Hirshy Minkowicz

Totality

The word of the week was ‘Totality’.

Everyone was hoping to get a glimpse of it. Many traveled hundreds of miles to find a spot to witness it best. Special glasses for viewing totality were the hottest product on the market in the days leading up to the big event.

Yet totality never arrived. Though thousands of people claim to have seen it, I submit to you that it never happened.

Totality is defined as “as the total concealment of the sun or moon during an eclipse”. That did not come to pass.

But what about the millions of pictures out there from people who witnessed this most amazing phenomenon?

Look at the pictures again, do you see total obstruction? I see a white glow and ring of light shining forth all around the outer edge of the sun. Most of the sun was indeed blocked yet the outer surface, known as the Corona is visible in every single picture I have seen.

So let’s call it near totality, for the light was never completely hidden. In fact its most powerful force was exposed.

Google the words “corona hotter than sun” and you will discover that one of the greatest mysteries in solar physics is understanding why the sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, (the white ring visible in all the eclipse pictures) is millions of degrees hotter than the surface of the sun itself.

Normally when you move away from a source of heat the environment gets cooler, yet with the sun, the opposite is true, the outer ring is 300 times hotter and brighter than the sun itself.

During the eclipse, with the sun blocked by the moon and only the corona visible, scientists were able to get a better look at it. They hope to use the data collected this week to try and solve this great mystery.

While they spend the next few years trying to figure it out, the eclipse itself might have already provided one answer.

Perhaps it was designed this way by our creator to remind us of the power of our internal light, which might at times seem to be doubted, especially when it is obscured and blocked.

While millions of people looked for ‘totality’ G-d reminded us all that there is no such thing as total darkness. In fact, the brightest light is revealed in moments of darkness and concealment.

Shabbat Shalom