In contradistinction to the fasts of the eighth and ninth of Tevet, where people do not fast, the custom to fast on the tenth of Tevet is followed, see Shulchan Arukh, Orah Chayyim 549:1. A possible reason for this difference is that the fast of the tenth of Tevet has a Biblical source. Zechariah (8:19) records that the fasts of the four, five, seven and ten, which were for the destruction of the first Bet ha-Mikdash, would become days of joy. It is assumed that Zechariah is referring to the months starting from Nisan, and then the verse is referring to fasts in the fourth month (Tammuz), the fifth month (Av), seventh month (Tishri) and the tenth month (Tevet). Yet, still the verse only tells us that there is a fast day in Tevet, but it does not tell us on what day is the fast.
The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 18b, also Tosefta Sotah 6:3-7) quotes an argument between R. Shimon b. Yochai and R. Akiva as to when is the fast in the month of Tevet. R. Akiva says it is on the tenth of Tevet (our practice) since that is the day when Nebuchadnezzar surrounded Jerusalem prior to his conquest of the city and the destruction of the first Bet ha-Mikdash, see Kings II 25:1, Yirmiyahu 52:4 and Yechezkel 24:1. However, R. Shimon b Yochai claims that the fast is on the fifth of Tevet, since on that day Yechezkel and the Jews of Bavel learned of the destruction of the first Bet ha-Mikdash, Yechezkel 33:21.
R. Shimon agues that his explanation of the verse is preferable since the verse in Zechariah lists the fast on the tenth month last, which implies that the fast of the tenth month was based on events that occurred last. This order accords with his view that the fast is when the people in Bavel found out about the destruction of the Bet ha-Mikdash. However, if the fast was because Jerusalem was surrounded, then the fast of the tenth should have been quoted first in the verse since the city was surrounded before the destruction of the Bet ha-Mikdash. However, the Talmud answers that R. Akiva follows the counting of months and then ten would be last, even if the events that are the basis for the fast of the tenth occurred first.
A new development regarding the fast is that in 1949, by the first fast of the tenth of Tevet after the founding of the state of Israel, the Rabbanut in Israel attempted to establish the tenth of Tevet day as a day of mourning for the Holocaust. They declared that people should light candles, to say kaddish, tehillim, kel maleh, and to sing ani maamin at the end of the tefillah, (quoted in Levinsky, 1956, Vol. 7, pp. 94,95).
This proposal was very reasonable. By combining the memorial of the holocaust with a fast day, it increases the chance that later generations will remember the Holocaust. The fasting is a concrete event that will ensure that when people ask why are we fasting, they can be told about the horror of the Holocaust. (Many want to incorporate the memorial for the Holocaust on Tisha B’av which is also a fast day, but then the focus is on the destruction of the Bet ha-Mikdash and not on the Holocaust.) In addition, for many people it is difficult to relate to the idea that we fast on the tenth of Tevet because the walls of Jerusalem were surrounded since the focus of our mourning for the destruction of the Bet ha-Mikdash is during the summer on Tisha B’av. Thus, by adding a reason to fast on the tenth of Tevet this would increase the significance of the fast, and is similar to the idea that the Mishnah (Ta’anit 4:6) lists various calamities that befell the Jewish people on the 17th of Tammuz and Tisha B’av.
In 1951, when the Knesset was deciding on which day to establish a memorial for the Holocaust, the Mizrahi (religious) party pushed for the tenth of Tevet, but Mapam (left wing) party wanted the day to remember the Warsaw ghetto uprising. This began in 1943 on erev Pesach, but since this day was not possible it was proposed to have it a few days after Pesach on the 27th of Nisan. The Mapam did not want the day to be a day of mourning but a day to inculcate people about the “new Jew” who would fight and not meekly die.
Roni Stauber (2001) in a review of this debate notes that the 27th of Nisan was chosen since most of the Knesset favored Mapam’s view and also the Mizrahi agreed in the end since they thought that there could be two days to remember the Holocaust, one, the religious day, the tenth of Tevet, and one, the national day, the 27th of Nisan. Throughout the 1950s, the Rabbanut continued to proclaim and to relate to the tenth of Tevet as a memorial day for the Holocaust. In 1959, there was another discussion in the Knesset to switch the national memorial day for the Holocaust to the tenth of Tevet, but this was defeated largely because of the precedent of the previous eight years.
Today, the association of the tenth of Tevet with the Holocaust seems to be forgotten, except that children in religious national schools in Israel have a ceremony on the day to remember the Holocaust. The Siddur Rinat Yisrael in its calendar in the back of the Siddur notes the association between the tenth of Tevet and the Holocaust, but does not proscribe any special prayers to be said on the day to remember the Holocaust. I think we should return to the initial decision by the Rabbanut and recite prayers on the tenth of Tevet to remember the Holocaust since this will help to ensure that the tragedy of the Holocaust will always be remembered.
Bibliography:
Levinsky, Yom Tov, 1956, Sefer ha-Moadim, Tel Aviv: Dvir.
