Wednesday, October 01, 2014

Blood moon tetrad part 2 - Sukkot

COSMIC SYNCHRONICITY WATCH: Is lunar eclipse at Sukkot an ominous sign? (Edmon J. Rodman, JTA). Excerpt:
Jeremy Schnittman, a research astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and an observant Jew, is putting up his, so maybe we shouldn’t worry.

“The lunar tetrad event is perfectly normal,” Schnittman told JTA.

“Every night when you go outside on the first night of Sukkot, it is going to be a full moon. And every lunar eclipse happens during a full moon,” he said. “On average there are two lunar eclipses every year. The chance of having a lunar eclipse on Sukkot is one in six.

“The same is true for the first night of Pesach,” he said, demystifying what at first seems like an awesome coincidence.

But what about the fact that the eclipses fall on the two Jewish holidays?

“If there’s one on Sukkot, then there’s a very high chance that there will be one on Pesach,” said Schnittman, noting that the holidays are exactly six months apart.

“There’s been a lot of hubbub about ‘Four Blood Moons’ in a row,” he added. But once the plane of the orbits of the moon and earth are aligned so that an eclipse occurs, “it’s actually quite reasonable that you are going to get them again every six months for the next couple of years before the cycle moves a little bit out of alignment.”

As for the blood-like color, which is even mentioned in the book of Joel, Schnittman explained, “Full eclipses are always red. Just like the clouds on earth turn red during the sunset, during an eclipse the full moon turns red.”
So don't get excited; it's not a sign of the apocalypse. Last year's blood moon at Passover was noted and discussed here.