Rain From Underground

The sun came out just now. I'm in Zfat, high in the mountains; it's damp and the rain yesterday was heavy and sticky.
Yesterday I was in a series of caves and tunnels dug out in limestone underneath a 2000 year old village called Ruma. At that time, jews typically dug giant cisterns and collected rain water to get by. But after a few hundred years, when the Romans showed up, skilled architects connected those cisterns with a series of tunnels and filled the giant caverns with what they dug out, both to level the underground terrain and leave no trace of their burrowing. Whenever there was a ceremony or celebration of any kind, it was hidden underground. And when the Romans came to eradicate the village, the jews moved underground, sometimes for days, but often weeks or months at a time.
We crawled through these tiny tunnels and came to a room near the one cistern they hadn't filled, only accessible from the interior - they kept it open to provide for the village while they were in hiding. The sounds of our voices, our breath, our backs scraping against the walls, the click of a flashlight, all echoed distantly in the 30 foot deep cavern nearby.  We sat in this tiny circular room and listened to stories. About how they lived, how the caves were carved, what it was like for our tour guide when he discovered the cave and crawled in for the first time, having no idea what he had really found.
He told us the story, written in the Talmud, of two pregnant women who had gone into premature labour at the same time from the stress of hearing the Romans walking above ground. How they delivered the babies, before they were ready, before their cervixes could properly dilate, before the babies had naturally turned, in complete silence; without betraying the rest of the village in hiding by crying out in pain. The actual story in the Talmud doesn't describe their labour, but the problem the mothers encountered later, when they were not positive which baby was which after being delivered in such a confusing way. Which means, if they all had lived to tell of the small problem, they survived along with their town, in silence, delivering their children, in silence; silent for weeks in the caves. All of this in complete darkness, where it would be easy to mix up two newborns from two exhausted mothers delivering their children prematurely and without a sound. In a total absence of light.
And with this, we took a breath and turned off our flashlights. What incredible freedom and privilege we have, to choose to turn off a flashlight! We breathed slowly, we didn't move. I realized my eyes were shut. And when I opened them... nothing changed. Not even a hint of light, anywhere. And suddenly I felt as if the walls of the room were no longer there. This room could be any shape or size, and until I touched the wall I almost didn't believe it was still so close. But my companions? Sitting there with me in this tiny room made of dirt? Unless they made a noise, I didn't know where they were sitting. But they weren't like the walls that disappeared. I could still feel them around me, without hearing or touching them. I could feel them, so strongly it was almost as if I could see them. It was then Michael started to sing - and it was then we all sung together, and our voices filled up the room and the tunnels and the cistern and even the soil above us, if anyone was above ground to hear it. Like a rain from underground, soaking everything. The cave absorbed our voices into the earth.
I want to sing a prayer for every person or child who has ever gone through crisis alone. In the caves, they could not cry, or sing, or keep candles lit, or even fully stand up. But they were together, at least.
We are so lucky to be allowed to sing in these places.