Though Israel does have four seasons, Israelis tend talk about only two of them – קיץ וחורף – summer and winter, where קיץ refers to the dry months and חורף to the rainy ones.
חורף בריא לכולם – a healthy winter to all!
1. גֶּשֶׁם – rain
The basic Hebrew word for rain is גשם, as in the prayer משיב הרוח ומוריד הגשם – (the One who) makes the wind blow and brings down rain.
A synonym for גשם is מטר. Both words appear in Biblical Hebrew.
2. יוֹרֵד גֶּשֶׁם – it’s raining
In English, “to rain” is a verb. In Hebrew, in contrast, we say “rain is coming down” – יורד גשם.
Here’s an example in the future tense:
אולי יֵרד מחר גשם.
Maybe it’ll rain tomorrow.
3. גַּשְׁמִיּוֹת/חוֹמְרִיּוֹת – materialism
In Jewish tradition, גשם represents physicality or that which is material (in Arabic, جسم – jism – the same Semitic root as גשם – means “body”). Thus גשמיות has traditionally meant worldliness or materiality, though the word people use most today for materiality or materialism is חומריות.
4. לְהַגְשִׁים חָלוֹם – to make a dream come true
In 3, we saw that גשם has to do with physicality. And if you take the three-letter word גשם as a root, plug it into the causative הפעיל verb form, you get להגשים – to cause something to materialize, to make it real. Thus “to make a dream come true” (to bring it into reality) is להגשים חלום.
5. מִטְרִיָּיה – umbrella
The ancient word מטר (a synonym of the ancient word גשם – see 1 above) brings us the modern word מטרייה – umbrella.
For example:
יש עננים אפורים – כדאי לקחת מטרייה.
There are gray clouds – it’s worth taking an umbrella.
6. מֶזֶג אֲוִויר – weather
The Biblical-Hebrew root מ.ז.ג has to do with mixing, but the Rabbinic era the word מזג started to refer to the character of something – anything. Suppose you want to characterize the air – האוויר: Is it hot or cold? Wet or dry? Still or windy? Thus the term מזג אוויר – weather – was born.
7. סוּפָה/סְעָרָה – storm
Suppose a מטרייה (see 5) is not enough, because the wind is blowing too fast and the גשם is coming down too hard. This is what we might call a storm – סערה or סופה.
For example:
איזו סערה בחוץ!
What a storm outside!
8. בָּרָד – hail
Now, גשם is the most common form of precipitation that falls in Israel. The runner up is ברד – hail – which has caused me to flee the outdoors on several occasions.
ברד in context:
ברד הוא בעצם קרח שיורד מהשמים.
Hail is actually ice that comes down from the sky.
9. שֶׁלֶג – snow
This third form of precipitation – שלג – typically falls in the mountains of the Upper Galilee, on the Hermon, and occasionally in Jerusalem and its surrounding areas. When the gentle white material does grace the holy city, it’s cause for celebration – and a day off for everyone, since the city is not equipped with very many snowplows. But no worries – the שלג melts within a day or two.
שלג in context:
האם השנה ירד שלג בבירה?
Will it snow (will snow come down) this year in the capital?
