Rainmaking // Yes, Jews control the weather

Back in 2018, a DC Councilman named Trayon White took to Facebook to claim that the Rothschilds conspire to control the climate.

The Rothschild family, of course, are a stand-in for Jews in the muddled minds of anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists. The haters libel Jews as controlling, if not usually the weather, certainly the world’s economies, and as fomenting wars.

Inspired by a brief snowfall in the nation’s capital late that winter, Mr. White asserted that the cold stuff falling from the sky was the result of the famous banking family (and, perhaps, their distant relatives), who utilized some sort of secret “climate control” capability—in order, he soberly (well, he looked sober) explained, to “create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities.”

Currently facing federal bribery charges (in an unrelated matter), Mr. White has not publicly opined about the hurricanes that wreaked havoc last month in Florida and other southern states.

Others, though, did. Posts on social media blamed Israel (another stand-in for Jews, of course). The country’s missiles used to degrade its enemies, it was insinuated, contribute to global warming, which, in turn… well, you get the idea.

And then we have Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who shared with her admirers a video in 2018 claiming that “Zionist supremacists” are conspiring to flood Europe with migrants in order to replace white populations.

She has also invoked the good old Rothschilds, famously accusing “Rothschild Inc.” of starting a California forest fire with space lasers.

More recently, she informed the world that a mysterious “they” were behind Helene and Milton (the hurricanes, that is; impugning some couple on Long Island would be beneath her).

But if we want to be entirely forthcoming, we have to admit that we Jews do indeed control the weather.

Well, maybe “control” isn’t the right word. But we have some influence.

Because, on Shemini Atzeres, as we recall, we began to praise Hashem in our tefillos for “causing the wind to blow and the rain to fall.”

And a bit down the road, we will be adding an explicit request that Hashem “provide dew and rain as a blessing over the earth.” Though the supplication is intended primarily for Eretz Yisrael, the need for precipitation is, of course, universal.

Of course, we aren’t guaranteed that our tefillos will be answered in a positive fashion; we can only plead our case. But our actions do empower our requests; the Hebrew verb mispalel exists, pointedly, in the reflexive form, implying that it is an act intended to have an impact on ourselves. And so, if we allow our tefillos to change us, we can make a difference in the world, even regarding the weather.

So the conspiracy theorists are not, at least not entirely, wrong. They may be overly focused on one Jewish family or country—and about their imagined nefarious goals. But, yes, we Jews have ways to affect, among other things, the weather.

I was among the 92,000 members of the tribe who gathered at MetLife Stadium on a summer day in 2012 for the 12th Daf Yomi Siyum HaShas. For hours before the program began, the sky was one large dark gray cloud. Then, as the opening of the Siyum lay directly ahead, a strong shower caused early arrivals to don raingear. Although we davened Minchah and, of course, in keeping with the season, omitted mashiv haruach and v’sein tal u’matar, we were resigned to soon be singing, quite literally, in the rain.

Then, at 7:00 in the evening, just as the program was about to begin, the rain ended and the clouds drifted away, seemingly summoned elsewhere. Seats were dried off and raincoats came off. The multi-hour program proceeded, dry, uninterrupted and festive.

Certainly, as cynics were quick to point out, summer storms are known for not only their ferociousness but also their ephemerality. But all of us celebrants, and countless other Jews, knew the truth: that the weather, as always, was being controlled—by the ultimate Controller.

And that we may have had some input.

To read more, subscribe to Ami

subscribebuttonsubscribeEMAGbig