April 8 In History
73(15th of Nisan, 3833): The Great Revolt came to an end today when the defenders of Masada completed their murder/suicide pact
217: Assassination of Roman Emperor Caracalla. Some Romans may Caracalla who was officially known as Antonius, as a disgrace to his office. Caracalla extended the right of citizenship to all of those living in the empire as a way of raising additional taxes. Under the “law of unintended consequences” this improved the status of the Jews. While Caracalla showed no special affection for his Jewish subjects, he did not single them out for any special disabilities or punishments except for one matter of taxation. This was an improvement over life under some of his predecessors and many of his successors. When it came to taxes, Caracalla took as much as he could. Since the time of Julius Caesar, the Jews of Palestine had been exempt from paying certain taxes during the Sabbatical Year. The taxes were paid in produce which was used to feed the army. Caracalla put an end to the exemption. Caracalla was fighting the Parthians in 216 which was a Sabbatical Year. Rabbi Janni, a contemporary of Judah haNasi, ruled that it was permissible for the Jews of Palestine to grow crops during the Sabbatical Year so that they could pay these taxes. He made it clear that this was a special exemption and in no way was intended as an abrogation of the Sabbatical Year.
426: Emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian III decree that Jewish parents and grandparents cannot disinherit any children and grandchildren who convert to Christianity. This was designed to enhance the spread of Christianity since under the decree those who converted to other religions could be disinherited.
1139: Roger II of Sicily is excommunicated. Roger may have had his problems with Innocent II, but for a monarch of his time, the Jews benefited from his rule. Roger allowed the Jews to be tried under their own legal system; the same privilege that he had extended to his Greek and Saracen subjects. One of his close advisors was known to be sympathetic to the Jews going so far as to visit their synagogues and to donate money for the support of the community. Finally, Roger brought a significant contingent of Greek Jews to Palermo, the capital of Sicily, who were supposed to tend silk-worms in an attempt to develop the silk trade.
1484: Local farmers of Arles, France, led by the town's monks attacked the Jewish section of the town. A number of people were killed and 50 men were forced to accept Christianity.
1559: “Dominican monks distributed inflammatory pamphlets in Cremona, Italy, urging the populace to kill the Jews.” (As reported by Abraham P. Bloch)
1730: In New York, the (first) Mill Street Synagogue which is known as Shearith Israel was consecrated. It was the first structure designed and built to be a synagogue in continental North America. During the time the congregation was at Mill Street, the Sephardic leadership worried it might become Ashkenazic. The compromise within the Jewish community was they agreed the president of the congregation would be Ashkenazi, while the services would remain under the traditional Spanish and Portuguese rite, under the guise of a Sephardic chazzan. It is now known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue. One of its most famous leaders was Gershom Menes Seixas, a patriot during the Revolution, who had to leave when the British took the city. A 1744 visitor noted that congregation's women "of whom some were very pretty, stood up in the gallery like a hen coop."
1801: Soldiers rioted and killed 128 Jews in Bucharest.
1817(22nd of Nisan, 5577): 8th day of Pesach
1819: A traveler who stopped in Joannina (Yanina), Greece acknowledged the following:
"In going out of the village this morning, soon after the sun rose, we passed a Turk, richly dressed, sitting upon a carpet, under a fig tree just budding…I know of no European habit of life so picturesque, as the Eastern one. Greek, Turk, and Hebrew enjoy nearly an equal protection."
1847: Birthdate of Karl Wittegenstein, the Austrian steel tycoon who was often compared to his friend Andrew Carnegie. Like so many 18thEuropean Jews, Wittegenstein converted. For him Vienna was apparently well worth a Mass.
1851: Abraham Abrahamsohn arrived in San Francisco. A baker by trade, Abrahamsohn had left his wife and children in Pomerania (Germany) to seek his fortune in America. On his first day in San Francisco he “set up a canvas-roofed store” on the Long Wharf” where he made $85 in one day. After several exciting years, Abrahamson returned to Germany where he published Interesting Accounts of the Travels of Abraham Abrahamsohn to America and Especially to the Gold Mines of California and Australia in 1856.
1873:Sir Julius Vogel begins serving his first term as Prime Minister of New Zealand. Vogel was the first practicing Jew to hold this position.
