I love the sound of the first rains that break the hot drought, the heavy drops that crack hard against the windowpanes. I love the fine rain that one scarcely hears from indoors, so that one runs outside full of hope and spreads out one’s hands to test for wet and smells the earth’s freshness in the cool air. I love the drip, drip, drip of steady rain onto the dimpled surface of the pond, while the drops tumble down from the leaves of the overhanging branches and the small birds hop onto the lily pads to drink, then dart back into the bushes. I love the photo my wife brought home of the young Vietnamese boy dancing with joy in the street as the rain pours and down. I love the up-splash of the puddles on the paths where I run; I love to know that the desiccated land is drinking, that the thirst of the grasses will be quenched.

I love how the rabbis saw the fall of plentiful rain in its due season as one of three secrets to which only God holds the keys: the mystery of conception, the miracle of resurrection, and the renewal of the earth through the blessings of sweet rains. Rain brings back green to the yellowing fields, makes the weary leaves stretch out strong once again and soaks away the liminal fear of desertification and disaster. Now the small rivers won’t soon run dry, their fish will survive and the deer and the foxes will have somewhere to drink. Of course, there’s the danger of flooding, but that’s not uppermost in the south of England after two months of almost rainless weather.

How we squander precious water, as if the supply were guaranteed and infinite! ‘You know how precious water is,’ a Muslim colleague told me, ‘When you’ve lived in a country where the women walk twelve kilometres to the well and twelve back with full pitchers on their shoulder, then share the water they’ve carried with their neighbours.’

Therefore, the rabbis taught, go outside when the long awaited rains finally come and be thankful and say, ‘Blessed be the One who is good and does good.’ Amen, and amen again.