Unleashing the Beast

Fourteen

14 M ORE S IGNS IN THE H EAVENS

In early history, the planet Mars was recognized by the Romans and Greeks as a planet of war. Among the Hebrews, the planet Jupiter had a special meaning. The Hebrew name is Tzedeq , which means "righteous one." It was called the Star of David and it represented kingship, coronations and the birth of kings. In 1994, a cosmic event involving Jupiter excited both astronomers and rabbis. A comet known as the Shoemaker-Levi comet broke into 21 pieces. For seven straight days, from July 16 to July 22, a series of 16 fragments from the comet began to bombard the surface of Jupiter. These impacts caused explosions much larger and more powerful than the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan