There’s some hoopla going on about the fact that there will be a tetrad of total lunar eclipses in the next year and a half that fall out on the first day of Pesach and first day of Succot 2014, and then again on the first day of Pesach and Succot 2015. In between those four “blood moons” so-called because the moon turns red with the Earth’s shadow, there will be a total solar eclipse on Rosh Chodesh Nissan 2015.

The last time this happened, when all four total lunar eclipses fell out on Pesach and Succot, was in 1967-68. The time before that was 1949-50. And then before that 1493-94. As for a total solar eclipse happening on Rosh Chodesh Nissan right smack in the middle, I don’t know if that has ever happened before.

Pastor John Hagee, who I have always found mesmerizing but rather creepy, is going all out about this stuff predicting the second coming of Jesus and whatnot. He wrote about it, was featured on Fox News about it, gave a three part sermon on the coming of the Rapture about it, music played in the background during the more emotional Jesusish parts, he kept saying over and over “the King is Coming” and referring to Psukim with bad translations and incorrect chapter/verse numbers.

Hagee wants to say that four blood moons signifies something about the Jews, 1493-94 being the expulsion from Spain (it was actually 1492), 1949-50 being the founding of Israel (it was actually 1948) and 1967-68 being the reunification of Jerusalem, which is on the dot. Therefore, something big is supposed to happen in 2014-15 involving the Jews and Israel, and Hagee expects it to be the Rapture, the Second Coming, either, both, whatever, I don’t know.

Hagee takes a verse from Yoel which he calls 2:32, but which does not actually exist. The verse is 3:4. He erroneously places it in chapter two because along with most Christians reading a book that is not theirs in a language not theirs, he doesn’t know how to read. Chapters 1 and 2 concern the past, being the locust plague Yoel describes. Chapters 3 and 4 concern the future, which Yoel is comparing to the locust plague that had just happened. In any case, the verse Hagee quotes is this one:

הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ יֵהָפֵךְ לְחֹשֶׁךְ, וְהַיָּרֵחַ לְדָם–לִפְנֵי, בּוֹא יוֹם יְהוָה, הַגָּדוֹל, וְהַנּוֹרָא.

“The sun will turn to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great terrible day of the Lord.”

Well, OK, that seems to be talking about a solar and lunar eclipse, so maybe there’s something to this. But there’s a lot that Hagee is missing. I’ll fill some of it in. Some of this stuff comes from a friend of mine who’s into seeing signs and such.

The three religions that sprang from ancient Israel are governed by three different calendars. Islam has a purely lunar calendar. Christianity a fully solar calendar. Judaism is a combination of both, with leap lunar years to compensate for the differences in the calendars. We are currently in such a lunar leap year. The moon represents Islam, which is loosely identified with Yishmael. The sun, Christianity, loosely identified with Edom, or Esav.

The generally accepted Rabbinic view of the battle of Gog and Magog on Israel is that Edom and Yishmael will battle each other on Israel’s territory. Israel will not be directly involved, but will only be caught in the crossfire. In other words, Christianity and Islam will duke it out over here for whatever reason.

The first question that occurred to me when seeing the coincident dates of 1493, 1949, and 1967 was 1967 and 1949 I get. But why 1493? Forget about being a year late, but really, was the expulsion from Spain all that cosmic? We’ve been expelled from lots of places. It was traumatic, but earth shattering day-of-the-Lord? Not really.

The answer is, a tetrad lunar eclipse, if it does signify anything, has nothing to do with Jews. The moon is Islam. It has to do with Muslims. And 1493 was indeed a big year for Islam. It was the year they lost Europe. So was 1949, the year the Muslims lost the war against Israel. They were still fighting in 1948. The armistice and defeat was in 1949. If the tetrad lunar eclipses signal something about Jews, it would have been 1948, but 1949 was the defeat of Islam in Israel, not the founding of the State. In 1967 they lost Jerusalem and it happened in 6 days, so that one was on the dot.

As for a solar eclipse happening on Rosh Chodesh Nissan, that was the day when the Jewish People received their first national commandment, the first מצוה. The Mitzva of the calendar.

הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם, רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים:  רִאשׁוֹן הוּא לָכֶם, לְחָדְשֵׁי הַשָּׁנָה.

Rabbinically translated, “The new moon will mark the start of each month for you, and this month (Nisan) will be the first month of the year.”

Giving someone their own calendar is symbolic of freeing them from the forced calendar of slavery. But why should the new moon on the first signify a new month? Why not the full moon on the 15th, which would be counted as the first? In other words, why count from new moon to new moon rather than from full moon to full moon? After all, Israel were still slaves at that point, on Nissan 1. The 10th plague hadn’t happened yet. It wouldn’t happen for another two weeks. Why start the calendar now? At least wait until the deal is sealed and they’ve gotten out of Egypt.

In fact, now that I think of it, all of the beginning of Exodus chapter 12 is temporally displaced. Moshe warns Pharaoh of the 10th plague in chapter 11, warning that it will happen at midnight on the 15th. Then chapter 12 goes back in time 14 days about what God said to Moshe on the first of the month. Then it skips forward to the 15th and Israel gets out the next morning.

The answer is that by the first, God started the Mitzvot, which began with the calendar, and moved to the Pesach, Matza, the blood on the doorposts etc. By then, even though while technically still in Egypt, the fog of slavery had lifted, and all the people had to do was follow God and stay out of the way. Those who followed were saved. Those who didn’t, who knows.

