A dangerous situation is unfolding from Indiana to the mid-Atlantic where millions remain without power and temperatures are once again soaring.
A violent thunderstorm complex, known as a super derecho, left a trail of power outages and destruction from Indiana to southern New Jersey, Virginia and northern North Carolina Friday afternoon and night.
The inability to use air conditioners and fans could not come at a worse time with sizzling heat once again spilling northward from the South into the Midwest and Northeast.
8 Tamuz 5772
Pictured is Tropical Storm Debby over Florida. Speaking as someone who grew up on the Gulf Coast, a tropical storm can often cause more damage than a hurricane as it lingers longer over land and makes up in water volume dropped what it lacks in wind power.
In the previous post, we looked at the origin and meaning of the word Colorado and found, thanks to commenter Moriah, that it is Spanish meaning "colored red," as in Edom, the color of Eisav.
While they've got fires out west, there are major floods (3 feet of rain!) in the south, so out of curiosity, I looked up the origin and meaning of the word Florida. It's also Spanish:
Florida was named Pascua Florida by explorer Ponce de Leon on Easter in 1513. Translation: means "Flowery Easter" or "Flowering Easter" (after Spain's "Feast of the Flowers" Easter celebration).
So, it's another link to Edom/Eisav through the religion of Eisav - Christianity. And with their paramount holiday, no less.
Debby floods northern Florida homes Debby destroyed homes and businesses, washed away roads and flooded neighborhoods in Florida before the once-large tropical storm drifted out to sea Wednesday, leaving behind a sopping mess.
At least three people were killed in the storm.
More than 100 homes and businesses were flooded and officials warned the waters may not recede until next week in some places. The storm knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers, though most had electricity restored by the time Debby left the state.
The tropical storm formed in the Gulf on Saturday and gradually made its way across the Florida, drenching the state for several days before it weakened to a depression. The windy, rainy weather ruined vacations for some.
In Live Oak, a small city in northern Florida, water was up to the roofs of some homes and cars were submerged.
In other places, residents stood in several feet of water as they checked out the damage to their homes.
"The water came in so fast last night," said resident Johnny Torres.
Even though Debby lost its strength, emergency management officials said they expect the aftermath to continue causing problems with swollen lakes and rivers, along with record rainfall.
"It's not over. We've got a long way to go," said Brian Koon, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. "We'll be dealing with flooding for the next week."
Pictured is the city of Colorado Springs at the base of Pike's Peak.
What's been dubbed The Waldo Canyon Fire was purportedly started by a fallen meteorite and now a fire near Boulder has been set by lightning and "Mother Nature" is making everything worse with the high winds and three-digit temperatures. It clouds up like it's gonna rain and the lightning flashes and the thunder rolls, but there is no rain.
Moriah points out in a comment that the word Colorado is Spanish meaning "colored red" like Edom! And I had forgotten that besides being home to the (antisemitic) United States Air Force Academy, it is also home to the "secret" Cheyenne Mountain government complex.
Judging by the headlines on MSNBC, it looks like the same people who suffered Katrina after the expulsion from Gush Katifare in some way responsible for the expulsion of Jews from Ulpana.
Why would the population of the US suffer the same fate at the hands of Heaven if it is not their elected leadership who is responsible for bringing about the expulsion of Jews from their homes?
And yes, the non-elected Erev Rav regime will suffer it's own punishment as well, possibly sooner than anyone would think.
4 Tamuz 5772 New Colorado wildfire erupts, grows out of control A wildfire near Colorado Springs has quickly grown to more than 2,000 acres and prompted thousands of residents to flee their homes, while another fire to the north claimed more than a dozen cabins and structures after sweeping through a Rocky Mountain neighborhood.
Hot, dry and gusty conditions are expected to continue into Sunday after fueling the two fires that erupted a day earlier. At least seven wildfires are now burning across Colorado, where officials have been challenged by one of the most severe wildfire seasons in recent memory.
...5,000 residents of Manitou Springs, just several miles west of Colorado Springs, were ordered to evacuate.
Evacuation orders also had been in place on the west side of Colorado Springs and in the towns of Cascade and Ute Pass.
In some neighborhoods, Colorado Springs police cruisers rolled down streets, issuing the order to leave through a loudspeaker.
"Colorado Springs Police Department," an officer said. "This is a mandatory evacuation notice. Evacuate now."