1876(14thof Nissan, 5636): An article published today entitled “Passover: The Jewish Feast of Unleavened Bread” stated that “this evening will be marked by the peculiar ceremonies incident to the Jewish festival of "Pesach" or Passover. This festival, which is also known as the "feast of unleavened bread," continues for eight days, and, with the exception of the New-Year feast and the Day of Atonement, is more generally observed than any of the very numerous festal days in the Hebraic calendar.”
1879(15th of Nisan, 5639): In New York, on the first day of Pesach, Rabbi Frederick De Sola Mendes delivered the sermon at Shaarai Tefilla, Rabbi Henry S. Jacobs delivered the sermon at B’nai Jeshurun and Rabbi H.P. Mendes delivered the sermon at Shearith Israel.
1887(14th of Nisan, 5647): Rabbi Gustav Gottheill led the well-attended Passover eve services at Temple Emanu-El in New York City.
1887(14th of Nisan, 5647): An article published today entitled “The Feast of the Passover” states that “the celebration of Pesach, or the Passover, will begin at sunset this evening. The feature of the celebration is the substitution of the matzoth or unleavened cakes for bread…”
1890: Among the victims of a riot by 8,000 unemployed workers in Vienna were the several shops owned by Jews which were plundered by the mob.
1891: In Australia, Sir John Monash, who would lead the Aussies during World War I, married Hannah Victoria Moss. Their only child, Bertha, would be born 2 years later in 1893.
1891: John Duncan is the architect for the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society’s building now being built by Lynd Brothers. The new building will be 66 feet wide and 125 feet and will enable the society to double its capacity from 400 t0 800 orphans. The $90,000 cost will be covered by raised by board members and prominent supports including Philip J. Joachimsen, the founder of the society and Moses Lauterbach, Chairman of the Advisory Board.
1892: During today’s lecture on Jerusalem and the Holy land, John L. Stoddard displayed a large, rare photographic collection that included views of Jaffa and Jerusalem not seen by most Americans.
1893(22nd of Nisan, 5653): 8th day of Pesach
1893: Karl Luger, a deputy in the Austrian parliament addressed an anti-Semitic rally in Vienna tonight “at which the Jews were violently denounced.”
1895: “A package of clothing addressed to the United Hebrew Charities” was sold for $23 at today unclaimed parcels auction held by the American Express. It was the highest price paid for any of the unclaimed items.
1895 (14th of Nisan, 5655): “The Feast of the Passover” published today describes the current status of the observance of Pesach. “The celebration of Pesach…will be begun by the Jewish people throughout the world this evening…Those of the Jewish community who still cling to the orthodox observances of the Hebraic ritual continue the celebration of the festival for eight day, the first two and last two days of that period being observed as strict holy days. Those who have accepted the modern or reform ritual celebrate only the first and the last day of the festival.”
1896: Lewis May, President of Temple Emanu El has sent “a communication” the Union Veteran Hebrew Association offering the use of the city’s synagogues for memorial services. Among those planning for the Memorial Day celebration are Isaac Eckstein, Isaac J. Siskin and Otto Lassner.
1896: A committee of the New York State Board of Charities that has been investigating the Ladies’ Deborah Nursery and Child Protectory submitted its report this afternoon
1896: “Jews In Our Wars” published today provided a detailed review of The American Jew As A Patriot, Soldier and Citizen, a book written to counter the claims of anti-Semites had shirked their role as soldiers in the United States.
1896: “Scenes in the Orient” published a review of A Cruise Under the Crescent a travel book that includes descriptions of visits to Jerusalem, by Charles Warren Stoddard in which the author “tells of that vexation all travelers feel as the authenticity of the shrines in Palestine”
1897(6th of Nisan, 5657): Hungarian rabbi and Talmudic scholar Samuel Low Brill passed away.
1897: Karl Lueger, the anti-Semitic politician, began his services as Mayor of Vienna. Historians do not agree as to the depth of Lueger’s anti-Semitism. Some, including Amos Elon contend it was more of a political ruse designed to garner votes and power.
1897: In an article describing the Jewish observance of the Blessing of the New Sun, the New York Times reports that synagogue records “show that the new sun service has been conducted by orthodox Hebrews in this country at intervals of twenty-eight years for 180 years.”
