[Avodah] Solar Eclipses and Maaseh Bereshis

[Sholom Simon via Avodah]

I heard a very interesting shiur at yutorah.

Everything below was mentioned, plus one other thing: a great 
explanation of a gemara (or another Chazal) that says something like:

"X" comes into the world (X might have been eclipses, or, if not, 
something related in some way) with four reasons:
- not appropriately euglogizing an av beis din
- (I can't remember)
- homosexuality
- the death of two brothers at once (or in battle)

(He started the connection my explaining the ma'aseh of the moon's 
complaint against H' at creation . . . )

Here's the problem with my post:
- I got to it via the "featured shiruim" on my YUTorah phone app -- 
and it's not there now.  I went to the desktop site, and I can't seem 
to find it
- I don't remember who it was (except that the rav who gave it over 
had a middle or eastern European accent)

(My excuse: I went to western South Carolina to see the eclipse.  The 
8 hour drive home turned into almost 13 hours because of traffic, and 
I drove alone.  I heard a lot of shiurim and my mind is pretty fuzzy . . . )

FWIW,

-- Sholom


At 05:40 AM 8/22/2017, via Avodah wrote:
>Message: 13
>Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2017 20:07:30 -0400
>From: Zev Sero via Avodah <avodah at lists.aishdas.org>
>To: Avodah <avodah at lists.aishdas.org>
>Subject: Re: [Avodah] Solar Eclipses and Maaseh Bereshis
>Message-ID: <2f63a618-b62b-b14f-5218-785c1c65906b at sero.name>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>
> > The AlN says that a solar eclipse is a bad sign for non-Jews, and a
> > lunar eclipse a bad sign for "son'eihem shel" Yisrael. I don't 
> see an answer
> > to the question in his words.
>
>That's not the Aruch Laner, that's the gemara.   The Aruch Laner points
>out that the gemara does not say, as it could easily have done, that
>eclipses are bad signs, but instead says *at the time* when the sun or
>moon is eclipsed it's a bad sign for the appropriate people.  This means
>that the (well-understood and predictable) time when an eclipse happens
>is a time of judgement, just as there are other times of judgement or
>mercy.  E.g. Chazal also said that Wednesdays are a time of judgement,
>even though they certainly knew that Wednesdays come with very precise
>and predictable regularity!  So also a solar eclipse marks a time when
>Hashem sits in judgement on those nations to whom it is visible.
>
>This is just as the Ramban wrote about the rainbow, which is a natural
>phenomenon that used to occur regularly long before the flood, but
>Hashem said that from now on whenever there is a rainbow it will remind
>Him of His promise, whereas before that it didn't have that function.
>
>This also explains why Chazal used the example of a king who, when angry
>at his subjects tells his servant to remove the lamp from before them
>and let them sit in the dark.  Who is the servant here?  And why didn't
>they have the king simply order the light extinguished?  Why have it
>removed from before them?  This shows that they were aware that the sun
>is not extinguished in an eclipse but is merely hidden by Hashem's
>servant, the moon.