Parashas Eikev · Passuk 11:17
For GOD’s anger will flare up against you, shutting up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that GOD is assigning to you.
Torah Temimah points to Taanit. (שם שם — same source as the previous unit).
TT lemma: ועצר את השמים (unit 7 of 9).
English: Reish Lakish said: Stopping is said of a woman — “for Hashem had closed every womb” (Vayeira) — and stopping is said of the rains. When the heavens are stopped from giving rain, it is like a woman in labor who does not give birth.
Derash on the verse (Bavli sugya) — not a formal named middah of the 13
The Gemara uses this passuk in a sugya (proof, illustration, or dispute). Named as one of R' Yishmael’s 13 or R' Eliezer’s 32 only when that move is explicit.
Drought is compared to a blocked birth: the world is in travail and cannot deliver its blessing.