According to Rabbi Yosef Berger, rabbi at the Tomb of King David shrine on Mount Zion, “A lunar eclipse in the Hebrew month of Shvat is an especially bad omen that will bring harsh natural phenomena.” He cited among others Rabbi Moshe Ben Israel Benjamin from Safed (1894). “The eclipse will usher in a period of intensified earthquakes around the world,” he said, adding that “a lunar eclipse is indeed an evil omen,” but noting that the eclipse in question would not be visible in Israel.
Rabbi Berger mentioned to Breaking Israel News (BIN) that the prominent rabbi and Torah scholar Chaim Kanievsky (90) from Bnei Brak preached the evening before regarding the lunar eclipse. “Since it falls on the holiday of Tu B’Shvat, the harsh judgments cannot fall on Israel,” Berger explained, paraphrasing the teaching from Rabbi Kanievsky. “They will be deflected and fall on the nearby Muslims, who figure their calendar exclusively by the lunar cycle.”
When full, or new, moons come particularly close to the earth they are referred to as super-moons. There were three lunar spectacles in...
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