Earthquake + Eclipse = ???

No Rapture + No Apocalypse: The BIG NEWS, of course, is about the Solar Eclipse of April 8, 2024. Which was like totally viewable over much of North America, but NOT in Albuquerque!

Nope! The Duke City averages about 372 sunny days per year. Which is one reason why Mr & Mrs Abq Jew love it here! But on Monday, it was cloudy.

But never mind! Here is what the eclipse looked like at totality. 

Abq Jew must point out (he must! he must!) to all the amateur and professional photographers out there that no matter where on Earth you viewed it from or whose camera you used to get the shot, this is what the eclipse looked like at totality.

There was, alas, no Rapture recorded, at least as far as Abq Jew - who remained at home, on Earth, indoors - could tell.

Which means that Abq Jew in all likelihood wasted $12.99 on the paperback edition (only $2.99 on Kindle!) of

How to Profit from the Coming Rapture

Getting Ahead When You're Left Behind

But maybe not. The first edition was published in 2008, but the wise advice it offers remains true today. And tomorrow. And even on Tuesday, April 23,when the Rapture is again on the schedule. 

Yes, that's the First Day of Passover, aka the Second Seder, which leaves us all wondering how many places to set at our table.

And before the Eclipse and the Rapture, there was the Earthquake. The Great New York City Earthquake of April 5, 2024. Which, like oh so many "Great NYC" events, actually took place in New Jersey, the Garden State.

Please excuse Abq Jew (or not) - but he grew up in California, the Golden State. 4.8 on the Richter Scale is barely enough to waken you from a light nap. Hiding under the table? Standing in a doorway? Racing to an open area outside? Then let's talk.

So while we're getting ready for Passover, Lior Zaltzman of Kveller - who has written similar articles in the past - claims that 

Robin Williams’ Retelling of the Passover Story Is a Must-Watch     It's absolutely brilliant.

A lot of performances and videos deserve a place in your family’s Passover canon — they include Six13’s Passover sea shanty, The Prince of Egypt, and Jack Black’s rendition of Chad Gadya.

But I’m here today to propose a new addition to your family’s playlist: a Robin Williams retelling of the Passover story from his 2002 comedy special “Robin Williams Live on Broadway.”

It’s just two minutes long, but it’s so precise and so delightful, and Williams tells it with so much charisma. 

Williams, who passed away in 2014, once called himself an “honorary Jew” and even tweeted a picture of himself wearing a yarmulke shortly before he died, asking if he’d missed his true career calling as rabbi. 

This video certainly has us believing he would have made an awesome Jewish lay leader.

And if that isn't enough to get you and yours Pesachdik, Eliana Jordan of The Jewish Chronicle points us to this year's 

The Unofficial Taylor Swift Haggadah

Which asks (and answers) such hotly engrossing questions as

So as long as we're talking about Passover and the Haggadah, let's talk about

Climate Change

Sunny Hostin of ABC's The View recently claimed - live, on air, to an audience of at least a few hundred - that Climate Change was the cause of The Great NYC Earthquake and The Total NA Solar Eclipse. 

And one more thing.

Cicadas: The Eleventh Plague of 2024
Just what we needed ....

The University of Connecticut cheerfully announces that

In 2024, 13-year Brood XIX, which is the largest of all periodical cicada broods, will co-emerge with 17-year Brood XIII; these two broods are adjacent (but not significantly overlapping) in north-central Illinois.

And furthermore proclaims

2024 is a special year for periodical cicadas:

• For the first time since 2015 a 13-year brood will emerge in the same year as a 17-year brood.
• For the first time since 1998 adjacent 13-and 17-year broods will emerge in the same year.
• For the first time since 1803 Brood XIX and XIII will co-emerge.
• You will be able to see all seven named periodical cicada species as adults in the same year, which will not happen again until 2037. You will not see all seven named species emerge in the state of Illinois again until 2041.

And Purdue gloomily reminds us that

Cicadas aren’t a “Plague of Locusts.” In some areas people call cicadas locusts, but cicadas can’t eat crops like locusts. They only drink trees.

As we leave the happy, happy months of Adar Alef Adar Rishon Adar I and Adar Bet Adar Sheni Adar II, we begin the Month of Miracles: Datsun, as it was known to the ancients. 

Or, as we call it today, after our exile in Babylonia: Nissan.

Actually - as we all know - none of the months, weeks, days, or nights since October 7th has been truly, deeply happy. Especially the nights. The news we receive has been terrible, and sometimes even worse. 

And yet we keep going.