License plate viewed while driving yesterday: 78RX (as in, 7-8 = medicine). Mildly interesting. Another just kept coming back at us, no matter how many times I passed them or they passed us: ADAR 523. (From Ontario — a foreign nation. Note that the digits add up to ten.) Adar is a highly significant month in the Jewish calendar:

A year with 13 months is referred to in Hebrew as Shanah Me’uberet (pronounced shah-NAH meh-oo-BEH-reht), literally: a pregnant year. In English, we commonly call it a leap year. The additional month is known as Adar I, Adar Rishon (first Adar) or Adar Alef (the Hebrew letter Alef being the numeral “1″ in Hebrew). The extra month is inserted before the regular month of Adar (known in such years as Adar II, Adar Sheini or Adar Beit). Note that Adar II is the “real” Adar, the one in which Purim is celebrated, the one in which yahrzeits for Adar are observed, the one in which a 13-year-old born in Adar becomes a Bar Mitzvah. Adar I is the “extra” Adar.

In the fourth century, Hillel II established a fixed calendar based on mathematical and astronomical calculations. This calendar, still in use, standardized the length of months and the addition of months over the course of a 19 year cycle, so that the lunar calendar realigns with the solar years. Adar I is added in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 19th years of the cycle. The current cycle began in Jewish year 5758 (the year that began October 2, 1997).

In other words, last year (October, 2007 to October, 2008 in Gregorian terms) was a ‘pregnant’ year in the Jewish calendar. Both Adars and Purim — celebrating the Jews being saved from a pending Persian (aka, Iranian) holocaust by Queen Esther — occurred during the period in which the improbable Obama campaign was picking up steam, eventually passing Hillary for the Dem nomination. (Interesting that Sarah Palin, the focus of my super-popular Esther post from last fall, should resign last week.) Much more on Adar here, including the fact that Moses was born and died in Adar, the same month in which the ninth plague (thick darkness) occurred.

Also a reminder from a reader who wishes to remain anonymous that shortly before 1:00PM this Wednesday marks a unique event in the last century, and arguably in the last millenium (depending on whether you subscribe to a two-digit, pre-Y2K annotation or 4-digit, post-Y2K: 12:34:56PM on 7-8-09 (at least as we Americans write it) = 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. My late grandfather was just learning to walk for the last one. The next number, of course, is TEN… which also happens to be the number of plagues God put on Egypt… after four hundred years.

UPDATE Ia: Almost forgot… At 6:00PM on the East Coast of the U.S., it will be 1:00PM in Hawaii… the place which Obama claims is his place of birth (though it’s not, which makes him a usurper), the last state to be added (50 years ago this August 21st), and the state North Korea has threatened (its seven mid-range missile firings being, perhaps, a distraction from the main event).

UPDATE Ib: Interestingly, it seems that if a long-range missile were to be fired by North Korea towards Hawaii (begging the question of whether it might fall slightly short and/or be intercepted and shot down), the time from launch to impact would be… about 25 minutes, plus or minus. The second picture: seven Korean missiles, including a NoKo mock-Scud-B; the first: seven spines on a familiar crown which just opened to tourism last Saturday.

UPDATE II: Just returned from a quick run to the grocery store where, I’ll admit, I purchased more than the usual supply of bottled water, canned goods and dried staples. Hopped in my car, flipped on the radio to the local Christian station and boom, just like that, the preacher says, “God will see you through famine. He will see you through drought.” Call me convicted for taking my own precautions and not trusting utterly.

Then, unloading the car, I see my neighbor up the street out for a walk. She’s only in her early 50’s (if that) but wears the telltale head-scarf of someone on chemo or undergoing radiation therapy. She has to use a walker to keep her balance. Brain cancer. Three years. Delightful woman — and with the sunniest Christian outlook you can imagine. And I think to myself… What a jerk I am… If it came down to it, I couldn’t just sit here in my house with this hoard if we end up at war and/or under martial law with no utilities this time next week. I can’t. And then, I think… why shouldn’t that same outlook apply in good times as well?

UPDATE III: Don’t like the NoKo scenario? Recall that on October 19, 2008, Joe Biden warned,

“Mark my words. It will not be six months [from his January 20th inauguration?] before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking… Watch. We’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

Note that Biden didn’t say who might generate or at least enable the crisis to come about.

Vice President Joe Biden signaled that the Obama administration would not stand in the way if Israel chose to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, even as the top U.S. military officer said any attack on Iran would be destabilizing.

This represents a remarkable about-face in administration policy, to say the least. Not that it’s unwarranted. It’s just that, for years it’s been widely known that, a) there were simply no good options on Iran (military or otherwise), b) something needed to be done, and soon, and c) chaos would likely result, the consequences of which would include (at least) increased Iranian-sponsored terrorism, probably on U.S. soil. In other words, checkmate.

I won’t even bother faulting this administration (or the previous one). All the good options were exhausted long ago. Some scenarios have a kind of momentum that’s hard to check at any reasonable cost. We learned that in Vietnam. Or should have. Combined with the surprising but predictably-denied stand-down policy by Saudi for Israeli overflights en route to Iran, the floodgates may well have just opened for Israel to do what it must for its self-preservation. I doubt they’ll wait long.

May God have mercy on all of us for what comes next. Worried? Try this.