The fast on the eighth of Tevet

In the end of the laws of fasting, R. Yosef Caro, (1488-1575, Shulchan Arukh Orah Chayyim, 580) lists various fast days, most (all?) of which, to the best of my knowledge, people today do not fast on. (R. Yosef Caro himself, in the Bet Yosef, writes that he never heard or saw anybody who fasted on these days.) The source for this list is from a paragraph that is called Megilat Ta'anit, but this is not the same document as the Megilat Ta'anit from the time of the Tannaim (1st and 2nd second centuries). The initial Megilat Ta'anit lists those days when one cannot fast, while the second Megilat Ta'anit, which is possibly from the eighth or ninth centuries, lists those days when one does fast.

Within this list of days, the Shulchan Arukh records the fast of the eighth of Tevet. The Shulchan Arukh writes that the eighth of Tevet is a fast day because on this day the Torah was translated into Greek (the Septuagint). This translation occurred around 250 BCE, by Ptolemy II, who wanted it for his library in Alexandria.

This is a strange reason for fasting since one would think that translating the Torah would spread the word of G-d and would be desirable. We have many translations of the Torah, most prominently the Targumim, which translate the Torah into Aramaic, and we have no fast day for these translations. In fact, the Shulchan Arukh (Orah Chayyim 285:1) rules that a person is obligated to read the Targum each week. Why is the Greek translation worse than the Aramaic or English translations?

In addition, the Mishnah (Megilah 1:8, also see Rambam, Laws of Tefilin, 1:19) records that according to one opinion all the books of Tanakh can be written in all languages, while R. Shimon b. Gamaliel states that only Greek is permitted. Accordingly, the translation into Greek is permitted according to both opinions. In the ensuing discussion in the Talmud, the Talmud (Megilah 9a) quotes the story that G-d made a miracle by the Greek translation that the 72 translators working independently arrived at the same translation. Why should one fast when G-d performed a miracle to assist in the translation?

Eliyahu Kitov (1978, vol. 1, pp. 318-321) writes, “If one translates the Torah into another language, he is like one who makes the Torah an empty vessel, empty of its entire wealth of meaning.” Also, he writes, “Once the Torah was imprisoned in Greek translation, it was as if the Torah was divested of its reverence.” Kitov is certainly correct that reading the Torah in translation as opposed to in Hebrew is not the “real thing,” and does not give one the full meaning of the Torah, but still this logic should also apply to the Targumim. Also, should this logic apply to the Greek translation, where the Talmud stated that G-d performed a miracle to help the translators?

Many have noted (for example Moshe Simon-Shoshan, 2007) that the problem with the Greek translation developed many years after the translation was done due to the adoption of the Septuagint by the Christians. Other translations would not be problematic, and initially the Greek translation would also have been fine. Thus, R. Shimon B. Gamaliel allowed the Torah to be written in Greek. It was only after the time of the Mishnah with the growing success of Christianity that the translation came to be considered as a day of sorrow and fasting, possibly to stop Jews from using the Septuagint.

This development with regard to Chazal’s view of the Greek translation can explain R. Yehuda’s (Megilah 9A) opinion that R. Shimon b. Gamaliel’s permission to the Tanakh in Greek should be limited to sifrei Torah, and not to the prophets and the writings. With the spread of Christianity, R. Yehuda might have wanted to stop the use of the Greek translation of Tanakh, so he tried to limit the permission to use Greek just to the Torah. Yet, according to R. Yehuda, a Sefer Torah, which has greater sanctity then the prophets and the writings, is the only section of Tanakh that can be written in Greek! The answer is that from the Talmud it seems that R. Yehuda would have preferred to abolish R. Shimon b. Gamaliel’s law altogether, but R. Shimon’s ruling by the sefer Torah was not able to be abrogated due to the miracle of the translation.

Bibliography:

Kitov, Eliyahu, 1978, The Book of Our Heritage, Jerusalem: Feldheim Publishers.

Simon-Shoshan, Moshe, 2007, The tasks of the translators: The Rabbis, the Septuagint and the culture politics of translation, Prooftexts, 27, pp. 1-39.