1898: Birthdate of E Y "Yip" Harburg. Born Isidore Hochberg, to Orthodox Jewish parents on New York's lower east side, Harburg appears to have enjoyed a reasonably happy childhood with his parents exposing to him art, literature and the Yiddish theatre. After trying his hand at everything from journalism to selling appliances, Hochberg began a successful career as a lyricist during the depths of the Great Depression. His first financial and artistic angel was Ira Gershwin. Harburg wrote the words to the Depression hit "Brother Can You Spare A Dime." While you may not know his name, anybody who has seen the Wizard of Oz, has heard several Harburg hits. Harburg's career disintegrated during the Red Scare of the 1950's. He died in an automobile accident in 1961.
1900: Birthdate of Gavriel Mullokandov, the native of Samarkand who was regarded by some “as the greatest Bukharian Jewish singer and musician.”
1908: Harvard University votes to establish the Harvard Business School. Among its Jewish graduates are Donna Dubinksy, Gabi Ashkenazi, Len Blavatnik, Michael Bloomberg, Stephen Allen Schwarzman and Robert Kraft.
1908: The Passover Relief Association of Harlem distributed 2,000 pounds of Matzah, 300 pounds of coffee and other items necessary to celebrate the upcoming holiday of Passover to the needy east side Jews today.
1910: Large Jewish owned mercantile houses in Salonika announce 1% of all cash takings will go toward the cost of new Turkish warships.
1911: In the Bronx, Morris Kaplan a candy store owner who worked as a textile cutter and his wife gave birth to Judge Benjamin Kaplan, “who as an Army officer helped craft the indictment of the Nazi war criminals who were tried at Nuremberg, and who later became a Harvard law professor and served nine years on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)
1917: Sir Mark Sykes wrote to the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, “That the French were hostile to the notion of bringing the United States into Palestine as a patron of Zionism.”
1918: During World War I, Charlie Chaplin led a group of Hollywood starts in selling war bonds on the streets of New York City’s financial district.
1923(22nd of Nisan, 5683): 8th day of Pesach
1926: Birthdate of Sheldon Greenfield, the Chicago native who gained fame as comedian Shecky Greene
1929: In Tel Aviv, Sir John Chancellor, the High Commissioner to Palestine, presided over the opening of the fourth Palestine and Near East exhibition.
1930: During a visit to Palestine where he is gathering material for a novel based on Jacob and Joseph, Nobel Prize winning author Thomas Mann compared Zionism “in its ideals and purposes to the Romantic movement among the Germans in the 19thcentury.” Mann was especially impressed by the Jews of Tel Aviv who seemed “freer and happier” than Jews living elsewhere. “He believes that Tel Aviv has a bright future because of the wide-awakeness and intellectuality of its people.”
1931: Publication of “When Judge Cardozo Writes” by Felix Frankfurter, a case of one future Jewish Supreme Court Justice writing about another future Jewish Supreme Court Justice.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/when-judge-cardozo-writes
1935: Birthdate of Broadway lyricist Fred Ebb. Along with John Kinder he created numerous musicals including Chicago and Cabaret.
1935: Congressional legislation created the Works Progress Administration, which developed millions of jobs for the unemployed. WPA agencies placed 8.5 million Americans on the federal payroll, including hundreds of Yiddish actors, writers, scene designers and theater directors hired for the administration’s Federal Theatre Project.
1936(16th of Nisan, 5696): 2nd day of Pesach; 1st day of the Omer
1936(16th of Nisan, 5696): Robert Bárány, who won the Noble Prize for Medicine in 1914, passed away
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/barany.html
1937: Birthdate of Seymour Hersh. A graduate of the University of Chicago, Hersh is a Pulitzer Award winning reporter for the New York Times.
1937: The Palestine Post reported from London that there was some concern among members of the House of Commons over rumors of the possibility that the Royal (Peel) Commission on Palestine might propose partition. Col. J.C. Wedgwood, MP, declared that the proposed partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state meant "the scuttling of British responsibilities under the Mandate."
1939: Birthdate of Trina Schart Hyman, artist and book illustrator
1940: Soviet troops began the massacre of what would finally total 26,000 Polish officers in Katyn Forest near Smolensk, Russia. Many Jews were among the victims.
1941: According to some sources the Nazis established Kielce (Poland) ghetto today. Others report that the ghetto was actually established on March 31, 1941. Regardless, there is no conflict that the ghetto was liquidated in August, 1942 when 21,000 Jews were sent to Treblinka. A remnant was shipped to Auschwitz in August of 1944. Kielce's real claim to fame is that on July 4, 1946, the returning Jews were subjected to "an old-fashioned Nazi Pogrom" complete with tales of the blood libel.
