Solar and Lunar Eclipses in Halacha and Hashkafa By Rabbi Anthony Manning

good morning welcome everybody it's great to see everybody here I'd like to start by expressing our appreciation for the sponsor that the AL theerum for 2024 uh our sponsored brandid andig benman Al Shalom should be an alah for shamas and I'd like to ask you if you don't mind just to turn off your phones turn them on to silent so that we can we can have a share without interruption so just to remind you next week is the last sh before P two weeks from today is era PES so uh that we will be speaking next Monday be on a PES related topic but as I related to you last week I couldn't resist today um doing a eclipse special now I appreciate that we're not going to be seeing this eclipse in Israel you can watch it no doubt on some kind of uh live feed as it happens all across America but right as we as we speak now the Moon is shooting around its orbit around the Earth as it constantly does it thousands of miles per hour um in around 10 hours from now the shadow of the moon will move across the Earth uh in this particular case across 13 states in the United States which is one of the reasons why so many people are excited about this Eclipse um an estimated 31.6 million people live directly in the path of the Eclipse which unlike the eclipse in 2017 In America which you may have been there or seen that Eclipse that also crossed America actually in that case from the Northwest to the southeast but didn't cross as many cities this one will be crossing a lot of cities and in some places such as Texas the eclipse will last over 4 minutes which is quite a long time for an eclipse they can go to around seven but that's very rare and the eclipse will move from the south west of the States from Mexico up through Texas uh it'll go across the Midwest up through Illinois up to Ohio oh Ohio will have a lot of good viewing opportunities um and uh since Cleveland will be in the direct eclipse and it'll shoot off towards Montreal in Canada and then out into the Atlantic Ocean where it will disappear at Sunset of course the time between sunrise as it were and sunet as the Moon is shooting across the Earth at 1300 mil hour is only a couple of hours so it will uh it will arrive with the sunrise over the Pacific and it will end with a sunset over the Atlantic so the uh the science just very briefly uh we need to talk about just for a second so that people understand it of course the reality is no matter what the science is and no matter where the Moon is if it's cloudy then you're finished you don't really see anything which is why England never gets very excited about eclipses I remember we had one in 1999 uh and uh that turned into to be a bit of a damp squib uh but uh never mind that's how it is but the science behind it and we'll see by the way the weather is important the labovich shbi weighs in on the issue of the weather the science behind the eclipse is very straightforward uh the moon orbits around the earth the earth and the moon together orbit around the Sun every month or more accurately 29.53 days the moon goes around the earth and of course at the precise moment where the moon comes back again to its starting point in the same alignment as it were of the sun um that is what you and I call rosesh and that is why an eclipse happens always on or just before the Hebrew rashesh which of course this year also for the Muslims is the Ramadan end of Ramadan so they're all very excitedly trying to work out when rades is as well they of course still do it by citing the moon so they they don't know exactly when the new moon month begins until they've had their testimony Etc that's also why a lunar eclipse when the sun when the the Earth obscures the light from the Moon and the Earth's Shadow if you like is cast onto the moon that will always occur on or around the middle of the Hebrew month the 14th or the 15th of the month again when they're in alignment in the other direction now you may ask yourself well why don't we have an eclipse every single month because every single month the moon moves in front of the Sun as it goes around the earth and the answer to that question is simple and I brought you a little diagram here that the Moon is actually tilted there's a 5 degree tilt of the moon's um orbit around the Earth relatives to the sun's or Earth's orbit around the sun which means that almost every month the Moon misses that direct line it's either if you like relative to us above the Sun or relative to us below the sun depending on where it is in the cycle but every now and then because it's only a 5 Dee angle which is not that much if it was like a 20° angle Eclipse would be very rare because it's only 5° every now and then an eclipse uh happens and actually they're more common than you think in most calendar years there are at least two uh lunar eclipses uh sometimes even more solar eclipses can be two to five times a year five is pretty rare but the reality is of course because um because most of the Earth is covered by water and most of the land is not populated they rarely occur exactly where you want them just when you want them in fact it's only uh likely that an eclipse will happen where you live once roughly every 375 years so people get very excited um when they happen why you may ask yourself uh does the Clips not exactly coincide with radesh and that is because we calculate rades according to something called the halakic molad the molad is the literally the birth is the moment of conjunction of the Moon with the earth and the the sun uh and we calculate that actually on the basis of the average length of a month which is 29 days 12 hours and 773 khim we divide the the hour into 10,080 uh and therefore it comes out in that way um and therefore our radesh is calculated by a very interesting calculation you go back to the year one okay from of 6,000 years I'm not getting into discussion about creation and how old the universe is we've had sherim on that before you go back to the year one and the uh the creation of the earth in Hebrew calendar terms the six days of creation is at the end of year 1 not at the beginning of year 1 the rashash on which Adam