If the solar eclipse next Rosh Chodesh Nisan means anything, and I’m not conceding that it does, then it could mean that Israel’s dependence on Christianity, Edom, AKA the US, will end on that date, just as its dependence on Egypt ended on that date even though Egypt didn’t give up until two weeks later.

So a combination of lunar eclipses on Pesach and Succot and a solar eclipse on Rosh Chodesh Nisan, if it signifies anything, would signify that both Christianity and Islam will block each other out, perhaps by fighting each other.

It is also significant that the final lunar eclipse of the four will occur on Succot, the very holiday focused on in the Battle of Gog and Magog on Israel. As for the significance of 2015 itself, my friend and I have been thinking about that for months before either of us knew about the four blood moons.

There are two things notable about 2015. First, it will be a shmitah year, when debts are liquidated. The last shmitah year was 2007-08, a year of a LOT of debt liquidation. The shmita before that was 2000-01, the end of the Nasdaq bubble and a LOT of debt liquidation. Another notable shmitah year was 1987, the year of the Black Monday market crash. Before that, 1980, the peak of interest rates and the 1980 gold bull top. 1973 was the year of stagflation, the first time the American economy experienced both stagnation and inflation together.

But 2015 has something else going for it. The Hebrew year will be תשעו, written fully התשעו, or rearranged תשועה, meaning “salvation”. That is 5776, starting in September 2015.

I am no kabbalist, but what follows is a translation from my friend’s blog. Let’s be cute and call this Purim Torah:

וַיְהִי בִּימֵי אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ הוּא אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ הַמֹּלֵךְ מֵהֹדּוּ וְעַד כּוּשׁ שֶׁבַע וְעֶשְׂרִים וּמֵאָה מְדִינָה

“In the days of Achashverosh, that is Achashverosh who ruled from India to Ethiopia, 127 states.”

It is well known that the Book of Esther contains within it many hints and secrets regarding the final redemption. The book falls within the context of Ezra’s move to Israel and the rebuilding of the Temple which was postponed at the time. This parallels our time, especially since Esther and Mordechai are both from the tribe of Binyamin, and we are under the rule of Mashiach Ben Yosef of Binyamin.

(Rafi’s note, I don’t know what he’s talking about  with the Binyamin thing.)

וַיֹּאמֶר הַמֶּלֶךְ לְאֶסְתֵּר בְּמִשְׁתֵּה הַיַּיִן מַה שְּׁאֵלָתֵךְ וְיִנָּתֵן לָךְ וּמַה בַּקָּשָׁתֵךְ עַד חֲצִי הַמַּלְכוּת וְתֵעָשׂ

“And the King said to Esther at the drinking party, ‘What is your request and I will grant it, what is your wish? Up to half the kingdom and it will be done.”

The fact that the Temple is encoded into the Book of Esther we know from the Gemara in Megila:

Says the Gemara Megila 15B: “Up to half the kingdom and it will be done,” half the kingdom and not the whole thing, nor something that smacks of a kingdom. And what smacks of a kingdom? The Temple.

From here we can extrapolate the redemption of Mashiach Ben David. Achashverosh is limiting Esther, who represents Mashiach ben Yosef, up to the point of the Temple. The “up to” in “up to half the kingdom” comes from the blessing of Binyamin by Yaakov, which says “You will eat up to the morning”.

“Half the kingdom” – if Achashverosh rules 127 states, half of that would be 63.5. If we count from the beginning of the State of Israel, which is the beginning of the era of Mashiach ben Yosef, that turns out to be 2012, which is the beginning of the years of preparation for Mashiach ben David, which are 5772-5775. (Rafi’s note: He brings in a source here for that but I haven’t sifted through it.)

Therefore, the meaning of the verse is this: Up to half the kingdom and it will be done. “Up to half” means up to 5772 (2012). From then, Mashiach ben David begins to rise. And when is it complete? At the end of Shmitah, and when does that fall out?

It will be done is ותעש. Or תשעו. If you switch the letters. 5776.

My friend continues to point out that every time the word תשועה is mentioned in Tanach, it always has to do with David. No exceptions.

And there are other hints at 5776 throughout the Torah. Here’s a fun one though, one that I can proudly say I found. It’s in Breishit 38. Yehuda leaves his brothers after the sale of Yosef. Figuratively, after the downfall of Mashiach ben Yosef. Yehuda settles near a guy named Hirah, who has a friend named Shua. Yehuda marries the daughter of this guy Shua, and for the rest of the story this woman is only known as בת שוע, or Shua’s daughter.

It’s always bugged me why she doesn’t have a name.

When Bat Shua dies, Yehuda goes down to Timnah to sheer his sheep. Tamar, who has been sitting around waiting for Yehuda to give him his third son after the first two died, hears about it and follows him down. This leads to Yehuda thinking Tamar is a prostitute, sleeping with her and starting the Mashiach’s ancestral line.

So why Bat Shua?

אל תקרא בת שוע אלא ב-תשוע. Or 5776.

Also note that David’s wife, the one that gives birth to Shlomo, is בת שבע, or 5772.

And the fourth and final blood moon occurs on Succot, 5776, the holiday of Gog and Magog, when every nation is supposed to come to the temple to worship God.

All in all, this could all be nothing. I’d like to believe it, but can’t say that I do. But in case it isn’t nothing, let it be recorded here that I believed it plausible enough that I wrote it down as Purim Torah.

נכנס פורים יוצא סוד.