With Prayer, We Can Stop the Sun

THE DAILY CHIZZUK BY MOREINU HARAV ELIEZER BERLAND SHLIT”A – SUNDAY, 17 SIVAN 5784

“SUN, STAND STILL OVER GIVON, AND MOON, IN THE VALLEY OF AYALON” (YEHOSHUA 10:12).  YOSEF SAID, “THE SUN AND MOON ARE PROSTRATING THEMSELVES TO ME.”

WHY DID [YEHOSHUA] STOP THE MOON?  LET’S MAKE WAR WITH ALL THE LAND OF ISRAEL.  WE WILL STOP THE SUN AND MAKE WAR WITH EVERYONE.  WHAT YEHOSHUA DID WAS ACCORDING TO THE DREAM. HE SAID, “WE CAN STOP THE SUN, CONTROL THE SUN.”

Like Nakdimon ben Gurion (Gitin 56a), who took twelve springs in the agreement with the gentile.  First of all, there was a huge pool in the place that is today Shoneh Halachot Street.  There was a pool under the entire building, a pool that took three days to drain – clean water, clear water.

This was during the Second Temple period; there was a huge pool, each pool was enough for a million people.  Twelve pools for 12 million people, because billions came to Jerusalem for the festivals.

In the end, no rain fell during the pilgrimage festival, so there was no water for the pilgrims.  There was a “righteous” gentile there who said to Nakdimon, “Listen, I am willing to give you everything for free only if rain falls and the pools will fill up again.  If not, oy vavoy to you.”

Let’s make a condition, that you [Nakdimon] receive all the pools for free.  Now is the eve of Sukkot.  By Passover eve, if rain doesn’t fall so that everything fills up again, you give me all the pools filled with golden dinars, filled with dinars of silver and gold.”

In the meantime, the gentile went to the mikveh.  He was a Roman gentile.  He went up the stairs, and, behold, Nakdimon ben Gurion went down.  The gentile said to him, “The pools have not been filled.  Did you prepare the money yet?  It’s already ten minutes until sunset [so our agreement ends].”  Before the gentile receives such a sum, he wanted to go the mikveh, to be “pure, holy.”

Nakdimon said to him, “Yes, but there is still ten minutes.  We said at 6:00 PM.  Not it is ten to 6:00.”

The gentile answers, “If until now, the rain did not fall, it already won’t fall.”

Nakdimon saiys, “No, I am going down now to the Kotel.”  He said three Tikkun HaKlali’s, and the rain fell.  Such a flood began to come down that within a second, all the cisterns, all the wells, everything, were filled with rainwater.

He came up from the Kotel, and the gentile said to him, “Nu, did you prepare the money?”

He answers, “A flood came down.  What do you want?”

“I want the surplus.  When I took the wells, it was two meters below the rim.  Now they are filled to the top.  I want more.  I want the full wells.”

Nakdimon said, “No.”

He [the gentile] took out a stopwatch, a Swiss watch.  The gentile said, “At the moment that the flood started, I pressed, and it was 6:02.  We said until 6:00.  6:02 is already mine.  This flood was in my domain.”

He said to him, “Fine, wait five minutes.”  He went down to the Kotel and said another Tikkun HaKlali.  It began to clear up.   Suddenly, the sun was visible.

This is not only true for Nakdimon ben Gurion; this was so for every Jew.  The Midrash Rabbah (section 2) brings here that it was not only Nakdimon who stopped the sun, but also King Chezkiah.

It is written that Hillel had eighty students (Sukkah 28a).  Thirty of them stopped the sun.  It used to be common, everyone.  Whoever comes to Shuvu Banim can already stop the sun.

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