A weekly feature of Torah Tidbits to help clarify practical and conceptual aspects of the Jewish Calendar, thereby better fulfilling the mitzva of HaChodesh HaZeh Lachem... It's Wednesday and home stretch for TT writing and printing. Several people at the Center assumed I'd write something about the earthquake, and so I will, even though it is a topic unrelated to the Calendar. I don't know how many people have the presence of mind and/or the reflex to recite a bracha during an earthquake, but there is one. BARUCH ATA HASHEM ELOKEINU MELECH HA'OLAM SHECHOCHO U'G'VURATO MALEI OLAM ...that His power and strength fill the world. This is the bracha for thunder and the bracha for an earthquake. These two phenomena are by no means the same, but they are both manifestations of G-d's might. And so is the Torah's account of the "mouth of the earth" swallowing Korach's gang. That wasn't a "regular" earthquake, but we associate. And here- in lies a similar point to the Lead Tidbit. A peal of thunder, a mild earthquake, an unprecedented super- natural opening of the earth's mouth to swallow evil people and their belongings... it ALL comes from the same Source. The phases of the Moon, a lunar eclipse, the Moon and Sun standing still at Yehoshua's insistence - it all comes from the same Source. An apple gets a Borei Pri HaEitz. The same apple, when it is first of a new season, will also get a She-he-che-yanu. When we see apple trees in blossom in Nisan, we have yet another bracha. All to teach us how to acknowledge G-d's Creation and His continued total involvement in the world. [The
Parshat Yitro Homepage]
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