arish was created is r done of year two so we calculate back to this imaginary year year one which mostly didn't exist and we go back to the very beginning we count 29 days 12 hours and 773 khim um and we add on each time as it happens this eclipse this afternoon in around 12 hours is almost exactly at the time of the hakik molad 2 which is coincidental but every now and then they really get spot on um and this month is pretty much that of course the reason the reason they don't work the eclipses the the Jewish month rather based on the eclipses is because for most of the planet they have no clue when the eclipse is and they already happen every now and then so they need to have a hierarchically reliable system in order to work out the new moon okay fine Adan it's been pretty simple um lunar eclipses are far more common and one of the reasons is the shadow is much bigger if you think about the the shadow of the moon on the earth compared to the shadow of the Earth on the moon um lunar eclipses happen way more often because that shadow catches the moon more often and they're visible from a much greater area so many of you would have seen um many luden eclipses I remember once uh in London after sedan night we all walked out into the street and looked up into the sky to a blood red moon uh because of course it happens usually on the 15th of the month the reason of course that the uh the moon often looks red and more of that in the sources in a minute is because effectively all the light shining onto the moon is going through the atmosphere of the earth and effectively every sunset on Earth is being projected onto the moon and that's why it looks red sometimes it looks dark brown black we'll see that too as well um and therefore lunar eclipses happen far more often if you want to wait for a a lunar eclipse in Israel you won't have long to wait but if you want to wait for a solar eclipse you might have to wait around a bit the next solar eclipse happening in Israel is in 2027 that's not long but it's only in 80% the actual line of totality goes south of Israel over luxa in Egypt 80% is interesting if you're looking at the sun with your special glasses and obviously everyone has to wear special glasses when they're looking at the sun but it won't really change the light of day nothing really happens when an eclipse happens until 100% goes on if you want to wait for a 100% total eclipse going over Jam over the OU Israel Center you will get one by Ezra hasem on Sunday August the 8th 2,241 now you may feel that that's not worth waiting for uh that will be AES and fascinatingly that will be roses in the year 601 which is as I just mentioned this if you're into the idea that the world will last 6,000 years which is a gamar in makas and again whether we take that literally as a midrash or not is not my discussion for now but if you're interested in that and the world has 6,000 years well that La that next eclipse over Jerusalem will be exactly at the end of those 6,000 years at the end of year 601 because the creation happened at the end of year 1 so if the Evangelical Christians get excited about this Eclipse wait to what they're going to say in 2020 2,241 when you hit the end of the two uh the 6,000 years by the way the last in case you're upset that you missed one the last total eclipse of yush was on August the 20th that was roses as well 993 so it's been over a thousand years since we had one but only 200 years till the next one so look on the bright side fine the um the sources are actually fascinating but before we get onto the sources just one little last science point the reason that a total eclipse is so spectacular is because the Moon is exactly the same size relative to the Earth as the sun because even though the sun is 400 times broader in diameter than the moon it is more it exactly 400 times further away so the relative distance is exactly the same and this wasn't always the case meaning if you go back to the time of the dinosaurs then the moon was much closer to the Earth the Moon is spinning Away by the way 4 cmet further away every month it's getting further and further away so if you go back a few million years the dinosaurs never experienced an eclipse like today because the moon just completely blotted out the Sun and if you go forward a couple of million years the moon will already be too far away to do a proper to Total Eclipse it'll be smaller it'll be more like what we call an annual Eclipse so we are very fortunate to be living at exactly the right million years or so that the moon and the sun are exactly in the right position and this wasn't lost on the Torah or the maim so if you ever want a reason to be happy to be alive right now then that might do it for you let's start with some sources number one let's start at the very beginning the creation of the Sun and the Moon they're going to be lights that's their primary function the first thing that the says that these lights up in the sky are for are signs signs of what we'll see and for the calendar and to calculate the days the months the years Etc of course a week is a completely non asron domical calculation it's just seven days and doesn't fit into any of the others so that's another share but not for now they will be lights up in the sky and we are most interested in how they light up the world and that's what it was God made the two large lights the bigger light for the day and the smaller light and of course there's a great deal of Torah as to why they're both called big and then the next phrase one is called big and the other is called small we will touch on one angle of that in a second God plac them in the heavens again the focus from our perspective is light now if you look at the go to page three and see the izra number two so the izra was an astronomer the truth is most intelligence um back in the Golden Age of Spain which is when the ezzar was born had a broad training in grammar and literature and astronomy and Science and Mathematics and geometry Etc but the the the izra you had to pick the right Yeshiva that's the key the the izra was particularly known an astronomer as well and there is even a crater on the moon named after the