Are You Ready for the Lunar Eclipse?

On Friday July 27 and into the early hours of Shabbat on July 28, there will be a total lunar eclipse. Now, these are not that rare - elsewhere we discussed the one that occurred on the first night of Sukkot (September 27) 2015. But this one will be a little different from that 2015 Sukkot eclipse.  That one occurred when the moon was at its closest to the earth; this one will occur when the moon is at its furthest point from earth.  So the moon will be a little smaller. You can see the relative differences is size of the two below.

Courtesy of NASA.

As we've noted before, a solar eclipse can only occur at the start of  a Hebrew month, as the moon gets between the sun and the earth.  A lunar eclipse is also linked to the Jewish month, and can only occur around the 15th day of the month, when the moon is full.  As the earth passes between the sun and the moon, its shadow is cast onto the moon, resulting in an eclipse.

 So why don't we see a lunar eclipse every month? The answer is simple. The moon's orbit is inclined at 5 degrees from the sun-earth plane, so that each month the moon may be slightly above, or slightly below that plane. And a lunar eclipse will occur only when the three bodies line up on the same plane as the earth-sun.

The shabbat Lunar Eclipse

The figure below (from here) shows when and how much of the eclipse you will be able to see.  As you can see, this eclipse will not be visible anywhere over North America. Which seems only fair since North America had its own spectacular solar eclipse last year, and didn't share that with the rest of the world.

From here

But elsewhere there are great opportunities to get a good view. Here are some:

	Jerusalem	London	Paris	Sydney	Mumbai
Duration	6 hours, 13 mins, 51 sec	3 hours, 39 mins, 22 sec	3 hours, 59 mins, 37 sec	3 hours, 40 mins, 40 sec	6 hours, 13 mins, 51 sec
Duration of totality	1 hour, 42 mins, 56 sec	1 hour, 23 mins, 55 sec	1 hour, 42 mins, 56 sec	1 hour, 25 mins 12 sec	1 hour, 42 mins, 56 sec
Penumbral begins	Jul 27 at 8:14:47 pm	Moon below horizon	Moon below horizon	Jul 28 at 3:14:47 am	Jul 27 at 10:44:47 pm
Partial begins	Jul 27 at 9:24:27 pm	Moon below horizon	Moon below horizon	Jul 28 at 4:24:27 am	Jul 27 at 11:54:27 pm
Full begins	Jul 27 at 10:30:15 pm	Moon below horizon	Jul 27 at 9:29:01 pm	Jul 28 at 5:30:15 am	Jul 28 at 1:00:15 am
Moonrise	None	Jul 27 at 8:49:16 pm	Jul 27 at 9:30:15 pm	Jul 28 at 6:21:44 am	None
Maximum	Jul 27 at 11:21:44 pm	Jul 27 at 9:21:44 pm	Jul 27 at 10:21:44 pm	Jul 28 at 6:55:27 am	Jul 28 at 1:51:44 am
Full ends	Jul 28 at 12:13:11 am	Jul 27 at 10:13:11 pm	Jul 27 at 11:13:11 pm	Moon below horizon	Jul 28 at 2:43:11 am
Partial ends	Jul 28 at 1:19:00 am	Jul 27 at 11:19:00 pm	Jul 28 at 12:19:00 am	Moon below horizon	Jul 28 at 3:49:00 am
Penumbral ends	Jul 28 at 2:28:38 am	Jul 28 at 12:28:38 am	Jul 28 at 1:28:38 am	Moon below horizon	Jul 28 at 4:58:38 am

For the sake of our many new readers, and to refresh the minds of our others, let's take a re-look at what Judaism has to teach us about eclipses.

The Talmud on Eclipses

תלמוד בבלי סוכה דף כט עמוד א 

תנו רבנן: בזמן שהחמה לוקה - סימן רע לעובדי כוכבים, לבנה לוקה - סימן רע לשונאיהם של ישראל, מפני שישראל מונין ללבנה ועובדי כוכבים לחמה

תנו רבנן: בשביל ארבעה דברים חמה לוקה: על אב בית דין שמת ואינו נספד כהלכה, ועל נערה המאורסה שצעקה בעיר ואין מושיע לה, ועל משכב זכור, ועל שני אחין שנשפך דמן כאחד

Our Rabbis taught, A solar eclipse is a bad omen for idolaters; a lunar eclipse is a bad omen for Israel, because Israel reckons [its calendar] by the moon, and idolaters by the sun...

Our Rabbis taught, A solar eclipse happens because of four things:
1. When an Av Bet Din [head of the Rabbinic Court] died and was not properly eulogized;
2. If a betrothed girl cried out aloud in the city and there was no-one to save her [from being raped];
3. Because of homosexuality; and
4 If two brothers were killed at the same time.

That's what we have - four causes of a solar eclipse, and none for a lunar eclipse - we are just told that it is a "bad omen for Israel." And how does Rashi explain this passage?  לא שמעתי טעם בדבר  - "I have not heard any explanation for this." 

