Will We Have a Wintery Rosh Chodesh Kislev?

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This is almost a tongue-twister, except for the fact that the “w” sound isn’t very confusing for the tongue.

I’ve been organizing women’s prayers at Shiloh HaKeduma, Tel Shiloh, where the Biblical Chana successfully prayed for a son, for quite a number of years already.  There’s Rosh Chodesh, the First of the Jewish Month all year long, including the winter and very rarely have we found it too rainy to walk around the Tel, the digs all the way to where most experts think the ancient Mishkan Tabernacle had stood for three hundred and sixty nine 369 years.

This year’s upcoming Rosh Chodesh Kislev is a two-day one, the last of Cheshvan and the first of Kislev, Sunday November 3rd and Monday November 4th.  I asked some of the women who come to the prayers which they prefer, and nobody could give a definitive answer.  There’s always a chance that G-d willing it will rain on either or both days of Rosh Chodesh Kislev.

So I decided that it’s best to start the week off with our group prayers at one of the holiest sites in the HolyLand, Shiloh.

In all of the years I’ve been organizing the Rosh Chodesh prayers, we’ve almost never had too much rain to pray at or near the site of the Mishkan.  There are buildings in the Shiloh HaKeduma tourist site we can use as shelter if needed. For some of us with very busy schedules it’s hard to reschedule at a “moment’s notice.”  So I don’t see the point in saying that rain on Sunday means rescheduling until the following day, because it can rain even more heavily then.  And in the winter it is forbidden to pray for dry weather, since the rain is a blessing.  We only get rain in the winter, and if there isn’t enough rain it’s a curse, a punishment from G-d. So if it’s raining on 30 Cheshvan, then we will ask the workers in Shiloh HaKeduma for the use of a room.