The 17th of Tammuz: History, Meaning, and the Spiritual Power of This Fast Day

As it says in the Book of Yehoshua (10:12): “Then Yehoshua spoke to the Lord on the day the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel: ‘Sun, stand still upon Givon; and moon, in the valley of Ayalon.’ And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed until the nation had avenged itself upon its enemies.”

The astrological sign of this Hebrew month, Tammuz, is Cancer (the Crab), because the constellation dominant in the sky during this month appears in the form of a crab. Another reason is that Tammuz falls in the heat of summer, when water crabs multiply.

The most significant date in this month is the 17th of Tammuz, a public fast day known as the Fast of the Fourth Month. On this date, the walls of Jerusalem were breached during the destruction of the Second Temple. According to one opinion, during the First Temple the walls were breached on the 9th of Tammuz — but the Talmud (Taanit 28b) concludes that both destructions occurred on the 17th.

Because the two dates are close, the sages designated the 17th of Tammuz as the unified fast day — to avoid burdening the public with two separate days of fasting. Moreover, since the destruction of the Second Temple has not yet been repaired, this tragedy weighs even more heavily upon us.

The prophet Yirmiyahu (39:1–2) records that in the time of the First Temple: “In the ninth year of King Tzidkiyahu of Yehuda, in the tenth month, Nevuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem and besieged it. In the eleventh year of Tzidkiyahu, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the city was breached.”

The Five Tragedies of the 17th of Tammuz

1. Moses shattered the first Tablets of the Law when he descended from Mount Sinai and saw the people dancing around the Golden Calf.

2. The daily offering (korban tamid) ceased in the First Temple when no sheep could be found for sacrifice.

3. Apostomus burned a Torah scroll.

4. An idol was placed in the Temple.

5. The walls of Jerusalem were breached during the destruction of the Second Temple.

According to Midrash Tanchuma (Ki Tisa), when God gave Moshe the Tablets, they carried themselves miraculously. But when Moshe saw the idolatry of the people, the letters flew off the stone and they became unbearably heavy — so he cast them from his hands and broke them. God said to Moshe: “You did not believe Me when I told you they made the Calf; now you see.” Moshe sought to defend Israel, arguing that they had not personally heard all the commandments as he had, and thus their guilt was lesser.

The Ceasing of the Daily Offering

In the days of the First Temple’s destruction, the priests defended the Temple until the 7th of Av, but from the 13th of Tammuz they lacked sheep for the daily offering. For several days they bribed the enemy soldiers outside the walls with gold and silver to send them animals, but by the 17th of Tammuz, the sacrifices ceased (Sefer HaToda’ah).

Apostomus Burns the Torah

The historian Josephus Flavius relates that during the time of the Roman procurator Cumanus, one of his soldiers seized a Torah scroll in a Jewish village, tore it, and burned it — igniting widespread outrage and mourning. On that same day, Apostomus erected an idol in the Temple — possibly the same idol set up by King Manashe, as described in Melachim II, 21 and Divrei Hayamim II, 33.

The Meaning of the Fast

The Fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz is one of the four national fasts commemorating tragedies that befell the Jewish people. Its purpose is not sorrow for its own sake, but soul-searching and repentance. The sages taught that fasting is only a preparation for teshuvah (spiritual return). The very letters of the word Tammuz (תמוז) were interpreted as an acronym: “Zemanei Teshuvah Memashmeshim U’ba’im” — “The times of repentance are approaching.”

Indeed, there are 100 days from the 17th of Tammuz until Yom Kippur — a period of awakening and introspection.

The Righteous Souls of Tammuz

Several great Jewish leaders passed away in the month of Tammuz:

• 3 Tammuz: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

• 7 Tammuz: Rabbi Simcha Bunim Alter, the Gerrer Rebbe known as Lev Simcha.

• 7 Tammuz: Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam, the Rebbe of Klausenberg, a Holocaust survivor who rebuilt Jewish life after the war.

May their merit protect us — and may the rebuilding of the Temple and the coming of the Messiah soon be fulfilled in our days.