As mentioned elsewhere in this week’s TT, TZOM ASIRI is another name for Asara b’Tevet. It refers to the Fast of the Tenth month, which is Tevet. As it turns out, TZOM ASIRI is probably a better name for the Fast Day than 10 Tevet, because it can encompass the events of the 8th and 9th of Tevet as well as those of the 10th. Our sources tell us of two TA’ANIYOT TZADIKIM, two fasts for righteous individuals - fasts not imposed on the public, but accepted by individuals only. On the 8th of Tevet, the Torah was first translated into Greek. There is a whole story about this, but let’s just say that the translation was forced from us under coercive conditions. The day of this translation is considered in our sources as a dark day like the day of the sin of the Golden Calf. One of the things we find most disturbing with a translation into any language, is that it is incapable of capturing the true meaning of the Written Word, because of the conspicuous absence of the Oral Law and Tradition. Straight translation into another language will find some passages in the Torah impossible to understand, and other parts will be terribly distorted and perverted. One of the most famous examples is the translation of AYIN TACHAT AYIN. If that is rendered as “an eye for an eye”, then the intent of the Torah becomes completely distorted. That wouldn’t be half bad, if people would recognize and accept the idea of an Oral Torah. But what usually accompanies the translation is the idea held by many, many in the non-Jewish World, and unfortunately by many within the Jewish people, that the Written Word is all that there is. And therein lies the tragic flavor of 8 Tevet. What has happened throughout world history is that the Bible has become the all-time best selling book in history, translated into more languages than Reader’s Digest. The Bible has been used by our enemies throughout the generation to attack the integrity of Judaism, because of the distortions produced by rejecting or ignoring the Oral Torah. The ninth of Tevet is the Traditional yahrzeits of both Ezra and Nechemya, who brought some of the people back to Eretz Yisrael after 70 years of Baby- lonian exile. Their deaths “darkened the eyes of Israel” and many things they had taught the people were again lost to us. The 10th of Tevet, as mentioned in the Word of the Month box, marks the beginning of the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash. Rather than encourage people to fast for three days in a row (eating at night), our Sages merges the events of the 8th, 9th, and 10th into the Fast of Asara b’Tevet, which increased its significance. In our own time, 10 Tevet took on the additional commemoration of some aspects of Holocaust Memorial. Although there are several leniencies that operate for 10 Tevet (dawn to stars-out rather than from before sun- set the evening before, only eating and drinking is prohibited rather than all 5 “afflictions” of Yom Kippur and Tish’a b’Av, and an easier permission for certain frail people to eat), this fast (and the others as well) must be taken seriously by those whose health allows fasting without adversely affecting the health. May we be privileged to witness the fulfillment of the
prophecy that the fast days associated with the destruction of the Beit
HaMikdash will become joyous and festive days with the building of the third
Beit HaMikdash, BIMHEIRA B'YAMEINU AMEN. [The Parshat
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