Ezra it's called the Ezra crater funnily enough so if you know where to look and you have the right kind of telescope you can wave to the izra I think he's somewhere near the r bag I'm serious the r bag has a crater on the moon as well and no doubt they can have AA look at what the izra says number two those people who are astronomers who know to measure the sh say the following they accept the sun is bigger now you might say that's obvious but it's not actually that obvious because they do look the same size how can you call the moon big as well if the Sun is the big one the answer is because we're only interested in the tanak in so far as our perspec perspective of those um celestial bodies in terms of they how they shine on the earth therefore we're only we're not interested in the actual Moon we're interested in the light of the Moon and it only shines brightly because it's closer to us in fact there is a redak that says that they did a calculation and they reckon that the sun is 170 times bigger than the moon okay so that's not far off it's 400 times bigger but they knew it was bigger um and we are talking about a thousand years ago so the izra again says yes two orbs in the sky but one is much closer to the other and that's why the other one they seen the same size Etc so they did have a pretty good understanding and as we'll see in a minute eclipses was something that had been predicted way way way way back okay what about tanak so one of the things you'll see I've brought you seven or eight Pim from Tanakh that talk about the darkening of the Sun and four of them come from Amos let's just have a little sampling the sun will set as it were be the sun will go down in the noon and the land will become dark in the middle of the day now that very much sounds like an eclipse that the sun will effectively set in the middle of the day the land will dark in the middle of the day um which raises some halakic questions which we'll get to at the end which is so is is an eclipse halakic called a sunset theas that only kick in when you hit Sunset which could have relevance for or someone who's becoming tahor remember how do you become tahor from a regular Tuma you go to the Mikvah and you wait for the sunset so is on an eclipse day is a person tahor at 12:00 in the morning cuz the Sunset interesting question which I'm not going to dwell on but something of you to ponder about but Amos has another one here number four God creates the mountains he tells his thoughts God can turn the morning into the dark so two in number five says God makes the day dark like the night so to number six that that day the day of the Lord will be a day that becomes dark or a day without light why is Amos so interested in the image of the eclipse and of course the the imagery in tanak may not just be um literal imagery of an eclipse but the idea of the the blocking of God's light at the end of days and and and this the blurring of Good and Evil there's all sorts of masim that you can bring from this but why was amamos so interested in the image of the eclipse and one reason might be that there was a major total eclipse when he was alive on June the 15 762 BCE which is exactly the time of Amos as we understand it there was a 90% partial eclipse in the shamron which must have made a major impression on the people there and this is actually recorded in the Assyrian Chronicles I brought you a link in case you're bored and can't sleep at night you can read the Assyrian Chronicles from 762 BCE and they also say there was an eclipse in the month of Manu which is San um and this is quite possibly the eclipse that Amos saw that impacted him to the point that he wanted to talk about the eclipse so much in his safer but not just amosu I'm not going to read them all now says the sun will be dark when it rises Zakaria prophesies a day which is without sunlight and a night without Moonlight um and yoel let's look at yoel because this gives me a makes me feel less guilty about not talking about pesak look at number nine the I will make great signs in the heaven and the [Music] Earth which of course makes you feel the because that's one of the things we say on the when we dip the three um the three little drops of wine after the 10 plagues Dam and the sun will become dark and the moon will become red like blood clearly talking about an eclipse that's exactly what happens to the moon when an eclipse no Hashem before that great day of God comes so Rashi just mentions there that one of the reasons that the sun and the moon are being eclipsed is to embarrass those people who worship them and we'll see this comes up he's getting that from the gamar but before you just turn the page I just want to mention a very important POS in y y number 10 says do not follow do not learn from the ways of the non-jews and do not be as scared do not be afraid do not become apocalyptic when you see things happening in the sky because that's what the non-jews are worried about but why are you worried about that come on Why are Jews be worried that there's an eclipse and yum says don't be like everybody else and by the way so little has changed if you look at all the chatter uh on the internet about the eclipse the massive majority of it is evangelical Christian uh people talking about there was an earthquake and there was an e an eclipse and and and and and okay Jews are not so excited by those things because of yum yahu we have a slightly different perspective which we'll see right now okay let's have a look number 11 page four eclipse is in kazal so there is a major source the one major place where kazal discusses Luna and solar eclipses is in sukka what is the context here so remember there's a missionary in sukka that says if it rains on sukka sukus in Israel it's as if the servant gave water to his master and the master just threw it back in his face so this you'll see the connection with the mash that the gamor now gives about an eclipse so there are four bryces four four tantic sources in Suka Each of which deals with eclipse and I've numbered them 1 2 3 and four in number 11 so let's read these quite quickly the rabbis taught Bryon number one when the when the sun is Afflicted