Balak
We read this week the episode of Balaam, who was recruited by King Balak to curse the Jews but found himself unable to do so. As he is going on his way riding his donkey (miraculously, a talking donkey, created on Friday afternoon during the 1st week of creation) and and angel blocks his way. He doesn’t see the angel but the donkey does—I do think the Torah is making fun of him for having less insight than his donkey. He strikes the donkey to move forward, and the angel reveals himself to Balaam, telling him not to continue.
The angel rebukes him, “why did you strike the donkey? She just saved your life!”
Balaam says, Num 21:35: “I sinned, for I did not know you were standing against me on the way, so now if it is evil in your eyes, I will return to myself.”
Hizkuni on this verse explains Balaam’s statement this way: “I sinned in that I didn’t know, and I didn’t focus my heart to understand why my way was not successful.”
In other words, ignorance is not an excuse, it is a sin. By not taking the trouble to find out why his way kept being blocked, he became responsible. When we try something over and over and it doesn’t work, when we repeat a negative pattern, we have an obligation to look into our negative patterns, to become aware of our blindspots.
In loving and caring for my fellow, too, I have the responsibility to find out what they need, to investigate what is going on in their life, and see how I can help them. If someone hasn’t shown up week after week at shul, we need to call, find out if they’re okay. If someone looks haggard, it is our business to investigate. It is my responsibility to make sure I am not living in ignorance.


17th of Tammuz

Tomorrow is the fast of the 17th of Tammuz, and also the beginning of tlata depuranuta, the three week period leading up to Tisha B’av. The fast tomorrow is a minor fast day—it is only during the day, and of course pregnant or nursing women, elderly, and children are not included, but are encouraged restrict themselves to bread & water. And It does not have all of the extra restrictions that Tisha B’av and Yom Kippur have.
After the fast
After tomorrow we are in the period of the 3 weeks. Custom to avoid
haircutting and shaving,
marriages,
parties, live music, & dancing.
Originally these restrictions were only during the week of Tisha B’av or the 9 days from Rosh Hodesh av. They became extended for the whole 3 weeks simply by popular custom.
Keep in mind that these are just customs. Although custom has the force of halacha, other factors like shalom bayit can also be more important. And if you need to play an instrument for a livelihood, posekim generally say it’s okay.
This morning, I am going to talk about the halachic basis for the 17th of Tammuz, and whether in fact we are still required to observe it.
Origins
The seventeenth of Tammuz was originally a fast day dating back to the 6th century CE, when Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians. The date was actually the 9th of Tammuz, and it was called the fast of the 4th, because Tammuz is the 4th month if you start counting at Nissan. It was originally on the 9th of Tammuz, and was cancelled at the time of the 2nd temple. When the 2nd Temple was destroyed, Jerusalem’s walls were breached on the 17th of Tammuz, so the fast was reinstated. Since it would have been too much to ask people to fast on the 9th and 17th, they consolidated the date into the 17th, because the 2nd destruction was worse than the 1st.
The Talmud actually presents the minor fast days as optional. Rosh Hashanah 18a-b states:
Mishnah: For six months, messengers go out [to let people know when the new month began, so people know when to observe the holiday]. For Nissan because of Passover, For Av because of the fast, for elul because of Rosh Hashanah, for Tishrei because of the holidays [ie Yom Kippur and Sukkot], at the beginning of Kislev because of Hanukah, and Adar because of Purim. When the Temple stood, they went forth at the beginning o Iyyar because of Minor Pesah.
Gemara: They should go out at Tammuz and Tevet as well [so people know when to observe those fast days]! For Rav Hana Bizna said in the name of R Shimon Hasida?: What is written, Thus says Hashem, Master of Legions: the fast of the fourth [ie 17th of Tammuz], the fast of the fifth [i.e. Tisha BAv], the fast of the seventh [Tzom Gedalyah], and the fast of the tenth [i.e. Assarah BeTavet] will be to the House of Judah for joy and for happiness. [nb: this verse was stated when the 2nd Temple was built, and Zechariah was announcing that the mourning was finished.] The verse calls them a fast, but then calls them joy and happiness! [how can that be?] At a time when there is peace they will be for joy and happiness, but at a time when there is no peace, they will be fast days.
Rav Pappa said: this is what the verse means: At a time when there is peace, they will be for joy and happiness; if there is a governmental decree, they must fast; if there is neither a governmental decree nor peace, if they want they fast, if they don’t want they don’t fast.
