The (Second) Great American Eclipse

Once again, and to the delight of millions, the shadow of the moon will race across North America on Monday afternoon. Those lucky enough to be under its path will see the sun’s disk totally covered by the moon, and the day turn to night, at least for a few minutes. For many (including yours truly), this will be the second time they will see a total solar eclipse. Seven years ago I was on the beach in Charleston, South Carolina. On Monday, I’ll be at the Indianapolis Zoo. I am excited. I just bought a T-shirt that says “Twice in a Lifetime.”

For most, the event is a celebration of a glorious natural event, caused by the random fact that the sun and the moon appear to us to be the same size in the sky, allowing the former to be covered by the latter. But, perhaps rather surprisingly, traditional Jewish teaching about a solar eclipse raises several profound religious questions, as the rabbis wondered what, exactly, caused it.

The classic Talmudic source on the cause of a solar eclipse is found in Tractate Sukkah 29a:

Our rabbis taught: A solar eclipse occurs on account of four things: Because the Chief of the Rabbinic Court died and was not properly eulogized, because a betrothed woman was raped in a city and none came to rescue her, because of homosexuality, and because of two brothers who were murdered together.

If you are struggling to find a common thread to these disparate events, you are not alone. Rashi (d. 1105), the greatest of the medieval Jewish commentators, despaired of doing so: “I do not know of an explanation for this,” he wrote.

But of course, we have known for centuries that a solar eclipse occurs when the moon lies between the sun and the Earth (and is on the same plane as them). If we know that a solar eclipse is a regular celestial event whose timing is predictable and precise, how then are we to understand Tractate Sukkah, which suggests that it is a divine response to human conduct? We have already noted that Rashi was unable to explain the passage, but this did not prevent others from trying to do so. The famous Maharal of Prague (d. 1609) has a lengthy explanation in his work Be’er Hagolah. He acknowledged that an eclipse is a mechanical and predictable event, but he further suggested that if there was no sin, there would indeed never be a solar eclipse. God would have designed the universe differently, and this hypothetical sin-free universe would have been created without the possibility for a solar eclipse.

But if we extend this 16th-century thought experiment we must ask where, precisely, in a sin-free universe, would the moon be? The only way for there to be no solar eclipses in the Maharal’s imaginary universe would be for the moon to orbit the Earth at 90 degrees to the sun-Earth axis. Then it would never come between the sun and the Earth, and there could never be a solar eclipse. But this would lead to another problem. In such an orbit the moon would always be visible, and so there could never be a Rosh Chodesh, the waxing moon that signifies the beginning of a new Jewish month. The Maharal’s thought experiment provides more complications than it does solutions.

Another attempt to explain the Talmud was offered by Jonathan Eybeschutz (d. 1764). In 1751, Eybeschutz was elected as chief rabbi of the Three Communities (Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbek), although he was later accused of being (and probably was) a secret follower of the false messiah Sabbatai Zevi. In January 1751, Eybeschutz gave a sermon in which he addressed the very same problem that the Maharal had noted: If a solar eclipse is a predictable event, how can it be in response to human conduct? His answer was novel, and certainly very creative. The Talmud in Tractate Sukkah is not actually addressing the phenomenon that we call a solar eclipse. According to Eybeschutz, the phrase in Tractate Sukkah “when a solar eclipse occurs” actually means—“when there are sunspots.”

Inventive though this is, there are two problems with this suggestion. In the first place, sunspots were almost impossible to see before the invention of the telescope. The first published description of them in Western literature was in 1611 by the largely overlooked Johannes Fabricius, and later by a contemporary of Galileo named Christoph Scheiner (though Galileo quickly claimed that he, not Scheiner was the first to correctly interpret what they were). Because sunspots are so difficult to see with the naked eye it seems very unlikely that this is what the rabbis in the Talmud were describing. But there is a second problem with this sunspot interpretation. According to Eybeschutz, sunspots “have no known cause, and have no fixed period to their appearance.” However, and even by the science of his day, this claim was not correct. In fact, both Scheiner and Galileo knew—and wrote—that sunspots were permanent (at least for a while) and moved slowly across the face of the sun in a predictable way. The suggestion that these spots are a response to human activity is therefore difficult to sustain. Furthermore, while a total solar eclipse is strikingly visible to those who are in its shadow, sunspots are, as we have noted, incredibly difficult to see with the naked eye. It would therefore make little sense that these invisible sunspots are to serve as a warning to humanity. And finally, the Talmud describes a solar eclipse as visible in only some places on Earth. While this is a correct description of a solar eclipse, sunspot activity would be visible from any place on Earth, a situation that is clearly not the one described in the Talmud.

