Comments on Astro Torah: A Scratch on the Wall

By the way, I pasted a "Right-to-left mark&qu...

2011-11-12T20:30:51.949-05:00

By the way, I pasted a "Right-to-left mark" from Word after the period in the Hebrew sentence so that it would show up on the correct side at the end of the sentence. Is that the best way to do that here? Has this been discussed before?

On pasuk 18:10, Seforno says: שוב אשוב אליך - למו...

2011-11-12T20:23:30.524-05:00

On pasuk 18:10, Seforno says:

שוב אשוב אליך - למועד המילה כפעם בפעם.‏

This suggests that the time the angels would return a (solar) year later was not the exact day of Yitzchak's birth, but rather some time later.

The book קונטרס די שמיא by Alexander Shutz on pages 18-19 claims that the ריב"א asks your question, and that ר' צבי יודא פריידמאן suggests the following answer: The angel Rephael would come back three days after Yitzchak's bris mila to heal him, which would be (about) 11 days after his birth, so that could have been the occasion when the sun reached the line that was marked on the wall.

A horizontal line will be able to show shadows cas...

2009-11-06T09:23:08.323-05:00

A horizontal line will be able to show shadows cast by objects going higher or lower in the sky. The sun's being measured for the time of year is based on its height in the sky. A vertical line would be drawn to show an east west direction moving across that line. So, that could be accurate to see when the object passes a certain point going east to west.

So this was a vertical line and in Mitzrayim it wa...

2009-11-06T00:06:37.437-05:00

So this was a vertical line and in Mitzrayim it was a horizontal line? Sorry to make you explain this to me again, Ari.

-Dovy R., Houston

I had had a few theories, but finally saw one supp...

2009-11-02T17:10:30.783-05:00

I had had a few theories, but finally saw one supported by an earlier commentary. See the Maskil LeDavid on this pasuk. It seems that the malach drew a lign at a different point than the day he visited. The purpose was to inform Avraham that the upcoming year would have to follow the solar year and require a leap month. This is supported by the Gemara in Rosh Hashana that he cites.