Hundreds of other residents were under voluntary evacuation orders and have been packing up, the newspaper reported.
I lived in Colorado Springs from 1993-1994 and in Denver from 1995 to 1996 when I went on aliyah. Colorado Springs is a major center for evangelical Xian "ministries." It appears that Hashem is using both fire and water to kasher his world.
29 Sivan 5772 Erev Rosh Chodesh Tamuz The Month of Tammuz "And He brought me to the entrance at the Gate of the House of the L-rd which was at the north; and there were there women sitting, bewailing the Tammuz" (Yechezkel 8:14) Name of the Month "Tammuz" is the Babylonian name of this month, as are all of the "official" names of the months in the Hebrew Calendar. In the Bible, however, the month is referred to as "the Fourth Month," with reference to Nisan, the First Month.
Biblical Significance of the Month
As mentioned above, the name which "came up" from Babylon with the Jewish People was Tammuz. In this case, consideration of the use of the name in Yechezkel would make it appropriate to say that the name "Tammuz" brought down the Jewish People. The verse in Yechezkel cited above speaks of the worship of a Babylonian idol, known as "Tammuz." And it seems most odd, at first glance, that this name would be chosen as the name of a Hebrew month.
However, in the context of the month that we are dealing with, a month of tragedies which would lead to still greater tragedies, the appropriateness of the name becomes clear. The Prophet Yechezkel was being shown by G-d the reasons for His great Anger against the Jewish People, namely, the various forms of idol-worship which had been adopted by them to replace the Divine Service. This behavior would result, if the Jewish People would not repent, in the Destruction of the Once-Holy, but now desecrated, Temple.
Earlier Biblical Significance
We read in the Book of Yehoshua (10:11-14) of the Battle of Yehoshua and the People of Israel against the five kings of the Emorite Nation. In the Biblical account, we find mention of "great stones" thrown, as it were, by G-d, upon the Emorites. This could refer to hail, as the verse itself mentions (Yehoshua 10:11).
But in light of the great astronomical miracle detailed in the following verses (12-14), in which the sun and the moon are pictured as having not advanced, until the People of Israel had achieved complete victory, there is here the suggestion of a tremendous suspension of the paths in Heaven, perhaps caused by a contact of the Solar System with an intense meteor, or asteroid, shower.
Whatever the case, according to Jewish tradition, this great miracle is supposed to have occurred on the third of Tammuz.
Zodiac Sign of the Month
The "sign" of the month is "Sartan," "Cancer," or "The Crab," because a constellation which is observed at this time of year has the appearance of a crab. Also, the season is summer, and the hot weather of summer causes crabs to multiply in the water.
Crabs pinch and hurt, and this month was basically a time in which the Jewish People were hurt.
If this is truly to be the year of the great turnaround, perhaps Heaven will grant us a sign with good news on Rosh Chodesh of the fourth month. Wishing all Klal Yisrael a chodesh tov umevorach and an end to all hurt.
If I had a dollar for every time someone has said this to me over the past couple of days...
Yes. It's definitely hot outside.
It was officially 99 degrees in Jerusalem yesterday. And at 4 pm, I just checked and Yerushamayim says it's currently 93 and feels like 95. The low overnight is only going down to the mid-seventies. But the good news for us is that by tomorrow night it will be back to normal - ten to fifteen degrees cooler and only to the mid eighties the rest of the week.
Unfortunately for those in the NYC area, the misery will only be beginning...
A full-fledged heat wave will hit Greater New York later this week, with public health implications for the New York City area.
High temperatures on Wednesday and Thursday will challenge all-time records, and heat indexes will top 100 degrees, especially in urban parts of northeast New Jersey. The two-day streak will be by far the hottest readings of the year and could be enough to make June the 16th consecutive above-normal month in New York City.
More dangerously, low temperatures for later this week are expected to fall only into the upper 70s — roughly the same temperature as typical average highs for late June. After Chicago’s deadly heat wave in 1995, public health experts began to realize that it was precisely these abnormally hot low temperatures that added the most deadly stress to humans — the elderly and those without air conditioners simply didn’t have a break from the heat. Low temperatures are warming faster than high temperatures, leading to an increase in mortality risk from heat waves, which already kill more people each year than floods, lightning, tornadoes, and hurricanes combined.
27 Sivan 5772
There have been a very unusually large number of incidents of fires in the past few months. I have a feeling that there is a message in it - a very scary message...
11 Tamuz 5772