now what does that mean what are they talking about now most of us assume it's an eclipse but we'll see that there's another view that's a bad sign for the whole world what is this like and here's the connection with that the king decides to put on a party for all of the servants and he gives them lights he turns on the lights come on have a party enjoy yourselves the party gets out of hand the king gets upset with them and he says to one of his other servants take away the lights it's time for the party to be over turn off the lights they're just misbehaving end of Bryon number one one and of course we're going to have to ask the question in what way is an eclipse a Simon R it's a natural event it's predictable it was by the time of the Gomorrah the Babylonians especially were predicting eclipses the cycle of eclipses a thousand years before the gamorra was even written in Babylon so they knew or they should have known that it was a natural occurrence so how could it be a simra and what about yahu who just said why you you shouldn't be bothered about these things the non-jews are worried about these things we'll see that's Bryon number one Bron number two tan re Maya so Reb Maya says appropriately illuminative name rebbi Maya whenever there's let's translate it as an eclipse of the Sun or the moon Sim is now the haters of the Jewish people is a euphemism used by kazal for the Jewish people if there is an eclipse it's bad for the Jews because they used to getting attacked meaning whenever anything bad happens in the world the Jews get blamed and the gorah says this he's a m to a teacher he comes to the the school with a whip in his hand meaning someone's going to get beaten today mid which is which is the kid that's worried the kid that gets beaten every other day cuz he's the kid that everyone takes it out on H so the Jewish people should be worried there's a Simon right in sham again questions we asked we'll have to come back to BR number three this is more detailed when the son is Afflicted that's bad for the non-jews which usually ends up being bad for us too by the wayana when the Lana is Afflicted Sim is that's specifically bad for the Jews because the Jews count the calendar by the moon and the non-jews by the sun again I don't know where that leaves the Muslims because they counted even more fanatically by the moon than we do not for now okay so the gamor says look if the Sun is is an eclipse in the East when the sun is just Rising S that's bad for the people who live in the East if it's in the west when the sun's setting Sim if it's in the middle of the day that's bad for everybody and this is probably talking about the moon now if the Moon looks red like blood there's going to be a war the sack if it looks dark brown black like a sack is really made from goat's hair it's going to be famine in the world if he looks red and black there's going to be war God forbid and famine which often go together when if maybe this is back to the sun again it's not clear is uh when is maybe it's the Moon is Afflicted is eclipsed when it's coming up then it'll be a while till the problems come and if it's when it's setting they'll come quickly some say the other way around and whenever a nation is affected by the the the Sun or the moon's Eclipse it's always focused on the gods here's another MIT connection sh I will also judge the gods of the Egyptian of course the God the god of the Egyptian was overwhelmingly the Sun and of course the sun god which is called Rah to the Egyptians also comes in in word play when parrow is talking to M Moshe remember when he sends him away and says there's rah rah will follow you so of course we translate that as evil evil Will Follow You into the desert but of course there's a play on words there and he's talking about the son God the the whole idea of the a har the evil arm is deeply linked also with the Eye of Horus and the and and the Egyptians that we had a whole share on that as well so it says the gods are affected when the Jews do there's the key we don't have to be worried with all of this brings a in which is don't be worried by the eclipse and finally number four little number four and number 11 there are four specific AAS that relate to why the sun is eclipsed and again we have to kind to ask what does this mean cu the sun will be eclipsed naturally look at the four AAS a great Jewish leader that dies and is not properly eulogized that's number one a young woman who is attacked God forbid and raped and people don't run to her rescue Alish active homosexuality between men two brothers who are murdered together now again what exactly these have got to do with the sun we'll see in a second or we won't see in a second him and there are four reasons generally why the eclipses happen Al people who write forged documents it's a Greek word and people who lie in court the ald daab AR people who are not careful with the land of Israel looking after the land and they breed small goats and sheep that just eat everything and destroy the land the Al and people who chop down good fruit trees and and aren't bothered about the waste now what on Earth is going on here uh start for a second with number 13 Rashi looks at these different AAS at the end of that of those bres it says because of these a Rashida says shti tamav I have no idea how any of these things connect with these for AAS and rash is very good at telling I he said I don't know and I'm not going to guess by the way the or L rakov etlinger who we're going to see in a minute he has a good go at trying to explain how all of these things relate somehow to the sun some of them are more convincing than others but if you want you can go and look at that uh but he wants to try and make the connection but rashy doesn't know yes it's that happened to us six months ago what interesting meaning these are real things exactly what happened that's very interesting I hadn't made the connection but you're absolutely right these are real areas and we that the society has to be focused on and that we need to correct that we need to fight and we'll see in a minute that's actually one of the explanations that comes up which is fascinating what's that