I wake up and go to work before dawn during these long dark nights of winter, and this very cold and clear morning I saw the thin crescent of the moon in the eastern sky just prior to dawn. Jews from ancient times witnessing this same phenomena will have known that the end of the month is near, the New Moon a day or so later marking the end of the month. Then the next evening the thin crescent of the setting moon in the west  will have marked the start of a new month, the 1st of the month known as Rosh Chodesh. These days the Jews works on a set calendar over a 19 year cycle, nevertheless, even now the New Moon more or less marks the end of the months within no more of a margin than a day.

However this 4th New Moon since the Northern Hemisphere spring will have marked the end of the cursed month of Tammuz and herald to start of the even more intensely cursed month of Av, the most cursed month of the Hebrew year, when the worst of calamities occurred. Three of the worst calamities are the destruction of the Temple in the 6th century BCE, the destruction of the rebuilt Temple in AD70, and the start of World War I which set in motion world events that led to the Jewish holocaust two to three decades later - the worst calamity to befall Jews during these modern times. Indeed all three events occurred on Tisha B'Av that is the 9th day of Av. Related to the third event, the Jews were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto on Tisha B'Av 1942 leading straight to the holocaust. And as recently as 2005 the Jewish settlements were ordered to be dismantled and the Jews expelled from their own land in the Gaza strip on Tisha B'Av, such a tragic order coming from their own government!!! A year later in 2006 the Lebanon war occurred EXACTLY during the three weeks, starting on Tzom Tammuz and ending on Tisha B'Av!! Only a Jew can understand what a terribly cursed month Av is.

It is not yet Tisha B'Av but the month of Av is soon upon us, and last night I burnt my dinner!! I was cooking as I usually do, then Sally needed attention with the bandages, so I turned down the stove. However in spite of this precautionary action I ended up burning the vegies to a crisp, the pot black and unusable. Cleaning it will be pointless. I have killed a pot that I have been using since I first moved out from mother's so many decades ago. Indeed if I remember rightly it was mother who had given me the pot. Now it is a hopeless black mass, the carbon baked on so thoroughly that Gillard would have a field day taxing that one!! LOL!! Needless to say I was rather devastated. That was day 11 of the three weeks........