Reply To: Gemara question

But it says: “R. Yochanan said: Three keys are in the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He, which are not intrusted to any messenger, and they are: The key of rain… The key of rain, as it is written [Deut. xxviii. 12]: “The Lord will open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven, to give the rain of thy land in its season”

This seems pretty straight forward. If Hashem indeed uses a malach to send rain why would the Gemara bother to state this? Obviously, everything in the world is controlled by Hashem and angels are shluchim for His will, so why the need to state that he does NOT use them for rain and the other exceptions?

As for Eliyahu, it says: “Said R Hanina: Because dew and wind are never withheld. Whence do I know this? Because it is written : “Then said Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, unto Achab, ‘As the Lord the God of Israel liveth, before whom I have stood, there shall not be in these years dew or rain, except according to my word'”; and further, it is written [ibid. xviii. 1]: “Go, show thyself unto Achab; and I will give rain upon the face of the earth,” but in the latter passage dew is not mentioned, because it was never withheld. It might be asked, however, why Elijah swore that it would not fall? He meant to say merely that no dew which would benefit the soil Would fall, for all the dew which should fall would not be productive of any good.”

So Eliyahu did NOT in fact hold the key to rain.