okay fine but let's not worry too much about trying to predict the past or predict the future okay both of them are usually pretty frustrating but Rashi does tell us one thing Onish which will be the famous Rashi that you will know I'm sure number 12 or you may have come across number 12 says as follows when the eclipses happen this is bad for the world and he brings the and he says however you the Jews shouldn't be worried when you do the will of and the me the one message that Rashi wants to get across on is that the answer to all of these issues is not to be superstitious is not to be apocalyptic but is to look at the sky and do Chua and it may be exactly what you're saying that kazala focusing us on certain specific areas and saying these are areas you should be thinking about when you are thinking about how what Society needs to be fixed how it needs to be fixed and these are areas of Chua but that what that's what Rashi wants to know however but I want to go into some interesting explanations which are given by Le MIM as to how to make this all fit together so go over to page number five I want to suggest um three different approaches the first one is the or the orac L we're not going to read all of these inside because there's a there's a lot of words to read and we're not going to get through all of them but the orac L says it's not like they didn't know that these were natural events they did kazal did know this was absolutely the science of the time they explained eclipses they predicted eclipses what in fact they're saying however is that the zman the time of an eclipse is an auspicious time for you to think about a certain religiously uplifting idea of course there are natural events but I brought you another connection that he doesn't make but every natural event can be an auspicious time for us to think look at number 15 uh this is what I do want to show Raba if you make your prayer your ding K fixed it says that's not really prayer the missioner says this what does it mean fixed prayer M K what does it mean fixed what is bad about fixed prayer they say the following someone who prays Shak and at the same time every day that's fixed now you might this is not Hally you know it's not there's no problem going to a Shak at 7:45 every morning but there's something missing there why because you're not praying when the sun is red it's a Mitzvah to Dak as the sun is rising and it's we call that NES and it's a Mitzvah as the Sun is setting why because you look at these events If you experience them and just take a few moments they're incredibly impactful now we take sunrise and sunset much more for granted then we take eclipses but at the end of the day one is no more miraculous than the other and therefore the idea of using a time of day to be inspired religiously either to Davin to do Chua to focus on certain things is very much baked into the way we see things and the arire even gives the example of the rainbow what does God say about the rainbow God says After the flood looking just look at the last couple of lines of number 14 so if you look here um three lines from the bottom this is similar this idea of using the moment is similar to what the ran says in about the rainbow even though the rainbow is natural everybody knew the rainbow was natural you can make your own rainbow just squirt a hose up towards the Sun and make a beautiful rainbow that's not new technology you can look at this natural thing to be a good sign that God won't bring another mble therefore God doesn't say I'm going to create a rainbow and from now on that's going to be the sign I'm not going to create the world I'm not to destroy the world God says to Noah I have already put a rainbow in the world up until now it didn't have any religious significance but now it does look at the rainbow look at the different colors think about the fact that the world has to all the different kinds of people in the world have to survive and they have to get along together and the world has to continue now a rainbow is a moment of inspiration and taka we make a br on a rainbow whether we make a br on an eclipse you'll see in a minute okay so the rava says basically it's not that it's an auspicious sign but it's an auspicious time and focus and as we heard just now on certain AAS now RAV um ravanis and iids has a very interesting perspective he's also coming from the question he was living in the 1700s and he said everybody knows he's a natural and by the way by the 1700s with Edmund Haley hiy in England after whom Hal's comment is named he was very specific in the way he could actually predict exactly where exactly when which areas of land Etc so yonis ibish says how does this fit together so he makes an interesting observation he says what does it mean that theama is is Afflicted he says I don't think that's an eclipse because in an eclipse nothing happens to the sun we just can't see it anymore something moves in front of it so how can you describe that as the sun being in some way Afflicted or damaged he says I'll tell you what Li is it's sunspots little black spots on the sun and that's actually an Affliction of the sun the sun if you like has taras or something there are little black spots on the sun and that's what kazal were talking about and since they're not predictable now they are more predictable but since they're not predictable when you see sunspots that's what Kazar is talking about something weird happening to the Sun the sun's got blotches and that's when you have to do Chua but not an eclipse eclipse is like bames it's nothing to do with an eclipse now that's a very inventive idea there's a few problems with that uh number one sunspots are very difficult to see without a telescope by the time of ronas and ibish they had a telescope although they're not impossible and I I brought you an article by Jeremy Brown Dr Jeremy Brown you may know Jeremy and Erica Brown from Silver Spring um both very eminent in in their own Fields but uh Jeremy wrote an article a few years ago about the lunar the solar eclipse in 2017 and he goes into all of this and he brings evidence from the Chinese that was were looking at sunspots and by the way they could