Most of the month of Adar had passed, and still no rain. The fields were cracking. The people of Israel sent a desperate message to Choni HaMe'aggel—Choni the Circle-Drawer: pray for us.
Choni prayed. Nothing happened.
So he did something extraordinary. He drew a circle in the dust and stood inside it, like the prophet Habakkuk standing on his watchtower (Habakkuk 2:1). Then he spoke directly to God: "Master of the Universe, Your children have turned to me because I am like a member of Your household. I swear by Your great Name—I will not move from this circle until You have mercy on them."
Rain began to trickle. Tiny drops, barely enough to notice. Choni's students protested: "This pathetic drizzle will not save us. We think this rain is only falling to release you from your oath." Choni was not satisfied either. He turned back to God: "This is not what I asked for. I asked for rain that fills cisterns and caves."
The sky split open. Rain came crashing down in torrents—each drop so massive the rabbis said a single drop could fill the mouth of a barrel. The people ran to the Temple Mount to escape the flooding. They came back to Choni and begged: "Just as you prayed for rain to come, pray for it to stop!"
Choni refused to pray for the rain to stop entirely. Instead he asked for a rain of "benevolence, blessing, and generosity." The rain settled into a steady, gentle fall.
Shimon ben Shetach, the leading rabbi of the generation, sent Choni a message recorded in Tractate Taanit: "Were you not Choni, I would excommunicate you. But what can I do? You act spoiled before God like a son who acts spoiled before his father, and his father gives him whatever he wants."