that sounds the horn; it activates the flow of the 13 attributes of Mercy, upon which the universe was founded and the covenant through which HaShem forgives our human frailties and guides us back to paths of balance and right-relationship; and it activates our hearts so that we are open and listening to our inner selves, and to others, and to HaShem, and to Creation.  The shofar is the activator that draws up from within us the capacity to bring rightness to our lives and then calls on HaShem and Creation to mirror that rightness in the world around us.  What does this have to do with rain?  Because we are part of a living Earth, when we are out of whack, so too is the Earth– the ancients translated this into language that said the rains are withheld because of the transgressions/sins of that generation.  Today we can think of this as having to balance the whole Earth as a living system, a living organism, of which we are an integral part along with the rest of Creation.  What we do with our lives, our way of being-ness is reflected in the overall health of the entire organism, the entire Living Earth.  To bring balance and healthfulness to the Earth and its processes, including rain falling when it is supposed to, we must then bring health and balance to our own lives.  The shofar calls upon the attributes of mercy to flow compassion to us in a way that allows us to open our hearts and activates the mother letters of Creation, calling on balance, balance, balance all the way around.

Blow the Shofar!

II.  Call on the Winds

Wind is important.  In the benediction following T’filat Gashem, the prayer for rain, it says “You are HaShem, our God, Who makes the Wind blow and makes the rain descend.”  Not just Who makes the rain descend, but Who makes the wind blow and the rain descend.”  No wind, no rain.  No rain, no life.  Without wind, there is nothing.  But it’s not enough to have wind.  We need the right kind of wind, at the right time, in the right amount.  As in all things, balance is key.  And because the life of the soul mirrors the physical world around us… and because the physical world around us mirrors the life of the soul, when seeking balance in the winds of the external world, what we call Earth, we must also seek balance in the winds that flow through our own lives.  We are, afterall, spirit beings who are breathed by each of the four winds flowing in and through us, guiding and prodding and nurturing us along our way in life.  This is the secret to the Medicine Wheel, the wheel of the Arba Ruchot, the Four Winds, balancing the cycles of our lives against the cosmic mirror of Creation.  When we balance one, we balance the other, when we balance the other, we balance the one.  We are Creation, Creation is us.  We are the Winds, the Winds are us.  Balance Balance Balance.

III.  Shake the Lulav

Shaking the Lulav is part of calling on the winds.  To wave the Lulav in each of the six directions is as old as the oldest Hebrew memory.  An invocation going back and back and back.  In this particular context, the lulav becomes a kind of wand, an amplifier of the energy we are seeking when invoking the winds.  Because we are asking for rain, it is particularly potent that each of the four species of the lulav and etrog are  heavily associated with water.   They are also species whose attributes are perfectly balanced when united together.  The essence of water and life and balance are braided together in the lulav, held side by side with the etrog, the fruit which is neither male nor female but is both at once, and shaken, waved, resonated out into the four winds and the six directions, calling on Creation to manifest in right-relationship, to blow the winds and descend the rains in their appointed times, to bring balance to the Living Earth and all who live on Her.  Shake Shake Shake! Shake the Lulav!

IV.   Dance the Circle

We Hebrew folk are big on circle dancing.  And no wonder.  Every shamanic tradition knows the importance of the sacred circle.  In dancing the circle, we are invoking the eternal wheel of life, of the beginning which is also the end, and the end which is also the beginning.  Summer becomes Autumn becomes Winter becomes Spring.  Life and Death and Life again.  It is all a circle.  As long as the wheel turns as it should, life will continue, dying back and re-born again.  In Hebrew the same root, gl, means to revolve and to be joyous– Dance the Circle and Rejoice!

IV.  Pour Out Water Before HaShem

The Water Libation is a shamanic ritual in which water is poured onto the ground in order that it will seep into the earth and activate the underground reservoirs of water to flow up to the surface and become rain.  The Hebrew mystery tradition teaches that in Temple times there were deep pits, called shittin, that descended directly beneath the Altar, going down to the very depths of the Earth.  When the water libation was poured onto the Altar, the water would flow down over the Altar and into these pits where, at fathomless depths below it would encounter the underground water reservoirs and activated them to ascend and renew the Earthly rain cycle.  There are however, many accounts of Hebrew mystics and shamans pouring water out directly onto the ground, the gist being that we send out a sort of water messenger to seek out the waters below and coax them to rise above.  An interesting twist on this ritual is that in its invocation we do not pour out waters to HaShem, but before HaShem.  The water libation is not a passive act of prayer where we ask HaShem to do for us, but is instead an active partnering with Creation that we do with HaShem as our witness.

VI.  Ask for Rain/Life

Having expressed our willingness to partner with Creation, now is the time for asking HaShem outright to help us out with granting rain.  And not just for rain, but for the rejuvenation of Life.  The rains of the Fall are the waters of life that will bring  re-birth in the Spring.  In the ancient Near East the people would lament the death of the vegetation god in the summer, pray for the resuscitation of the dead god through the waters of life in the Fall, and celebrate the re-birth of the vegetation god in the Spring.  Today we pray to HaShem to grant the full natural cycles of life on Earth, the dying back of vegetation in the Summer, the rains in the Fall, snows in the Winter and the regeneration of greenery in the Spring.  And we also pray to HaShem to resuscitate the Dead– including the dead places within ourselves which need to be re-vitalized, brought back to life, so that our own life cycles can be healthy and whole.   Blessed is HaShem, Who resuscitates the Dead.