have made a pinhole camera one one of the ways that you can see the Sun and what it looks like in an eclipse or sunspots is you can just project the image of of the sun onto a card and they did that in the ancient world the the technology of a pinhole camera dates back to 500 so BCE okay so I don't think they were all like The Flintstones running around living in caves uh they they they weren So He suggests it sunspots there are some problems with that uh one of the biggest problems of his approach is there's no difference in the light on earth when there a sunspot on the sun even an eclipse doesn't actually make a difference to the ambient light until it's like 90 95% so sunspots doesn't make anything to anything um so it's a bit difficult to say that but that's what he says rodis and iitz was a very inventive person uh between him and his uh colleague and uh comat or whatever the word is ravak of emden between them they come up came up with lots and lots of very interesting ideas now go over the page page six Source number 17 the LA he also comes on let's read what he says inside it's talk about eclipses it's it's it's it's it's a very strange thing all the ancient astronomers in Egypt and in Babylonia 17 they already had Eclipse calendars this was ancient technology ancient science the tell them and it was also known from the the Chronicles like I said before the Assyrian Chronicles and it's also brought in the T they knew about eclipses so in what way is this a sign if it's a natural event and he says uh something that someone living in Crown Heights would be more likely to say and he says look at the underlined with he says when is it a sign when you're walking outside and you look in the sky and all of a sudden the Sun goes black that's when it's impactful but if you live in North America and certainly if you live in northern Europe almost every Eclipse goes unnoticed because it's cloudy and if if you live in a place where it's cloudy there's no negative sign from an eclipse because you didn't see anything but if you live in place where it's sunny then that's when there's a negative s for in Eclipse ah so that's a good point so that won't work for a total eclipse cuz in a total eclipse it doesn't matter where you're living and how what the weather's like it goes completely black but it'll work for everything up to like 85 90% if you're walking around on a cloudy day and there's a 90% Eclipse you hardly even notice it in England every day looks like a 90% Eclipse quite often you know in London walking around there so you don't you don't even notice it so that's an interesting idea by the laava rebbi three or four other ideas before we get into the question of the BR so I brought you number 18 a lot of this is for your reading later on the mik these are messages not explanations but messages to take out of an eclipse the Marik says look an eclipse is a beautiful Marshall God shines the light of shefa and to on the world and what we often do is just block it with the way we act the way we think the way we uh interact with each other and therefore the and he brings a POS from it's your actions that cause this block between you and God and therefore he says the whole concept of an eclipse is daa a marshal for the idea that God's light is still there but you can't see it and therefore we have to think under what circumstances in our lives are we blocking out God's light God is there when we let God in and that's what the eclipse is saying and and and dka the sun there's nothing happens to the sun it's just that we can't see it and that leads us to think when are we blocking out the light um and causing our own problems that's a beautiful idea he brings the again in number 19 he brings an idea we mentioned before that the whole point is not that the eclipse happens because of a sin the eclipse is natural but when the eclipse happens we need to focus on certain sins and maybe even that these are times which are more auspicious or negative whatever the auspicious negative word for auspicious is um for for those kind of sins uh and he gives his own explanation but have a look for a second in uh in number 20 this is a source that we don't often bring go to page seven this is raim the alter of kelm look at what he says very interesting he talks about an eclipse that happened in Europe in 1891 in last summer he says in the summer of 1890 sorry 1891 at the beginning of the summer it was actually June 6th in that year there was a there was a solar eclipse which there was in in Russia and we saw with our very eyes that there was a terrible terrible hunger a terrible famine in Russia which I mentioned in my notes Here in 1891 92 half a million people almost died of famine and many of them obviously from the Jewish community in Russia we saw there was this terrible famine the now in this last week after he's writing here for our many sins there was a there was an eclipse of the moon which by the way often happens when there's an eclipse of the sun because the moon and and the sun are in the same uh the same pattern there the Tilt is in the same place and we should as the Jewish people be very concerned about this because the moon will look black and red together and he brings from the G that says if it's red that's a terrible sign for war if it's black it's a terrible sign for hunger and if it's both it's a terrible sign for both go to the second paragraph on the left it is not a time to be asleep because we have again we're not worried and superstitious but we have a clear indication from sham out that there is CH that we need to do and if there was a that came to our town and told us the bad things will come to the world do immediately everybody will be worried so all the more so as the as the the the the have told us exactly what this mean we've seen the sign in the heavens how lucky we are he flips it how fortunate we are that we get signs from sh to tell us to improve ourselves and to become better people us let us look in our ways let us do CH and he brings the at the end return this is what Rashi said if you remember we don't have to be worried if we do the right thing and this will be great for us so again it's not