The Talmud’s answer, then, is that if there is peace, they will become a festival; if there is government oppression of religion, they are mandatory, and when there is no oppression but no peace, they are optional. In the Mishnah’s time, there was no peace but no oppression, so they were optional.
What does peace mean in this sugiya?
Rabbeynu Hananel interprets peace as referring to the Temple:
clomar, kol zman shebet hamikdash kayyam
In other words, when the Temple stands
Makes sense, because the verse from Zechariah is connected with rebuilding the Temple. The fast, on this opinion, is commemorating the destruction of the Temple, and is part of a series of fasts all of which are connected to the Temple.
Peace could also be meant in a more literal sense. Rashi says that peace means “That the hands of the idolaters is not strong on the Jews. One way to understand this is that since the fast is in response to oppression by a foreign power, when that oppression is done, the fast is done. The fast then is less connected to the Temple, than to the national experience of suffering war. Although some commentators understand rashi here to be adding another condition—there needs to be a Temple and peace for the 17th of Tammuz to become a festival.
Rabbi Shimon Ibn Adret, similarly, interprets peace as meaning when Israel dwells on its land. When we are securely in the land of Israel. This today has been fulfilled to some extent, although with the Nuclear threat from Iran, and the perpetual hostilities with the Palestinians, we have enough to pray about.
Perhaps in a more universal mentality, we can also take the opportunity to mourn the lack of world peace, to mourn the ongoing wars that America is engaged in, and all of the victims, and to think about what we can do to promote peace both in our own communities and far away.
The fast, then, is not just about the Temple, but about our still partially longings to have our own land where we can dwell in peace and security, and to have a world at peace.
What is oppression?
The word for oppression is gezeirat hamalchut, Government decree. This seems to be how the Mishna and Talmud describe the roman decrees against studying torah, circumcisions, etc., which carried with them the penalty of death. The most famous image of this is Rabbi Akiba, who was burned alive for studying and teaching torah. The fast, on this level, is a plea to God to remove the decrees, and allow us to practice our religion in peace.
In Cologne last week, a German court handed down a pretty shocking ruling banning circumcision. The ruling came in response to an apparently botched circumcision, in which a boy needed four stitches after his circumcision, and continued to bleed for days later. Islamic and Jewish organizations are in an uproar over this decision, even accusing it of Naziism.
It is an interesting coincidence that circumcision was actually one of the rituals forbidden by the Romans. The Rabbis in the Talmud were so distressed by this that one rabbi even argued that theoretically, if circumcisions are banned, we shouldn’t get married and have children:
Bava Batra 60b:
It has been taught: R. Ishmael ben Elisha said: Since the day of the destruction of the Temple we should by rights not eat meat nor drink wine, only we do not lay a hardship on the community unless the majority can endure it. And from the day that a Government has come into power which issues cruel decrees against us and forbids to us the observance of the Torah and the precepts and does not allow us to enter into the 'week of the son' [i.e. circumcision] we ought by rights not to marry and beget children, and the seed of Abraham our father would come to an end of itself. However, let Israel go their way: it is better that they should err in ignorance than presumptuously
In other words, banning circumcision is such a terrible thing that theoretically, if we are unable to circumcise our children and thereby enter them into the covenant of Abraham, we should not even get married (at least according to Reb Ishmael). This seems like a pretty extreme reaction—is circumcision really that important? Can’t we be members of the covenant, the brit, and observe the covenant, without having a physical sign? But Judaism always insists that the physical sign is an essential element, that the covenant has to include the physical acts which bring us into the covenant.
Thank God, however, the Cologne decision is just one local decree, in a world where really we are free to practice as Jews. It has received immense backlash, and I have a hard time imagining it will be upheld. By and large, we do not live in a time of Gezeirat malchut, governmental decrees against religion.
So we are at a time where we don’t have peace or a Temple, but on the other hand we do not have decrees. According to the conclusion of the Gemara, then, at our current moment in history, these fasts are optional!
What does optional mean?
The literal meaning of the gemara seems to be that the fast is optional. The medieval commentators have trouble with this. The Ritva quotes someone anonymous who said that if we chose not to fast today, we would not have to, but he himself rejects that approach, arguing that we have accepted the practice so it is mandatory. He argues that in the time of the mishna it was still optional because the practice hadn’t become entirely widespread, but now that it is widespread, it is no longer optional.