1942: The Crimean Peninsula was declared Juednfrei or Jew Free. When the Nazis and their allies took the Crimea (part of the Soviet Union) in October of 1941, the Jewish population numbered between fifty and sixty thousand. The Einsatzgruppen Units (special squads assigned to murder Jews) with the help of the local population took part in what was to date, the worst "ethnic cleansing" of the war.
1942: Nora Kaye's performance as Hagar in the world premiere of "Pillar of Fire" at the Ballet Theatre established her as one of the world's prima ballerinas.
1943(3rd of Nisan, 5703): Itamar Ben-Avi the son of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who revived Hebrew as a modern language, passed away while working as journalist in New York City. (For more see Itamar Ben-Avi by Frederick P. Miller)
1943(3rd of Nisan, 5703): The Nazis began executing Jews near Ternopol in the Ukraine. By the time they finish on the following day, one thousand Jews will have been murdered. One thousand Jews are executed near Ternopol, Ukraine.
1944: The Jewish Agency telegraphed from Istanbul to Jerusalem that the steamship Maritza carrying 244 Jewish refugees from Romania had arrived that day in the Turkish port and that the passenger would be leaving in two day’s time by train for Palestine.
1946: Golda Meir, a leader of the Jewish Agency received the following telegram. “We are 1100 Jewish refugees. We sailed from Spezia for Palestine-our last hope. Police arrested us on board. We won’t leave the ship! We demand permission to continue to Eretz-Israel Be warned: we will sink with the ship if we are not allowed to continue to Palestine, because we cannot be more desperate.”
1946: Margaret and Hans Rey (the creator of Curious George) became United States Citizens. [Louise Borden has written a cute, fascinating tale about the Rey’s entitled “The Journey That Saved Curious George”.
1947: Henry Ford, the creator of the Model-T passed away. Ford may have had his moments as an industrialist, but he proved to be a notorious anti-Semite. Among other things, he published and disseminated untold numbers of copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Ford actually believed this notorious fabrication. His later apology was treated with various degrees of belief and disbelief. For several decades, there were many Jews who would not by a Ford product.
1950: In Tel Aviv, Australian Jack Harper won the singles title of Israel’s International Open Tennis Tournament.
1950: As the condition of the Jews in Iraq worsened, today, "the Zionist organization in Iraq call on all Iraqi Jews who wished to do so to register for emigration" to Israel. The plight of the Jews of this ancient community had become so desperate that within three weeks "47,000 Jews" would present "themselves at registration centers in the main synagogues. They did so despite the fact that they had to sign a declaration renouncing their Iraqi citizenship forever and effectively surrendering most of their property and goods.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported from The Hague that reparations talks were suspended after Germany found only a $750m.justification for the joint Jewish-Israeli claim for $1,000m. Later Germany expressed surprise at the Israeli claim that the talks were suspended. The Israeli delegation reported that it had found the German statement completely unsatisfactory and that it would report fully to the Israeli government for consideration, review and decision.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that The IDF graduated 600 cadets of all services, the largest number ever trained to become officers.
1953: Sixteen year old J. David Bleich walks outside of his father’s synagogue in Lewiston, PA where he joins congregants in Birkat Hachmah, Blessing the Sun
1971: San Francisco Giants pitcher Steve Stone appeared in his first major league baseball game.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had resigned from his post and said that he would not lead the Labor Party into the May elections. Rabin took this decision in the wake of new revelations concerning the illegal bank account he and his wife Leah held in a US bank. Defense Minister Shimon Peres was expected to be nominated as the Labor Party's candidate for premiership. (.Author’s note: During the promising days of the Oslo Accords, many forgot that Rabin had been Prime Minister once before. He was forced out of office over a financial scandal stemming from his days as Ambassador to the United States. This seemingly minor matter not only sidetracked his career, it opened the way for the first victory of the Likud Party.)
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that Tel Aviv Maccabi won the European basketball championship in a thrilling victory, 78-77, over Mobilgirgi of Varese, Italy.
1981: Rabbi J. David Bleich, a professor at Yeshiva University, climbed to the roof a converted brownstone that doubled as a small synagogue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to lead the service Birkat Hachamah.