that we look in the sky and predict an apocalypse we look in the sky and we need to do chuv and theik uh in number 21 actually says an even more beautiful idea I think which is as follows look what he says actually we don't know who wrote the there's a rumor that it was a woman that wrote theik but I cannot verify that rumor it's an anonymous source from theim but you could go and research that um it could have gone either way it's more likely to have been a man I would have thought he brings here in the we should always remember how amazing this universe is and how what God how great God is who made it and God made the universe in a certain way we should understand it the great things the Small Things the how the whole system works looking up at the cosmos the miracle of the rainfall the miracle of the wind there are so many even countless things that we should be grateful for but because we see every day the Sun and the Moon and the rain and the wind we see that all the time we're not surprised by it we take it for granted when the sun's eclipsed or the moon's eclipsed as who it's astounding because it's far less common than the Sun going round or the Earth rotating therefore look to the skies make an effort go find an eclipse get on a plane go to Greenland wherever the next eclipse is going to be and go and look in the skies and and pretend this is the first amazing thing you ever saw always be child like why is this and why is that and how amazing is this and you'll feel that you were blind until this moment now your eyes have been opened and then learn to do this every day take the eclipse and then do and be like everyday is an eclipse these are this this is not a rocket science this is obvious but it needs to be said I reckon I've said this before that one of the reasons that a lot of people are depressed these days is because they don't see enough sunrises because we get up almost everyone gets up after Sunrise we only see the sun go down we never see the sun come up and if we just got up like they used to do back in the day they had no electric lights rich people could afford candles but no one else so when it got dark they you know sat around and chatted for an hour or so and then they just fell asleep I mean how how long can you be awake talking to your family in the dark so they went to they went to sleep at 8:00 at night so of course they woke up at 4:00 in the morning for nates and they saw the sunrise I think we'd all be different people if we saw the sunrise every single day even the Birds get excited by the sunrise and I absolutely convinced that they look in the direction of the sun when you look at the birds sitting on the telegraph poles in the morning they're looking at the sun in the evening they're looking at the sun I don't know what they're thinking but they're but they're they've got this or sikim deep inside them okay a couple more things and then a halakic issue to finish on I brought you in 23 and 24 um a a piece first of all from AR Al opan that talked about a total solar eclipse over Europe just at the outbreak of World War I and how he felt that was a a time of great uh horror for for for all the people of Europe um at exactly the time of that Eclipse hundreds of thousands of soldiers were being killed in the early battles of World War I and I brought you also in 24 a RAV in Brooklyn who saw an eclipse in 1939 uh early in 1939 in April 1939 and gave a draa saying that the eclipse is a harbinger of War and it's going to be a terrible war and a war like no one had seen before and that t was the second world war you can read those accounts for yourself now the question is you're looking at the eclipse either live or on TV so should you make a broa should you make a br on an eclipse so let's just have a look at this briefly for the last five or six minutes actually 10 minutes we've got left look at number 25 says the missioner alikin on shooting stars or comets the Al has and on earthquakes the AL and on lightning and on Thunder and on hurricanes and tornadoes you have to make a so the next time you're running to the tornado shelter remember this is a bro you should be making on great mountains and on hills on Seas on rivers on deserts you say I once made the BR on the desert I was flying the Sahara Desert I flew from Israel to South Africa and you fly for hours over this unbelievable desert I looked out of the plane um through the window I didn't get out of the plane and and I said and say maybe there's a special one on the Mediterranean or maybe the Atlantic Etc then on the rain at the end forbid bad news you say so it does mention an eclipse it didn't say there was any BR Eclipse he could have said he didn't say one way or the other way so the Aron debate whether this list is exclusive these are the things that you can make AB on and no no other things or whether this list is a paradigm this is anything that is unbelievable to you you go to Niagara Falls that wasn't on the list you see the GES I don't know if that's how you pronounce them where GES I think English people might say GES what do we say geers no I don't like geers okay fine people will write emails to me that that's old geers okay not young geers geers okay geers um you you make do you make a brock on this what about on a volcano again not from too close my grandfather Alam in was in Italy in the second world war fighting in the British army when Mount etner erupted with great uh display you make a broa on a volcano it doesn't say and nevertheless many acronym do say that there are other things such as volcanoes and waterfalls and stalagmite caves that you can make a br onus so what about an eclipse so pop over the page to number nine so page nine excuse me page nine page nine so the gamorra actually asked a question which I skipped it's a number 20 uh 26 which is why we don't make a br as the Moon is waxing every month why don't we say the moon's getting bigger and why don't we say is the Moon's getting smaller and the gar answers because it happens every single month yeah it happens all the time well we going to say every time the moon is going down okay there are all sorts of minhagim you shouldn't get married when the