A vort of the Rebbe on Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah. One of the things that we do on Shemini Atzeres is we בענטש גשם. We bless the rain, and the simple reason why we do that is because that's the time when the season of the rain in Eretz Yisrael would start. So we don't really ask for rain yet, but we already mention the rain, משיב הרוח ומוריד הגשם, and we started off by Shemini Atzeres bentsching the rain, that's called the ברכות of גשם. Now, bepashtus, like I said, the reason is because that's the season of the time of the year when that starts shaychus to rain.

But there is a deeper thing here also, and that is that the inyan of rain represents the inyan of a person being battel to the Eibershter. We find in Chumash when the Torah describes Eretz Yisrael, the specialty of Eretz Yisrael, it says, \"לא כארץ מצרים\", it's not like Egypt, where it doesn't rain and the Nile, the Nile, just overflows and irrigates the land, but it's a land that it rains, \"למטר השמים תשתה מים\", you will drink water, you will have water from the rain. And the question is, what's so special? What is not so good if it overflow, the river overflows? Why is there a big maaleh in Eretz Yisrael of rain, out of all the maalot, it rains there? So Chassidus explains, and the Rebbe talks about it, that when it rains, and you are dependent on the rain, if it doesn't rain, what you do is, as it says in Midrash, you pick up your eyes to שמים and you ask Hashem to give you rain. You daven to Hashem. When it doesn't rain, and it just naturally overflows as it does in Mitzrayim, then a person could forget that it comes from Hashem. It's nature. Now, nature comes from Hashem, obviously, but you don't see it with your eyes. You see that happen, and that's how it irrigates the land. There's no need for a person to rely on Hashem, to show that he's relying on Hashem. While when it rains, so when it rains, first of all, it comes from the heaven, so it reminds a person to look up to שמים, to Hashem, but besides that, you know that many times it doesn't rain when you expect rain, and you have to daven to the Eibershter. So this brings out the inyan that a person relies on the Eibershter.

Now, since Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah is basically the end of the yamim tovim, which is the beginning of the rest of the year—Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of the year, but then we have all these yamim tovim, so that's a special time of Yom Tov, which a yid is in higher madreigah—but when we finish with all the yamim tovim, we need the special koach for the whole year when we're involved in גשמיות'דיקע things, not constantly involved in רוחניות, to also remember that everything comes from Hashem. Because like this, as it says in pasuk, a person could forget, a person could think that he himself is the one that came up with all these ideas. And we have to remember that that's no, we shouldn't think \"כוחי ועוצם ידי עשה לי את החיל הזה\", as it says in pasuk. A person might think my own koach and my strength brought me my riches or brought me anything I have. You have to remember \"כי הוא הנותן לך כח לעשות חיל\". He, the אויבערשטער, gives us that koach. And that is the specialty of Eretz Yisrael, that there it is easier to feel that. That's the maalah that it rains, that there it's easier pashut to feel that everything comes from the אויבערשטער. And that is why it's put on Shemini Atzeret, and then it's connected also to Simchat Torah because they go together, because this is the time when we're supposed to get the koach a whole year to remember that everything comes from the אויבערשטער and to rely on Hashem. And one of the things that is connected to that is the fact that we ask Hashem for rain, and that gives us the koach that we should a whole year feel to rely on Hashem. And that goes together with Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah, when we are happy with the Torah, we bring out the koach that the Torah gives us. It's not so much the learning of the Torah. On Simchat Torah, it's not the idea that we have a special mitzvah of learning extra. Vadei, you have to learn on Simchat Torah too, but the main mitzvah is the dancing with the Torah when the Torah is closed, the connection to the עצם תורה, to the idea of what the Torah is, the עצם of the Torah, the essence of the Torah. And that brings a person to really feel that everything comes from the אויבערשטער, and this is why this ענין of גשם has to do, which is done on Shemini Atzeret and which is connected to Simchat Torah, because at that time of the year, we get the koach that a whole year we should feel that \"הוא הנותן לך כח לעשות חיל\", the Oybershter gives us the koach for everything.