1982: According to his notebook, Daniel Shechtman, made his break through discovery while studying a metal mix of aluminum and manganese. Shechtman,,a professor of materials science at Technion went on to win the Noble Prize for Chemistry
1991: Michael Landon announced he has inoperable cancer of the pancreas
1993: Eli Ben-Menachem became Deputy Minister of Housing and Construction.
1994: Pope John Paul II welcomed the Chief Rabbi of Rome to the Vatican today as guest of honor at a concert to honor the memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
1996(19th of Nisan, 5756): Argentine film director León Klimovsky passed away. “A trained dentist, born in Buenos Aires on October 16, 1906, his real passion was always the cinema. He pioneered Argentine cultural movement known as cineclub and financed the first movie theater to show art movies. He also founded Argentina's first film club in 1929. After participating as scriptwriter and assistant director of 1944's Se abre el abismo he filmed his first movie, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Player. From this first phase, it can be also highlighted the adaptations of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo and Ernesto Sabato's The Tunnel. On the 1950s Klimovsky settled in Spain, where he becomes a "professional" director. He went into spaghetti westerns and so-called exploitation films, filming in Mexico, Italy and Egypt. Perhaps he is best remembered for his contribution to Spain's horror film genre, beginning with La noche de Walpurgis. León Klimovsky confessed to have always dreamt of doing great vanguard movies but ended on filming commercial ones, but without remorse, as doing cinema was a vocational mandate for him. On 1995 he won the "Honor Award" of the Spanish Film Director Association. He died in Madrid of a heart attack. He was brother to the Argentine mathematician and philosopher Gregorio Klimovsky.”
2001(15thof Nisan, 5761): American Jews observe the first Pesach under President George Bush.
2001: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Spontaneous Mind: Selected Interviews, 1958-1996” by Allen Ginsberg; edited by David Carter, “Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland” by Jan T. Gross and “After Progress: American Social Reform and European Socialism in the Twentieth Century” by Norman Birnbaum.
2002: Efraim "Effi" Eitam was appointed Minister without Portfolio
2002: “Just after the conclusion of Passover, United Jewish Communities, a national group of 160 Jewish federations, announced a special Israel emergency fund. The organization has already collected $100 million.
2005: The alphabetic ordering of leaders during the funeral of Pope John Paul II resulted in Moshe Katsav sitting near Iranian President Mohammad Khatami who, like Katsav, was born in the Iranian city of Yazd
2006: Observance of Shabbat Hagadol.
2006: Haaretz reported that Algeria, Israel and Morocco have agreed to join NATO counter-terrorism naval patrols in the Mediterranean, the organization. The announcement was made in Rabat after the NATO group’s first meeting in an Arab country.
2007: At The Jewish Museum of Maryland an exhibition styled “The Other Promised Land: Vacationing, Identity, and the Jewish - American Dream” closes. This exhibition, the first of its kind in the U.S., evokes the experiences and meanings in Jewish vacationing from the 1880s to the present. The Other Promised Land highlights legendary "Jewish" vacation destinations including Miami Beach, Atlantic City, and the Catskills -- showing how vacations represented the excitement and promise of America while shaping notions of Jewish and American identities. A full-color, book-length catalog accompanies the exhibition.
2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section featured a review of The Grand Surprise:
The Journals of Leo Lerman written by Leo Lerman and edited by Stephen Pascal and My Holocaust by Tova Reich, “a shocking novel rips those who trivialize the Holocaust.”
2007: The New York Times reviewed books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Polish Woman” by Eva Meker
2008(3rdof Nisan, 5768): Thirty-two year old Major Mark Rosenberg was today, in Baghdad when his vehicle was struck by a makeshift bomb. (As reported by Maia Efrem)
http://www.forward.com/articles/135331/profiles-of-our-fallen/#ixzz1rOSSPxsW
2008: The Foreign Affairs Symposium at Johns Hopkins University hosts a lecture by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz co-author of “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict”, at the university's Homewood Campus in Baltimore, Md.
2008: “Standing up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times” by Amy and David Goodman was published today.
2008: Today, schools from kindergarten through 12th grade participate in a nationwide Home Front drill simulating a surprise missile attack during which a warning siren will sound for a minute and a half.
