{"id":3666,"date":"2015-12-20T16:50:18","date_gmt":"2015-12-20T16:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/?p=3666"},"modified":"2015-12-15T16:54:07","modified_gmt":"2015-12-15T16:54:07","slug":"asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/","title":{"rendered":"Asara B\u2019Tevet and Parshat Vayechi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The fast of the 10<sup>th<\/sup> day commemorates the day on which Nevuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem during the first Temple period. The siege continued for 3 years until the Temple was ultimately destroyed on the 9<sup>th<\/sup> of Av.<\/p>\n<p>If we fast to commemorate the destruction of the Temple, why do we also fast to commemorate the siege that was set 3 \u00bd years earlier? It seems a pretty minor event in comparison.\u00a0It is stated that on Asara B\u2019Tevet, it is not enough to fast in mourning of the destruction of the Temple, but we should be repenting for the actions that led to its destruction and working to rectify those sins. So, what exactly should we be thinking about?<\/p>\n<p>G-d sends up warning signs before sending a punishment our way and it is our job to heed these warning signs and respond appropriately. Asara B\u2019Tevet is about the warning signs of the destruction to come and the 3 year delay between the siege and actual destruction in order to give the Jewish people time to repent. We\u2019re not fasting about what occurred because it is true that the destruction is far worse than the siege, we\u2019re fasting to remind ourselves to pay attention to warning signs that G-d, in His kindness, sends us.<\/p>\n<p>In the entire Torah scroll, Parshat Vayechi is unique in that there is no space between it and the preceding parsha. The general rule is that a new Sedra begins on a new line or separated by at least a nine letter space. This is known as a closed Parsha. What is indicated by the closure between Parshat Vayechi and the preceding Parsha, is the inability of Yaacov\u2019s children to reflect and contemplate the impact of the events.<\/p>\n<p>Even though we can\u2019t always know what the message is because we no longer have prophets, we should at the very least recognize that everything that happens is a sign, and try to work to improve ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The fast of the 10th day commemorates the day on which Nevuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem during the first Temple period. The siege continued for 3 years until the Temple was ultimately destroyed on the 9th of Av. If we fast to commemorate the destruction of the Temple, why do we also fast to commemorate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":883,"featured_media":3664,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holidays"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Asara B\u2019Tevet and Parshat Vayechi - Community<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Asara B\u2019Tevet and Parshat Vayechi - Community\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The fast of the 10th day commemorates the day on which Nevuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem during the first Temple period. The siege continued for 3 years until the Temple was ultimately destroyed on the 9th of Av. If we fast to commemorate the destruction of the Temple, why do we also fast to commemorate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Community\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-12-20T16:50:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/files\/2015\/12\/Tevet.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"223\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Shira Smiles\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shira Smiles\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/\",\"name\":\"Asara B\u2019Tevet and Parshat Vayechi - Community\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/files\/2015\/12\/Tevet.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-12-20T16:50:18+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/#\/schema\/person\/84065b7b3d27f42f00516fb0a6db2604\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/files\/2015\/12\/Tevet.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/files\/2015\/12\/Tevet.jpg\",\"width\":400,\"height\":223},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Asara B\u2019Tevet and Parshat Vayechi\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/\",\"name\":\"Community\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/#\/schema\/person\/84065b7b3d27f42f00516fb0a6db2604\",\"name\":\"Shira Smiles\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/torah\/files\/Shira-Smiles_avatar.jpeg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/torah\/files\/Shira-Smiles_avatar.jpeg\",\"caption\":\"Shira Smiles\"},\"description\":\"Mrs. Shira Smiles is a highly sought-after international lecturer, a popular seminary teacher, and an experienced curriculum developer. She is well-known for her unique teaching style, which seeks to bring understanding of Torah texts through analysis of relevant sources, while making the lessons learned from every verse relevant to her students' lives. Mrs. Smiles teaches at Darchei Bina Seminary. In addition, she leads a number of women's study group classes in Beit Shemesh, Yerushalayim, and Modiin. Mrs. Smiles also trains Torah teachers in special workshops all over the world. Mrs. Smiles gives a weekly shiur that is broadcast around the world via satellite hookup, has a direct teleconference shiur with students in LA, and has over 300 audio shiurim. Her first book is called Torah Tapestries. Photo courtesy Daryl Tempkin Photography\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/author\/shira-smiles\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Asara B\u2019Tevet and Parshat Vayechi - Community","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Asara B\u2019Tevet and Parshat Vayechi - Community","og_description":"The fast of the 10th day commemorates the day on which Nevuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem during the first Temple period. The siege continued for 3 years until the Temple was ultimately destroyed on the 9th of Av. If we fast to commemorate the destruction of the Temple, why do we also fast to commemorate","og_url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/","og_site_name":"Community","article_published_time":"2015-12-20T16:50:18+00:00","og_image":[{"width":400,"height":223,"url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/files\/2015\/12\/Tevet.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Shira Smiles","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Shira Smiles","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/","url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/","name":"Asara B\u2019Tevet and Parshat Vayechi - Community","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/files\/2015\/12\/Tevet.jpg","datePublished":"2015-12-20T16:50:18+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/#\/schema\/person\/84065b7b3d27f42f00516fb0a6db2604"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/files\/2015\/12\/Tevet.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/files\/2015\/12\/Tevet.jpg","width":400,"height":223},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/holidays\/asara-btevet-and-parshat-vayechi\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Asara B\u2019Tevet and Parshat Vayechi"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/","name":"Community","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/#\/schema\/person\/84065b7b3d27f42f00516fb0a6db2604","name":"Shira Smiles","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/torah\/files\/Shira-Smiles_avatar.jpeg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/torah\/files\/Shira-Smiles_avatar.jpeg","caption":"Shira Smiles"},"description":"Mrs. Shira Smiles is a highly sought-after international lecturer, a popular seminary teacher, and an experienced curriculum developer. She is well-known for her unique teaching style, which seeks to bring understanding of Torah texts through analysis of relevant sources, while making the lessons learned from every verse relevant to her students' lives. Mrs. Smiles teaches at Darchei Bina Seminary. In addition, she leads a number of women's study group classes in Beit Shemesh, Yerushalayim, and Modiin. Mrs. Smiles also trains Torah teachers in special workshops all over the world. Mrs. Smiles gives a weekly shiur that is broadcast around the world via satellite hookup, has a direct teleconference shiur with students in LA, and has over 300 audio shiurim. Her first book is called Torah Tapestries. Photo courtesy Daryl Tempkin Photography","url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/author\/shira-smiles\/"}]}},"acf":[],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/883"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3667,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3666\/revisions\/3667"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/community\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}