On Friday, this newsletter linked to an article providing an overview of various traditional Jewish approaches to solar eclipses. Here, Jack Zaientz takes a somewhat deeper look at some of them. He notes that by the 16th century, rabbis began to wonder whether a solar eclipse, which occurs at predictable intervals, can really be understood as an evil omen, as the Talmud suggests:

Rabbi Judah Loew, the Maharal of Prague, attempted to answer the question. According to him, eclipses are a bad omen that occur because of sin, but if we lived in a sin-free world, God would have created the universe without solar eclipses. Instead, God would have kept the moon and the sun from ever occluding each other. No sin would mean no need for bad omens and therefore no eclipses.

More recently than the Maharal, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher rebbe, presented another solution. Like the Maharal, the rebbe started with a statement of faith in the sages of the Talmud, stating that eclipses are, without question, bad omens. But the rebbe, who had studied mathematics and physics in Paris and Berlin, tried to wrestle with how they could also be required by the laws of nature. Where the Maharal’s explanation was mechanistic, contemplating different orbits in a sin-free universe, the rebbe’s was spiritual. He observed that the point of the bad omen was so that we would see it, repent, and return to God. Therefore, the only ones who would be affected by the bad omen would be those who had strayed from God and therefore benefit from the reprimand.

Others solve the problem by suggesting that the talmudic passages in question don’t refer to eclipses at all, but to some other phenomenon.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.