2008: An article entitled “Rothko Kin Sue to Transfer His Remains” published today describes the dispute over attempts to move the body of Mark Rothko, the Jewish abstract expressionist.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/arts/design/08roth.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
2009: Birkat Hachamah – Blessing The Sun (once every 28 years)
2009: At 6:22 a.m. this morning the sun will peak over the imposing 800-million-year-old mountains of Edom, bathing the Arava Valley below in light, and triggering one of the rarest and least-known Jewish rituals: Birkat Hahama, the Blessing of the Sun, is celebrated every 28 years in Jewish communities around the world, across the spectrum of Jewish observance. This year, the blessing dawns as we burn our hametz and prepare for that evening's Seder. The next magic moment in history when the blessing falls on Erev Pessah will be 532 years from now. Sixteen hundred years ago in Babylonia, the rabbis codified the Talmud, and with it, the Birkat Hahama ritual: "Our Rabbis taught: One who sees the sun in its season, the moon in its power, the stars in their paths, and the planets in their order, says, 'Blessed is the Maker of Creation.'" (Masechet Brachot 59b). "And when is the Sun in its season? Abaye says: Every 28 years, when the cycle resets and the Spring equinox falls in Saturn on Tuesday evening, the eve of Wednesday." According to the Book of Genesis, the Sun, Moon, and stars were created on the fourth day (Genesis 1:14), and so the celebration of Birkat Hahama always occurs on a Wednesday morning. The Sun is traditionally greeted with a blessing and Psalms: "Blessed are You, Ruler of the Universe, who makes Creation." It is believed that every 28 years at this moment, the celestial bodies orbit back to the exact place in the heavens where they stood at the Creation. The simple ritual bursts with cosmic significance. At the heart of Judaism is a recognition and celebration that God is the Creator, and that the universal God Jews pray to, argue with, love, and occasionally ignore or fear, is - like the mysteries of the universe itself - never-ending. The Jewish revolution, baked in the deserts, not only rejects a physical God, but actually dilutes the power of any physical manifestation of God as simply yet another creation of the Ultimate Creator. A common belief among the ancients - from the Aztecs in Mexico to the Inca of South America to our first theological antagonists, the Egyptians - all quite understandably considered the sun to be God. We Jews, as idol-smashers, have something to say about this. Today's scientists understand the sun to be not everlasting and omnipotent, but 4.75 billion years old, which puts it about halfway through its life cycle. The actual photons that will blaze onto us Wednesday morning will be generated by nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium at the sub-atomic level. That set of explosions will zap light from the sun at 6:13 a.m. local time, and travel 149,600,000 kilometers through space in about the time it takes to prepare matza, landing at 6:22 a.m. The sheer vastness of the space between the sun and humanity is startling and humbling, yet dwarfed by the position of the sun - the center of our solar system - in relation to the Milky Way galaxy. The specific sun we bless - only one of a trillion trillion suns in the universe - orbits the center of our galaxy every 225 million years, which is considered one galactic year (what's the blessing for that?). Since the impressive astronomical comprehension on the part of the Talmudic rabbis of 400 CE, our sense of scale of the universe has grown exponentially, especially in recent years as new discoveries are made. Yet our ethical sense of purpose has not kept pace with our increased scientific understanding of the expanding Heavens. Given the increased human-caused tragedies that have befallen our planet since the last time we blessed the sun in 1981 - i.e., global warming, genocides, billions living in poverty, unprecedented greed - it could be argued that our sense of ethical purpose has actually diminished. The commentators are surprisingly silent on the spiritual, revolutionary, idol-smashing linkage between Birkat Hahama and Pessah. Since Birkat Hahama falls this year on the Fast of the Firstborn - only the sixth time it does so in the past 2,000 years - the occasion can take on additional meaning and help restore a sense of purpose to the Jewish People in our era. Twenty-eight years is essentially a generation. And in each of the 250 or so generations since the Exodus, we are commanded to retell our story of slavery unto freedom. Preceding the Seder with a rarely occurring blessing over the sun and to the sun's Creator is to openly challenge Pharaoh and all cults of death. A cult of death defined ancient Egypt's empire, culture, and religion. The City of the Dead in Luxor and the entire mummification belief system wrapped death-worship in glory. Pharaoh's religious and political hierarchy reinforced the cult of death, the same cult that enslaved our people and drowned our infant males. While the first eight plagues beleaguered the Egyptians, it was the final two that illuminated who was boss: Pharaoh and his Sun God, Ra, were rendered powerless in matters of light and darkness, life and death. The invisible God of the lunar-oriented Hebrews essentially extinguished the bright light of Ra. We knew and know that it wasn't Ra who proclaimed "Let there be light" on the first day of