Moon is waning although you can it's just like you know A Min whatever so do you make a br so the Abu daram in number 27 sa abam quotes a that we don't have anymore but he had and he quotes the there since the moon goes down every single month we don't make this the and to ask again we don't have that toas only preserved in the abam what about on an Eclipse which is very seldom it's not like every month we should make a this is terrible the because it's it's a very temporary thing we don't make we don't make a br on something this short which is very interesting the only Braha that they considered making on an eclipse was em not not mes so almost all of Theon if not all of them say no bro on an eclipse the stier I I brought here in the English no bro on Eclipse RAV vzna was quite um uh what's the word permissive when it comes to making broas he made broas on waterfalls in Switzerland so they asked him so if you make a Braha on a waterfall will you make a br on Eclipse so he said I don't know you we need to think about it more he didn't say no he didn't say yes he said we need to think about it more David Al the chief Rabbi of T Aviv formerly he says no BR on an eclipse because of the potential negativity that we've seen negativity I mean it's a time which is you know maybe a bad time we need to do Chua to avoid the bad things the also said no BR on an eclipse because of this reason my wife was standing next to d ER try the 1999 Eclipse which they were watching together on a screen I have no idea why she was with that Troy watching the eclipse I must asked her why I think she must have had a meeting at the Bas in and she asked him should we make a br said no BR okay and of course we generally have a principle saf bras when it comes to bras if in doubt leave it out that's what we say with bras so it's not surprising Rabbi Michael Bry uh has a Chua where he says we definitely don't make a br but he gives you some other ideas maybe say the without sh maybe say the in aric takes a little bit of prep in advance maybe say where it says and thenes maybe recite toim Rabbi Lao the chief Rabbi says you should recite toim 19 and 104 RA in he's the only one that says that I can find if you really feel a sense of awe and wonder when you watch the eclipse then it's permitted to say o which actually opens up an interesting question which is a much bigger metah question which is is our inclination that we want to make more broas because of the sense of AEM or do we want to make less bras because of the sense of that God forbid I don't want to say shame hm for no reason and of course it's a balance in a in Alan we have a very interesting Paradigm because we have ra who is very into the angle on he's the one that's going to say when he hasn't seen you for 30 days he's the one that's going to make atova mative and ra mosha liin who of course is a briska certainly at heart who is very not into making extra Brad and I remember just before the end of Obama's tenure when there was uh a risk that there was going to be a vote at the security Council um which was going to go against Israel and there was a point at which it was blocked eventually it did happen RAV Yol bin stood up inul on Friday night the rav was away maybe the rav went away on purpose but the rav was away and r y stood up and said I'm going to make a that we avoided a security Council resolution and he stood up on the front of the sh and said with a shame and mosha liin couldn't hold himself back he screamed out in SCH no like on Friday night and there was it was like everyone was like like The Clash of the Titans and then afterwards in shul there was raviol and raav mo lonstein arguing it out it was it was an unmissable experience I only wish we could have uh filmed it uh so anyway so RAV mamad says maybe there's a sad to say that a few other halakic questions just to to leave you with are you allowed to publicize an eclipse C says you're not allowed to publicize a rainbow C it's Lush and horror against a world that needs a promise from Hashem I was going to destroy you but I'm not going to so we can't publicize a rainbow but you can publicize an eclipse there's a uh there's a Minag not to get married on a day of a lunar eclipse so in case you're planning a wedding for family um rather the mission of Brewer on page 10 uh writes that there's a minute to fast on the day of a lunar eclipse and then finally there's a there's an interesting question of Kish laana we calculate Kish laana from theik molad you have half a month from the halik molad to say KES laana but we don't know the exact molad usually and the halak molad isn't the astronomical molad but on a month where there's a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse we do know that minute when the Sun goes over your head in front the moon goes in front of the sun that's the molad so do we take that into account for Kish laana yes or no you can look into that yourself and finally I brought you a little few sources there I brought you at the very end in the appendix there was a beautiful account the at the very end of his life in 1929 there was an eclipse near radin and there was an account written up of how theim got the guys in the Yeshiva out of the Yeshiva to watch the eclipse how he what he told them about the eclipse how they watched the eclipse they didn't have the special glasses you buy on you know from Walmart they had like little bits of glass dark glass that they held up to their eyes except the there someone bought him a pair of proper eclipse glasses and there's a whole account there of how he wore them it's actually a beautiful beautiful account uh which was translated into English um and you can read that in your own time what the took out from the eclipse he was very inspired by the eclipse and he wanted to inspire his tum so there you are that gives you a little bit of it's not too late to book a ticket to America uh but but but you might not get there for uh for 4:00 this afternoon okay so please God if we all meet up in a couple hundred years uh for the eclipse here uh then we'll we'll we'll know what we're doing okay next week pesak I promise you BEDA uh and we'll talk about other things okay