Stauber, Roni, 2001, The debate in the 1950’s regarding the establishment of a Holocaust remembrance day, in A state in the Making: Israeli society in the first decades, edited by Anita Shapiro, Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, pp. 189-203.
Hello. The goal of this blog is to enhance our understanding of the Torah and the practice of Judaism. The discussions in the blog are a portion of a more extensive commentary on the Torah, which I will be happy to send to you. You can contact me at ajayschein@gmail.com. Please feel free to send comments. Also, if you want to receive an email with a link to the new posts, send me a request, and I will add you to the email group. Best wishes, Andrew Schein
Showing posts with label Fasts of Tevet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fasts of Tevet. Show all posts
Sunday, January 4, 2009
The fast on the ninth of Tevet
The Shulchan Arukh (Orah Chayyim, 580) states that the ninth day of Tevet is a fast day and that we do not know the source for this fast. (This same wording can be found in the Behag, Siddur Rav Amram Gaon 2004, p. 91, and the Tur.) This fast day is mentioned within a list of fast days which nobody seems to fast on anymore, see our discussion "The fast on the eighth of Tevet."
In any event, this law/ custom to fast on the ninth of Tevet is an anomalous situation. We have a fast day, but we do not why. S. Leiman (1983) has a fascinating article that reviews various attempts to find the source for the fast day.
The most popular rationale (for example, Mishnah Berurah 580:13) is that the fast is to commemorate the death of Ezra, based on a medieval prayer that states that Ezra died on the 9th of Tevet. However, Leiman notes that if this is the reason for the fast, why would the Shulchan Arukh and the Tur write we that do not know the source for the fast?
A bizarre suggestion for the fast is that the fast is because Jesus was born on the ninth of Tevet. Leiman quotes this from several scholars, and I saw this mentioned in the notes to the new edition of the Tur. Leiman criticizes this answer as being implausible since even the Christians do not agree when Jesus was born, but there is a different Christian source for the fast.
Leiman quotes two sources from the 19th century who wrote that the fast was due to the death of Simon ha-Qalponi (Qalpos). This man is discussed in the book Toldot Yeshu, a medieval Jewish history of Jesus. He is said to have been a Tanna who was told by the Rabbis to infiltrate the Jewish-Christian groups to tell them to stop following Jewish law in order to separate them from Judaism. Leiman prefers this explanation since Toldot Yeshu states that Simon ha-Qalponi died on the ninth of Tevet and that the day became an annual fast. Also, this strange source would explain why nobody wanted to mention the reason for the fast. (Hayyim Simons, 1990, also favors this rationale.)
With this idea, both the fasts of the eighth and the ninth of Tevet are due to the battle between Judaism and Christianity in the middle and second half of the first millennium.
Bibliography:
Leiman, S. 1983, The scroll of fasts: The ninth of Tebeth, Jewish Quarterly Review, 74:2, pp. 174-195.
Simons, Hayyim, 1990, Reasons for the fast on the ninth of Tevet, Sinai, 106, pp. 138-151.
The most popular rationale (for example, Mishnah Berurah 580:13) is that the fast is to commemorate the death of Ezra, based on a medieval prayer that states that Ezra died on the 9th of Tevet. However, Leiman notes that if this is the reason for the fast, why would the Shulchan Arukh and the Tur write we that do not know the source for the fast?
A bizarre suggestion for the fast is that the fast is because Jesus was born on the ninth of Tevet. Leiman quotes this from several scholars, and I saw this mentioned in the notes to the new edition of the Tur. Leiman criticizes this answer as being implausible since even the Christians do not agree when Jesus was born, but there is a different Christian source for the fast.
Leiman quotes two sources from the 19th century who wrote that the fast was due to the death of Simon ha-Qalponi (Qalpos). This man is discussed in the book Toldot Yeshu, a medieval Jewish history of Jesus. He is said to have been a Tanna who was told by the Rabbis to infiltrate the Jewish-Christian groups to tell them to stop following Jewish law in order to separate them from Judaism. Leiman prefers this explanation since Toldot Yeshu states that Simon ha-Qalponi died on the ninth of Tevet and that the day became an annual fast. Also, this strange source would explain why nobody wanted to mention the reason for the fast. (Hayyim Simons, 1990, also favors this rationale.)
With this idea, both the fasts of the eighth and the ninth of Tevet are due to the battle between Judaism and Christianity in the middle and second half of the first millennium.
Bibliography:
Leiman, S. 1983, The scroll of fasts: The ninth of Tebeth, Jewish Quarterly Review, 74:2, pp. 174-195.
Simons, Hayyim, 1990, Reasons for the fast on the ninth of Tevet, Sinai, 106, pp. 138-151.
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:
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.
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.
Simon-Shoshan, Moshe, 2007, The tasks of the translators: The Rabbis, the Septuagint and the culture politics of translation, Prooftexts, 27, pp. 1-39.
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