Over one of the Washingtonia palms just in front of the house,
at about 10:00 p.m. on Shabbat eve of 14 Tammuz, the full moon
that marks the brightest 24-hour period due to its close
proximity to the summer solstice.1 The contrast between the
bright moon and the otherwise dark sky is a bit of a challenge
for my digital camera, but the effect nonetheless conveys just
how bright the moon was. It is pretty much the only source of
light in the photo, though there is some illumination from a
light in the house and other lights visible along the canyon
below. As I discussed in the previous summer-solstice planting,
it is striking that of the four major seasonal sun-earth events,
the summer solstice is the one at which there is no Jewish
festival tied to the corresponding moon cycle.2 In that entry, I
suggested a reason for there not being one: unlike the other
seasons, this time of year threatens few pagan-temptation
problems for an ancient agricultural society’s monotheism. There
is, in a Mediterranean climate, al