Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

How To Celebrate A Meteor Shower The Jewish Way

Cinco de Mayo and the Sabbath won’t be the only celebrations going down on the night of Friday, May 5 — science nerds will also have a chance to rejoice as the Eta Aquarid meteor shower grants us with its peak performance.

Other than just staring at the sky, what’s a good Jew to do?

Like most things in Judaism, there’s a blessing for that.

When witnessing a meteor shower, one can say the blessing one would use for other natural sources of wonder and inspiration: Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech haolam, oseh ma’aseh bereishit — Blessed are you, Lord Our God, King of the universe, who makes the work of creation.

Laura E. Adkins is the Forward’s contributing network editor. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @Laura_E_Adkins.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.