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Listen to the audio. (9:34)
As promised yesterday, we will take a break from the mitzvoth sorrounding tzitzit and talk a little about Asarah b'Tevet, so b'reshut harav I will start today by going through a little of the history involved that brings us to this unfortunate fast. G-d willing next week we'll continue with the some of the dinim, and halachot involved with the fast.
The Shulchan Aruch brings in Orach Chaim Simon 549 (listen to audio for Hebrew quote): "One is obligated to fast" — we are obligated to fast — "on the 9th of Av, on the 17th of Tammuz, on the 3rd of Tishrei and on the 10th of Tevet — because of the catastrophic events that occurred on these days." What are those catastrophic events? In II Melachim, chapter 25brings the history of the siege of Yerushalayim (this is the siege of the first Temple in Yerushalayim) and I will read selected pasukim from this chapter to bring out the history.
(Hebrew) "And it was during the ninth year of his reign" — his being Melech Zidkiyahu, the king at the time — "It was during the 9th year of his reign during the tenth month, on the 10th day of the month," — that is the tenth day of Tevet — Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Bavel came, along with his whole army to Yerushalayim, they encamped around it and built forts. They besieged the city until the 12th year of the reign of King Zidkiyahu."
In other words, they besieged the city for 3 years. Now if you don't know what that means — so many of us have seen movies these days that tell a siege — essentially you have the enemy army encamped around the city, and we, the Jews are inside the city. The gates of the city are locked and no one comes in and no one goes out for three years. That means no food comes in, no water comes in — that's part of the siege. The siege is intended to starve us out of the city and wear us down before the final onslaught.
(Hebrew) "And on the 9th day of the month the hunger and the famine became so strong because there was no food for anyone to eat in the city." And on that day the gates of the city were opened and the war itself — the siege began the war, but the actual war between the army of Bavel and the army of Yerushalayim began. That day was the 9th of the month, the ninth of Tammuz.
But we do not observe the 9th of Tammuz as a fast day — that's the day the walls of Yerushalayim were breached during the first Temple; today of course we observe the 17th of Tammuz as a fast day. That's the day the walls were breached during the second Temple. It was felt that having these two fasts so close together was difficult and since the destruction of the second Temple is closer to us in history, the destruction of the first Temple is somewhat subsumed into it.
Verse 7: (Hebrew) "And the children of Zidkayahu ha melech were slaughtered before his eyes... and Zikayahu was blinded... and he was bound in chains and was brought to Bavel. In the fifth month on the 7th of the month" — the 5th month is the month of Av — "that was the 19th year of the rule of Nebuchadnezzar." (Notice how in the start here we were talking about the years of the reign of Zidkiyahu, but now we have switched to counting the years of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.) "...came Nebuzaradan, the chief-slaughterer, the chief-butcher. He was a servant of the King of Bavel and he came to Yerushalayim on the 7th day of Av and burned the house of Hashem, the King's house, and all the homes of Yerushalayim, and all the houses of Yerushalayim were burnt in fire." That was on the 9th of Av, on Tisha b'Av. Verse 11: "And the remaining people who were left in the city, Nebuzaraddan the slaughterer, he dispersed them" &8212; put them into galut. This of course is the first exile, galut Bavel, when the captives of Yerushalayim were taken into Bavel. Verse 18: "Nebuzaradan took Seraiah, the High priest, and Zephanya, the second priest and three guards and slaughtered them." Verse 19, he takes all the leaders of the city and brings them before the king, Nebukadnezzar; verse 20 "And the king of Bavel beat them and slaughtered them and all of Jehuda was exiled from their land."
What we see here in the history of events is that the first galut, the destruction of our first Temple and the galut of everyone from Eretz Yisrael and Yerushalyim — it all started on the 10th of Tevet with the siege of Yerushalayim. And that is the fast day that we unfortunately will be observing next week. Now you noticed that I covered 3 of our historical fast days. I covered the 10th of Tevet, I covered the 17th of Tammuz and I covered the 9th of Av, Tisha b'Av, but I did not cover Zom Gedalya, the 3rd day of Tishrei. That comes up imminently here in Verse 22. Nevukadnezzar appoints Gedalya, the son of Achikam to rule over the remnant that was left in Eretz Yisrael, and that goes on for a short time. Verse 25: "It was in the seventh month that Yishmael the son of Nethanya the son of Elishama from the Davidic line came along with ten men and they killed Gedalya." And because of the murder of Gedalya we today observe Zom Gedalya, the fast of Gedalya.
The Talmud brings that the murder of Gedalya took place on Rosh HaShana, on the first day of Tishrei. As Rosh HaShana has two days we push the fast off until the 3rd of Tishrei.
All of these fasts are observed as days of Teshuva, as days when we seek to repent for both of our misdeeds today and the historical misdeeds of our ancestors.
We will go into that more deeply next week.
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