Psalm 29, the song we sing as we return the Torah to the ark, is a psalm of triumph. The psalm describes G-d as a storm god, smashing everything in His wake. The psalm is filled with words like “strength, glory, thunder, power, majesty.” It’s hard to miss the point, especially with graphic descriptions like “the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness.”
But after a cascade of these images, the psalm very suddenly shifts gears. Instead of focusing on G-d’s power, it describes the reaction of Israel to G-d’s power: “The voice of the the makes the oaks whirl, and strips the forests bare; and in His temple, all cry, ‘Glory!’”
Why the shift? Mark S. Smith, a great bible scholar, points out that the storms are not only a display of G-d’s power. The storms are the source of the single most precious commodity in the world (then and now!): water. And from the water comes the abundance of food. And with an abundance of crops comes societal security and fecundity. “The temple experience captured all the elements of how G-d shed his favor upon Israelite society: the coming of G-d in the storm, the rains and the abundance of crops.” Hence the powerful conclusion: “May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless His people with peace.”
Country singer Luke Bryan put it all quite simply: “Rain makes corn, corn makes whiskey/Whiskey makes my baby feel a little frisky…Rain is a good thing.”
From Rosh Hashanah through Shemini Atzeret, the main theme is the kingship of G-d—the main manifestation of which is rain. The holiday period culminates with the prayer for rain, Geshem, which brings the dry season in Israel to a close. It is then that powerful storms come in from the Mediterranean, dumping more rain on Jerusalem in 6 months than London receives in a year!
No wonder our ancestors sang, “The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.”