Rain, Earth, and Adam Weighed as Equals in Creation

"For the LORD God had not caused it to rain" (Genesis 2:5): Scripture mentions the full Name over a full world. Just as it mentions the full Name over a full world, so it mentions the full Name over the descent of rain. Three things are weighed against one another: adam (man), eretz (earth), and matar (rain) - and all three are written with three letters each, to teach you that if there is no earth there is no rain, and if there is no rain there is no earth, and if neither exists there is no man. "And there was no man to till the ground": Man was created only for toil. If he merits, his toil is in the Torah; if he does not merit, his toil is in the field. Happy is the one whose toil is in the Torah. "For the LORD had not caused it to rain": Were it not for man, there is no covenant established with the earth to cause rain upon it, as it is said, "to cause it to rain on a land where no man is, on the wilderness wherein there is no man" (Job 38:26). At first "a mist went up from the earth" (Genesis 2:6), and then the Holy One, blessed be He, reversed Himself so that the earth would drink only from above, for four reasons: because of the men of force [who would seize the springs], to wash away harmful dews, so that the high ground would drink like the low, and so that all would lift their eyes upward - as it is written, "to set on high those that are low" (Job 5:11).