Printer Friendly

TEVET

The month of Tevet, which begins, believe it or not, our slow but inexorable countdown to Purim and Pesach, is marked by the fast day of the tenth of Tevet. The fast day of the tenth of Tevet marks the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem, which eventually led to the destruction of the holy Temple and the exile of Israel from its homeland. However, Jewish tradition records that the ninth day of Tevet is also a sad day on the Jewish calendar worthy of being declared a fast day by itself.

 

 

This ninth day of Tevet is mentioned in Shulchan Aruch at Orach Chayim, Section 580, sub-section two. But the language there is most cryptic for it states that the ninth day of Tevet is a sad day for “troubles that occurred on that day that are no longer known to us.” How are we to commemorate a day that has no meaning for us? And why should the rabbis have hidden, so to speak, the matter so that it is “no longer known to us?”

 

 

In the selichot, the penitential prayers for the tenth day of Tevet, reference is made to the day of the ninth of Tevet as being the day of death of the great Jewish leader, Ezra the Scribe. In those selichot as well and so also in the above section of the Shulchan Aruch, the eighth day of Tevet is also mentioned as a day that is a candidate for being a fast day.

 

 

The reason given for this sad day is that it is the anniversary of the forced translation of the Torah into Greek – the Septuagint – by the emperor of Egypt, Ptolemy. Thus we have three consecutive sad potential fast days following one upon the other in the month of Tevet. According to the selichot recited on the tenth of Tevet, all of these fast days have been united into the one fast day of the tenth of Tevet.

 

 

We are still left with the troublesome and somewhat mysterious question as to why the Shulchan Aruch did not clearly identify the ninth day of Tevet as being the day of the death of Ezra the Scribe. Ezra ranks only second to Moshe in the hierarchy of the transmitters of Torah to the Jewish people. The rabbis of the Talmud taught us that “if the Torah had not been given through Moshe then it would have been given through Ezra.” It therefore appears rather unlikely that the rabbis would purposely hide his day of death and give that sad day an anonymous character.

 

 

There are also opinions that the date of Ezra’s passing was in fact the eighth of Tevet and not the ninth. As such, the mystery regarding the ninth of Tevet only deepens. Judaic scholars abhor mysteries and thus many theories have been advanced as to the reason for the sadness and trouble that occurred on the ninth day of Tevet. Though there are no hard and fast proofs that can sustain any of these theories, there is one fascinating theory that I wish to share with you.

 

 

I attended a lecture a number of years ago given by Professor Shneur Z. Leiman, the head of Judaic studies at Brooklyn College in New York. Professor Leiman is a great Talmudic scholar and a recognized scholar and expert in Judaic studies generally. He proposed that based upon recurring Jewish legends about the possibility of there being Jewish popes in the early years of Christianity and the fact that the rabbis of the time of the Mishna exerted all efforts to delineate Judaism as a religion completely separate and distinct from even nascent Christianity, the rabbis placed a “mole” – one of their own colleagues – into the hierarchy of the then beginning church to insure that it would completely separate itself from the Jewish people and Judaism per se.

 

 

This person naturally was awarded the cover of anonymity by the rabbis and his mission was most successful, for Christianity, early on, did separate itself completely from Jews and Judaism. Various names have been submitted to identify the true identity of this person. I remember that Professor Leiman chose a likely candidate but I no longer recall who he was. This anonymous hero of the rabbis and the Jewish people died on the ninth of Tevet and he is remembered, albeit anonymously, by the cryptic reference to that date in the Shulchan Aruch. I cannot vouch for the veracity of this theory but it certainly made for one fascinating and intriguing lecture.

 

 

Shabat shalom.

Berel Wein