VII.  Acknowledge HaShem, Creator

It’s always a good idea to acknowledge The Creator.  Here is the traditional Invocation:

“Blessed are You, HaShem, Creator, Who makes the Wind blow and the Rain descend.”

VIII.  Celebrate

Following all of this ritual and invocation and prayer, now it’s time to celebrate!  Throw a party and dance and sing and be merry with the full expectation that our prayers have been heard and will be answered.  Don’t even think for a second that they won’t be– launch headfirst into merriment assured that everything will flow as it should.

IX.  Go Forth and Walk in Paths of Holiness

The key to rain and wind and life on Earth manifesting in a balanced and healthful way is for each of us human beings individually and collectively to be balanced and healthful, as all of Creation is part of the same circle of Life, everything connected together.  Thus, we have a responsibility to make the attempt to walk in the world with rightness– to emulate the merciful paths of HaShem, to seek out justice and to bring ourselves into right-relationship with the world around us.

Go forth and walk in paths of Holiness and have a good year– Choose Life!

The Ritual

Here, a very loose structure for a water ritual/prayer for rain during the Sukkot festival– this ritual is designed specifically to be easily amended and/or adapted, per the needs of individual practitioners and communities.

1) Gather folks together and begin by blowing the shofar.  The shofar call for Water Libations is Tekiah, Teruah, Tekiah– long, series of short, long…

2) With a staff or walking stick or branch, draw a circle on the ground.

3) From inside of the circle, blow the shofar again– Tekiah, Teruah, Tekiah.  A variation on this theme is to blow this call on the shofar, or have someone else blow the call of the shofar while you are walking around the circle, seven times.  Then step in.  Also, it is interesting and sometimes potent energy to draw the circle while holding the lulav against the haft of your staff.  All of these variants depend on the sensitivities of the practitioner.

4)Now, from inside the circle, wave/shake the lulav in each of the six directions, while calling on the attribute of that wind/direction.  Here is the order of the calling and the invocation that goes with it.  The “Vav” is pronounced in the ancient near eastern form of “Wah”:

• South– Yo Hey Wah

• North– Hey Wah Yo

• East– Wah Yo Hey

• Up– Yo Wah Hey

• Down– Hey Yo Wah

• West–  Wah Hey Yo

The next three steps sort of depend on how many people are participating and how lively, willing to jump into the process they are… ideally, they can be done more or less simultaneously….  Pour out Water Before HaShem– I like to do this from an earthen vessel, which I sort of fling out onto the ground in a wide circular pattern, turning myself all the way around while I do it.  I’m a bit of an ecstatic, I pour my whole being into the pouring.  Everyone is different.  Be Creative.  The key is intentionality, and placing HaShem before you while you do it.  In a group ritual, people can be dancing the circle while you do this, or better yet, dancing the circle immediately after you do this, even better, with drummers drumming and shofars blowing and whatnot.  If you have enough people, you can have one group of people dancing in one direction around the circle and another dancing the other way at the same time– a true wheel of life where there is no beginning and no end, both directions going simultaneously.  At some point in this, the shaman/mystic/prayer leader type person should be standing in the circle calling out the t’filat gashem, the prayer for rain and the resuscitation of the dead.  The text for this prayer can be found in most “traditional” siddurim and should be recited in Hebrew.  This can be going on while the drummers are drumming and the musicians playing and the shofars blowing and the people dancing.  Cacophony is okay in shamanic ritual, or at least it is okay in this ritual.  There are many, many recorded instances of Hebrew shamans invoking rain from the middle of a cacophony of drummers and musicians– on a few of these occasions it is written that the ecstatic music was a pre-requisite for the invocation of rain.  Let the people play music and dance around you, and call in the rain!

When the prayers for rain/life are complete, and when it seems right to do so, bring the people down to a state of quiet and stillness, and call out the Blessing to HaShem, Creator.

“Blessed are You, HaShem, Creator, Who makes the Wind blow and the Rain Descend.”

Again, the Hebrew for this can be found in a standard siddur– call it out in Hebrew.  It also can be called out in English, you can do both, but make sure to at least do the Hebrew.

Songs of Hallel can be sung here at the end to ground people out and set the stage for launching a full-scale, righteous celebration afterwards…

Some songs that people might know, with Hallel and or rain related themes are:

Esa Enai/ I lift up my eyes unto the mountain…

L’maan Ahai V’rai Ai/ For the sake of my brothers and friends…

Ufros Aleynu/ Draw water in joy, from the Living Well…

Min HaMetzar/  From the narrows I called, and Yah answered me…

Any and all of the songs of Ascent (from Tehillim 120-134)

If people don’t know these, sing what people know– it’s all good.

Now Party.

Don’t forget to Juggle daggers and torches of fire while doing amazing acrobatic feats– the rabbis of old did it, so can you!

L’shana Tova!!  Have a Good Year– Choose Life!