Shabbat Gathering: The eclipse: bad omen or for a blessing?

Brian D. Johnson - 05 Apr 2024

Dear Chevrei, as is our custom, we will gather tonight at 5.45p ct to welcome Shabbat. These are the coordinates:

Zoom
Meeting ID: 883 8469 4181
Password: 822665
Phone: +1 312 626 6799

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Here we go.

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.
--Bob Dylan, It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding).

In just a few days, an eclipse will cross Earth. Once upon a time, before science, an eclipse was a mysterious and terrifying event. Bees and cows are baffled and fearful. A nighttime chill wraps around everyone in the path of the totality. And when the sun peeks back out from behind the moon, roosters will cock-a-doodle-do once again.

By the time of the rabbis, eclipses were predictable and not a supernatural sign of good or evil. Still, the question remained as to whether we say a blessing for an eclipse. Afterall, there’s all sorts of natural phenomena we bless: rainbows, flowers, thunder, and even using the bathroom.

But some believe an eclipse is a bad omen and a blessing is not to be said. Today, most rabbis split the difference between an eclipse being a bad omen and a phenomena of nature with most opinions leaning to the opinion that we do not bless an eclipse. And it takes just a second for the rabbis to start weighing in on the paradox of free will and fate.

In general, the rabbis side with the prophet Jeremiah who believed that such natural phenomena as an eclipse is not, in and of itself, a portent of something evil as long as we don’t do evil during the eclipse.

And remember, don’t look at the sun!

And may it be for all of us a blessing.

See you tonight!
Gut Shabbes!

All my love,
brian.

PS

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