Praying for Rain

Lab 2.0 2/17/2015 by Susan Weinberg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Winter Garden at Ameriprise's downtown office in Minneapolis was a perfect place to begin our exploration of water. Within the garden is a sculptural environment created by Maya Lin with a plane of water cascading down the side of the building. Many of you may have driven by the sheath of water and experienced one aspect of it. Rest assured, there are more aspects worth exploring. Lin plays with the relationship between outside and inside space, continuing the exterior space with a curving wooden floor and trees within. We were entranced with the different elements of water; frozen, cascading, flowing, as well as the veil it created through which we could observe the city life, now rendered mysterious through the blur of falling water.

Louise and Kris wove a Jewish context into this exploration, beginning with a reading of the Geshem prayer. Geshem is the Hebrew word for rain and this is a prayer for rain. The prayer begins with the following:

Remember Abraham, his heart poured out to You like water.You blessed him, as a tree planted near water; You saved him when he went through fire and water, For Abraham's sake, do not withhold water.

It then continues through Issac, Jacob, Moses and Aaron all building on the concept of water and its relationship to their individual stories. Until the 20th century most agriculture was fed by rain, not irrigation, thus prayers for water and rain were central to existence.

We then adjourned to a coffee shop nearby where we could observe the wall of water from a somewhat different perspective. There Louise and Kris introduced a basic tenant of Judaism, Bal Tashchit originally found in Deuteronomy 20:19-20. The passage speaks of the obligation to preserve trees when a city is taken in warfare, a practice contrary to the practice of that time of destroying the land. That concept has been elaborated on as a prohibition on being wasteful in that it damages the creation of God.

We discussed how environmental responsibility is found within Jewish texts. A Midrash speaks to the role we hold as stewards of the earth. Acting righteously means treating the world with respect for we are answerable to God. Within the Midrash God shows Adam around the Garden of Eden and notes its beauty and that he created it for him. God then urges him not to spoil or destroy it as there will be no one to repair it. Rambam spoke of the obligation that Jews have to consider carefully our real needs when we consume.

 

We spoke of the passage in Number 20:1-11 after Miriam dies and her well dries up. The people complain to Moses about the lack of water. He strikes the rock with his staff and water flows forth. The Israelites then pass through the Red Sea and arrive at modern day Jordan where they sing a song about their appreciation to God for water. All these stories reinforce the perspective that water is one of the ways that God supports life.

Kris spoke of the fact that water is now piped in and fields are irrigated, separating us from the awareness of how precious and limited water can be.

In Israel there are two lakes. The northern one is Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee. This lake generates most of the water in Israel and is the "giver". Conversely the other lake is the Dead Sea. Filled with salty mineral water it supports no living plants and animals. It is located in the lowest part of the world. These two bodies of water were equated to two types of people, the giver and the taker. The giver allows life to grow around him. The taker keeps everything for himself. This metaphor aptly led us to our role in conserving resources within our environment so it continues to grow and support others.

Kris shared some facts with us about changes in the environment, especially in California which grows much of our produce. California lakes are shrinking as the ocean rises. The last three years have been the hottest and driest on record there. We looked at where domestic water use is the highest and the fact that these are the areas that are growing in population, pointing to a growing challenge.

We closed our discussion with another view of work by Maya Lin, a civil rights memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama. Lin based the work on a paraphrase of a quote from Amos in the "I have a dream" speech..."until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

 

 

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