LATER JEWISH EXPLANATIONS OF A SOLAR ECLIPSE

If we know that eclipses are regular celestial events whose timing is predictable and precise, how are we to understand Talmud in Sukkah, which suggests that an eclipse is a divine response to human conduct? We have already seen that Rashi was unable to explain the passage, but that didn't stop others from trying.  The Maharal of Prague (d. 1609) has a lengthy explanation which you can read here.  It goes something like this: "Yes, an eclipse is a mechanical and predictable event. But in truth, if there was no sin, there would be no eclipses, because God would have designed the universe differently, and in such a sin-free universe...there would be no need to design an eclipse." So the Maharal suggests that in a sin-free universe, the moon would not orbit as it does now, at a 5 degree angle to the sun-earth plane.  But where would the moon be? It couldn't be in the same plane as the sun and the earth, since then there would be an solar eclipse every month. If it were at say 20 degrees above the plane, then there would still be both solar and lunar eclipses, though they would be more rare. The only way for there to be no solar eclipses (in the Maharal's sin-free 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. Perfect, except then there would never be a Rosh Chodesh, and the moon would always be visible. Oy.

יערות דבש דרוש י׳ב

Another attempt to explain the Talmud was offered by Jonatan Eybeschutz (d. 1764). In 1751 Eybeschutz was elected as chief rabbi of the Three Communities (Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbek), and was later accused of being a secret follower of the false messiah Shabtai Zevi. In January 1751, Eybeschutz gave a drasha Hamburg in Hamburg 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 related to human conduct? His answer was quite different: The Talmud in Sukkah is not actually addressing the phenomenon that we call a solar eclipse. According to Eybeschutz, the phrase in Sukkah "בזמן שהחמה לוקה" actually means - "when there are sunspots."

Inventive though this is, it is as implausible as the suggestion of the Maharal. In the first place, sunspots were almost (but not quite impossible) to see prior to the invention of the telescope. They were described in March 1611 by a contemporary of Galileo named Christopher Scheiner (though Galileo lost no-time in claiming that he, not Scheiner was the first to correctly interpret what they were.) Because sunspots were so difficult to see with the naked eye, it seems unlikely that this is what the rabbis in Gemara Sukkah were describing.

Christopher Scheine, Rosa Ursina sive Sol (Bracciai 1626-1630)

Second, according to Eybeschutz, sunspots "have no known cause, and have no fixed period to their appearance".  We can't fault Eybeschutz  for his first claim, but - even by the science of his day - his second 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.

It's interesting to note that Galileo got very excited about the discovery that the spots moved across the face of the sun. This suggested (though it did not prove) that the sun itself was spinning. Galileo had also discovered that Jupiter was orbited by moons. Both of these discoveries now added further support to the Copernican model in which the Earth was spinning on its ownaxis, and was not the center of all the movement of objects in the sky. But Eybeschutz did not believe Copernicus was correct: "Copernicus and his supporters have made fools of themselves when they declare that the Earth orbits [the Sun]. They have left us with a lie, and the truth will bear itself witness that the Earth stands still for ever."  Eybeschutz wanted to have sunspots explain away a talmudic mystery, but he dismissed the evidence that they provided in other matters - namely, that the earth moves.

Don't worry America, there's another one coming....

For those who live in North America, the next opportunity to see a total lunar eclipse will be on January 20, 2019 - which is only a few months from now. But what you should start planning for is the next total solar eclipse that will be visible in North America.  Mark your calendars now. It will be on Monday April 8, 2024, two weeks before the start of Passover. So plan accordingly.

[Want even more? Then read this: The Great American Eclipse of 2017: Halachic and Philosophical Aspects.] 

Zevachim 85b ~ The Tumtum and the Androgyne. In Birds.

In tomorrow's discussion of the blemishes that render a sacrifice unusable, we read the following:

זבחים פה, ב

 הנרבע והמוקצה והנעבד ואתנן ומחיר וטומטום ואנדרוגינוס כולן מטמאין בגדים אבית הבליעה 

A bird that was the object of bestiality, or that was set aside for idol worship, or that was worshipped as a deity, or that was given as payment to a prostitute or as the price of a dog, or that was a tumtum or a hermaphrodite, in all of those cases, if its nape was pinched, it renders the garments of one who swallows an olive-bulk from the carcass ritually impure when it is in the throat, as is the halakha with regard to all unslaughtered carcasses of birds. 

Only two kinds of birds - doves and pigeons - were offered as sacrifices, and there were only two kinds of sacrifice for which there were used: The bird chatat (sin offering) in fulfillment of an obligation, and the bird olah (burnt offering) brought either voluntarily, or at the fulfillment of an obligation.

There was an unusual practice of slaughtering these birds in the Temple called melikah, in which the fingernail of the Cohen pierced the nape of the neck. In tomorrow's daf yomi,  the Talmud (citing a Baraita) lists the blemishes that would render a bird sacrificed in this way as unusable. Since it is no-longer able to be sacrificed, its carcass now transmits ritual impurity.   Among these blemishes are a bird that was a tumtum (טומטום) or one that was  andogyneous (אנדרוגינוס).  There are a couple of different conditions associated with these words so let's first try and sort them out. 