The Rosh says that it is a communal decision, and an individual should not separate himself from the community by going against the community’s decision.
The Shulchan Aruch, discussing the fast, even curses someone who goes against communal practice: asur lifrotz geder, he says: it is forbidden to breach a fence. and when talking about the custom to refrain from eating meat, he writes asur lifrotz geder veyinashchecu mahash: it is forbidden to breach a fence, and may a serpent bite him (perhaps the serpent here being his own evil inclination that will be strengthened by ignoring a rabbinic decree)! The point is, the only basis for the practice is the rabbinic decree, which he emphasizes is itself very serious. Still, it feels a little bit like circular reasoning, if the only reason for the prohibition is the fact that it’s prohibited.
Many in the Conservative Jewish community argue that since we don’t make decrees that the majority of people can’t uphold, since many people don’t follow this decree, and since the reasons no longer completely apply, it actually is no longer mandatory. Rabbi Ethan Tucker, of Yeshivat Hadar, writes that:
My own feeling is that the factors of the founding of the State of Israel and living as equals in American democracy are too significant to claim that we either live in a time of shemad or even in the world of medieval consensus that the Jewish people has clearly accepted these fasts upon themselves as unquestionably mandatory. It is hard to imagine that all of those medieval authorities would have lived through 1948 and 1967 unaffected. On the other hand, I am skittish about suggesting that with the creation of the State of Israel, shalom has arrived, and worry about running afoul of Zechariah’s call to prioritize the creation of a just and perfect society over the question of the celebratory abrogation of fast days.

It therefore seems to me that we are best described as living in category 3), where the fast days other than Tish’a B’Av are optional, and I personally do not feel that there is any formal obligation to fast on the other three fast days.
So why do I fast …? There are, to my mind, two compelling reasons: First, there is much injustice and imperfection in the world in general, and in the sovereign Jewish state in particular. These days and their fasting ritual are a powerful way to trigger us to think about those issues. Second, Zechariah tells us that these days will one day be ones of rejoicing. That means that they must be maintained on the calendar so that the Jewish people will remember them when history takes the turn that will enable us to see the world as one infused with shalom.
In other words, we’re almost there but we’re not quite there; we need to celebrate what we have been given with Israel, and with religious freedom. Part of what makes it difficult to connect to these fasts is the fact that we do have our own country; we are only here by choice, and we could always get a plane ticket and make aliyah.
On the other hand, we also need to continue to push for a just and peaceful state in Israel, and to work to create peace there. The fast is about remembering what is broken in Israel and in our world, and examining our sins as a people.
If you do fast …
For me, Rambam’s comments are a key to thinking about fasting as a spiritual practice. This is from his laws of fasting, Hilchot Ta’aniyot 5:1:
There are days when all of Israel fast because of the suffering that happened on them, in order to arouse the hearts and open the pathways of repentance . And this will be a memorial to our bad ways and to those of our ancestors which were like our own now, such that they caused them and us so much suffering. By remembering these things, we will repent and improve, as it says, “confess their sin and that of their fathers.”
In other words, history is only important to the extent that we use it to reflect on our own lives. Don’t think the Temple was destroyed just because of something that happened two thousand years ago—it continues to be destroyed, we continue to be at war, we continue to be in exile, because of our own faults as a people.
When we read about sinat hinam, causeless hatred, among the Jews of the Roman period, Which the Rabbis say led to the destruction of the Temple, the point is that it is our own sinat hinam today that prevents the rebuilding of the Temple. There’s plenty of sinat hinam going around, toward other Jewish groups, and toward other people within our own communities.
When we read about the Golden Calf, and about the tablets being shattered, which happened on the seventeenth of Tammuz, the point is to reflect on our contemporary Golden Calfs, the idols we turn to now instead of serving God, instead of doing what is right. When we serve our own greed, or laziness, or self-importance, instead of serving God, we are continuing to give Moses a good reason for shattering the tablets. Let’s take tomorrow to think about what our own Golden Calfs are.
The Jerusalem Talmud says that on the 17th of Tammuz, Apostomos, who may have been Antiochus, burned a sefer torah. What do we do today to bring honor or disrepute to the Torah, to Judaism? What are the ways we fail to encourage reverence and respect for Judaism, for learning? What are the ways in our own lives we burn the Torah, we fail to take the time to study, we disparage her practices, or her teachings?
So tomorrow, drink plenty of water beforehand and stay out of the heat, and have a meaningful fast.