Ta'anit 6

Today we learn about those first and last rains.  The rabbis disagree about when is the first rain, the second rain, the third rain.  We read arguments about which months were intended, why each month might be appropriately placed, and how the first rain's placement would define the second and third rains.  Rabbi Zeira provides us with some interesting interpretations.  He want us to relate the rainfalls to peah, where the poor gather food freely from the corners of every field in the land.  The timing of the rain helps us to define the timing of this process as well.

The rabbis teach us about alternate meanings of the words of our Mishna.  They touch on how rainfall is measured, where it must fall, what other rituals it determines.  This includes a handbreadth of rain below the surface of the soil.  It also includes the notion that rainfall, rovia, penetrates - rove'a.  Thus the rainfall is in fact like a husband to the earth, which, when penetrated, births the fruits of nature.  Further, rainfall is said to be a curse if it falls on only part of a country.

The rabbis share many varied and creative ideas about the meanings of rain.  The daf ends with an example of a blessing of thanksgiving to be said over one of these three rainfalls - or a rainfall that marks the end of a drought.  Obviously, rain was one of the most critical components of of our ancestors' lives.  Without rain, there would be no food, little drink, no animals, no life.  

However, the rabbis continually compare rainfall to a sexual relationship.  Invariably, the husband is said to somehow nourish or penetrate or implant within the wife, who is still and waiting for his arrival.  This heteronormative, traditionally gendered notion of sexual relations does not usually bother me.  In context it is a beautiful metaphor for connectedness and growth.  Today these words pushed at me, making me wonder about the sexual relationships of our Sages.  Did they see their wives as inactive?  As waiting to be impregnated by an active male? Surely they experienced the wide range of sexual experience that most humans experience.  When do they make reference to those behaviours - or other behaviours - that are less traditional; less accepted?