A different suggestion was offered by the Italian R. David Pardo (d. 1792) in his work Chasdei David, posthumously published by his family in 1796. R. Pardo acknowledged that most solar eclipses are indeed predictable events, but suggested that there are other kinds of eclipses that cannot in fact be predicted, and it is these kinds of eclipses to which the Talmud is referring. Unfortunately, this suggestion has no factual basis. There are no such phenomena as an unpredictable lunar or solar eclipse, and R. Pardo’s suggestion is untenable.

More recently, the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (d. 1994), wrote that while a solar eclipse was predictable, the local weather was most certainly not. On a clear day the solar eclipse would be visible, but on a cloudy day the sun’s disk would be harder to see. It was this aspect—the weather—that was under divine control, and presumably God could change it in response to the local actions of people. Elegant as this might be, this suggestion, too, has considerable problems. In the first place the weather is indeed predictable, although of course the accuracy of a weather forecast is relatively limited when compared to the accuracy of an eclipse, which can be forecast centuries ahead to the accuracy of a second. But more problematic is the fact that a total solar eclipse will be completely visible whether or not there are clouds. A cloudy day will prevent viewers on the ground from witnessing the moment of conjunction as the moon covers the disc of the sun, and also prevent them from seeing the stars. However, the other effect of a total solar eclipse—darkness as though it were night—will be just as visible.

Putting aside its causes, how might traditional Jews respond when witnessing a solar eclipse? To be specific, might we recite a blessing? There are indeed precedents for reciting a blessing when seeing an awe-inspiring event. For example, we are to make a blessing on seeing the Mediterranean Sea, or a rainbow, on hearing thunder and seeing lightning, and even on seeing an exceptional beautiful or wise person. It is perfectly understandable, therefore, when witnessing one of the greatest of nature’s spectacles, to wish to mark the event with a blessing. However, there appear to be no halachic authorities who would allow a blessing to be recited. Perhaps the first to tackle this question was the Lubavitcher Rebbe. In 1957, he was asked if it was permitted to say a brachah (blessing) on seeing a solar or lunar eclipse, and his reply was unequivocal:

There is a well-established principle that it is forbidden to institute a blessing that is not mentioned in the Talmud. And some say that the reason that no blessing was instituted is because the eclipse is a bad omen. To the contrary, it is important to pray for an omen to be annulled, and to cry out without a brachah.

Here, Rabbi Schneerson combined a halachic justification for not reciting a brachah with the classic Talmudic teaching that a solar eclipse occurs as a result of human sin. However, there are two questions with R. Schneerson’s ruling. First, it is normative Jewish practice to recite a brachah on hearing bad news like the death of a person, and second, the Talmud does not describe a solar eclipse as an omen of forthcoming disaster. It is a sign of sin, not of punishment.

R. Chaim Dovid Halevi (d. 1998) who served as the head of the Rabbinic Court of Tel Aviv and Yaffo, also ruled that we are forbidden to create new berachot, although he understood the urge to do so:

Our rabbis instituted blessings over acts of creation and powerful natural events, like lightning and thunder and so on. However, they did not do so for a lunar or solar eclipse. And if only today we could institute a blessing when we are aware that an eclipse is indeed an incredible natural event. But we cannot, for a person is forbidden to make a blessing up. If a person still wants to make some form of a blessing he should recite the verses “And David blessed … blessed are you, God, the Lord of our father Israel, who performs acts of creation.”

Finally, we should note the opinion of R. David Lau, then the chief rabbi of Modi’in and currently the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel. A young man wrote to R. Lau about his experiences of observing the (partial) solar eclipse of 2001 that could be seen in Israel. He had been left wanting to make a blessing for what was, for him, an awe-inspiring cosmic occurrence. R. Lau empathized with these feelings, but noted that since the rabbis of the Talmud had not prescribed a blessing over an eclipse, it was not possible to institute such a blessing today. R. Lau noted that his own religious response to witnessing the eclipse had been to say Psalm 19, “The Heavens tell of God’s glory” and Psalm 104, “My soul will bless God.”

Monday’s total solar eclipse over North America will allow millions to witness a memorable celestial event. Even if traditional Jews will not make a blessing, there are, as we have noted, other suggestions for an appropriate religious response. On Monday at 3:06 p.m. Central Time, I shall be reciting a verse from the Book of Isaiah (40:26):

“Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; not one of them is missing.”