So what is a tumtum?

A tumtum is a a creature (bird, human, whatever) born with ambiguous genitalia. Here is one place  from several found in the Talmud in Bava Basrah (126b) where this meaning is made explicit. It is discussing the question of a tumtum in humans, but the lesson is applicable to other species too.

בבא בתרא קכו, ב 

אמר ר' אמי טומטום שנקרע ונמצא זכר אינו נוטל פי שנים דאמר קרא  והיה הבן הבכור לשניאה עד שיהא בן משעת הויה

Rabbi Ami says: In the case of one whose sexual organs are indeterminate [tumtum]  and  whose skin became perforated so that his genitals were exposed and he was found to be a male, he does not take a double portion of his father’s estate.

A skin covering made it impossible to see the genitals of a person. Once the covering was removed, it became clear that it was a male. This is also the explanation offered by the Rashbam (Samuel ben Meir c.1085 – c. 1158):

בכור הנולד טומטום שאין ניכר בו לא זכרות ולא נקבות ולאחר זמן נקרע ונמצא זכר שהיה גיד שלו וביציו טמונין בגוף

And what about an Androgyne?

 Today, androgyny generally means "possessing both male and female characteristics."  It comes from the Greek:  ἀνδρ- (andr-, meaning man) and γυνή (gyné, meaning woman).  

A hermaphrodite has both both male and female genitalia, and the word is generally used to denote a subset of androgynes.  So, for example, Earthworms are hemaphrodites because they possess both male and female genitalia, and make both male and female gametes (sperm and eggs).

What sex is your dove? 

Either a male or female bird may be brought as a sacrifice.  There is is no need to check your bird's gender.  Which is just as well since determining the sex of a pigeon is a very difficult thing to do. In a 1955 paper on the subject titled Sexing Mature Columbiformes by Cloacal Characters, the authors note that there was no known "simple and reliable method for sexing living individuals" of the order columbiformes, which contains both pigeons and doves.  But should you find some urgent need to do so, grab a modified nasal speculum and follow these simple steps:

[the] bird is held under a light, head downward and feet toward the operator. [The plate] demonstrates this pictorially, although in order to show the insertion of the instrument, the bird is held more horizontally in the picture than it would be in practice. A few small feathers around the vent are plucked. The observer's left forefinger holds back the rectrices and under-tail coverts while the thumb restrains the feathers ventral and anterior to the vent. The head of the instrument is inserted gently to a depth of about one centimeter and directed to the left (to ten o'clock considering the cloaca as a horizontal clock face). The jaws are expanded and at the same time a slight forward and upward pressure (dorsal and posterior to the bird) is applied. This has the simultaneous effects of spreading the lips of the vent, pushing forward (dorsad) the left and slightly posterior wall of the cloaca, and erecting the papilla if the bird is a male. To view the opposite side (not necessary for the sexing process), the instrument is turned in the opposite direction and handled in the same manner.

Yes. That's all there is to it. Which raises the following question: what exactly is a tumtum bird  - that is, a bird with ambiguous genitalia? How on earth would a person know his bird had ambiguous genitalia, when it is practically impossible to distinguish a male from a female bird?  It also raises the following only slightly more uncomfortable question: how is it possible for a human to sodomize a pigeon or a dove? Owing to the challenges of anatomy, the ruling of the ּBaraita that a sodomized bird cannot be brought as a sacrifice must have been theoretical in the extreme. Even so, Maimonides took the time to include it in his list of disqualified birds:

רמב’ם הל׳ פסולי המקדשין ז,  ג

אֲבָל הַנִּרְבָּע וְהַמֻּקְצֶה וְהַנֶּעֱבָד וְהָאֶתְנָן וְהַמְּחִיר וְהַטֻּמְטוּם וְהָאַנְדְּרוֹגִינוּס שֶׁנִּמְלְקוּ. הֲרֵי אֵלּוּ נְבֵלָה לְכָל דָּבָר וּמְטַמְּאִין בְּגָדִים בְּבֵית הַבְּלִיעָה. שֶׁאֵין הַקְּדֻשָּׁה חָלָה עֲלֵיהֶן וַהֲרֵי אֵין פְּסוּלָן בְּקֹדֶשׁ:

But never say "Never"

From Peer and Motz, here. 

Just when you think this whole hermaphrodite bird thing is a figment of the talmudic imagination, nature reminds you that there is no end to her cunning. Writing in 2014 in The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, two biologists described a Northern Cardinal (the bird, not the Church official) that was a bilateral gynandomorph. (Bilateral gynandromorphy is a condition in which one half of a bird’s body appears as a female and the opposite half appears as a male.) "The bird" they reported, "exhibited the typical bright red color of a male cardinal on the left half of its body, and the dull brownish-gray appearance of a female cardinal on the right half." The plumage of our sacrificial birds does not differ between males and females, but even so, this paper reminds us that the notion of androgynous birds might not only be of theoretical importance after all.