Rosh Hashanah

seeing that R. Hanah b. Bizna has said in the name of R. Simeon the Saint: ‘What is the meaning of the verse, Thus had said the Lord of Hosts: The fast of the fourth month and the fast of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness?1 The prophet calls these days both days of fasting and days of joy, signifying that when there is peace they shall be for joy and gladness, but if there is not peace they shall be fast days’! — R. Papa replied: What it means is this: When there is peace they shall be for joy and gladness; if there is persecution,2 they shall be fast days; if there is no persecution but yet not peace, then those who desire may fast and those who desire need not fast.3 If that is the case, the ninth of Ab also [should be optional]? — R. Papa replied: The ninth of Ab is in a different category, because several misfortunes happened on it, as a Master has said: On the ninth of Ab the Temple was destroyed both the first time and the second time, and Bethar was captured4 and the city [Jerusalem] was ploughed.5 It has been taught: R. Simeon said: There are four expositions among those given by R. Akiba with which I do not agree. [He said]:6 ‘The fast of the fourth month’ — this is the ninth of Tammuz, on which a breach was made in the walls of the city,7 as it says, On the fourth month on the ninth of the month the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land, and a breach was made in the city.8 Why is it called fourth? As being fourth in the order of months. ‘The fast of the fifth month’: this is the ninth of Ab, on which the House of our God was burnt. Why is it called fifth? as being fifth in the order of months. ‘The fast of the seventh month’: this is the third of Tishri on which Gedaliah the son of Ahikam was killed.9 Who killed him? Ishmael the son of Nethaniah killed him; and [the fact that a fast was instituted on this day] shows that the death of the righteous is put on a level with the burning of the House of our God. Why is it called the seventh? As being the seventh in the order of months. ‘The fast of the tenth month’: this is the tenth of Tebeth on which the king of Babylon invested Jerusalem, as it says, And the word of the Lord came unto me in the ninth year in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, saying, Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this selfsame day; this selfsame day the king of Babylon hath invested Jerusalem.10 Why is it called the tenth? As being the tenth in the order of months. [It might be asked], should not this have been mentioned first?11 Why then was it mentioned in this place [last]? So as to arrange the months in their proper order. I, however, [continued R. Simeon], do not explain thus. What I say is that ‘the fast of the tenth month, is the fifth of Tebeth on which news came to the Captivity that the city had been smitten, as it says, And it came to pass in the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, in the fifth day of the month, that one who had escaped out of Jerusalem came to me saying, The city is smitten,12 and they put the day of the report on the same footing as the day of burning. My view is more probable than his, because I make the first [mentioned by the prophet] first [chronologically] and the last last,13 whereas he makes the first last and the last first, he, however, following [only] the order of months I [also follow] the order of calamities. It has been stated [elsewhere]: Rab and R. Hanina hold that the Megillath Ta'anith14 has been annulled,15 whereas R. Johanan and Resh Lakish hold that the Megillath Ta'anith, has not been annulled. Rab and R. Hanina hold that the Megillath Ta'anith has been annulled, interpreting the words of the prophet thus: ‘When there is peace, these days16 shall be for joy and gladness, but when there is no peace, they shall be fasts’, and placing the days mentioned in the Megillath Ta'anith, on the same footing. R. Johanan and Resh Lakish hold that the Megillath Ta'anith has not been annulled, maintaining that it was those others [mentioned by the prophet] that the All-Merciful made dependent on the existence of the Temple,17 but these [mentioned in Megillath Ta'anith] remain unaffected. R. Kahana cited the following in objection: ‘On one occasion a fast was decreed in Lydda on Hanukah18 and R. Eliezer went down there and bathed and R. Joshua had his hair cut,19 and they said to the inhabitants, Go and fast in atonement for having fasted [on this day]’!20 — R. Joseph said: Hanukah is different, because there is a religious ceremony [attached to it]21 Said Abaye to him: Let it be abolished and its ceremony with it?22 — R. Joseph thereupon [corrected himself and] said: Hanukah is different because it commemorates publicly a miracle.23 R. Aha b. Huna raised an objection [from the following]: ‘On the third of Tishri the mention [of God] in bonds was abolished:24 for the Grecian25 Government had forbidden the mention of God's name26 by the Israelites, and when the Government of the Hasmoneans became strong and defeated them, they ordained that they should mention the name of God even on bonds, and they used to write thus: ‘In the year So-and-so of Johanan, High Priest to the Most High God’, and when the Sages heard of it they said, ‘To-morrow this man will pay his debt and the bond will be thrown27 on a dunghill’, and they stopped them, and they made that day a feast day.28 Now if you maintain that the Megillath Ta'anith has been annulled, [is it possible that] while the former [prohibitions of fasting] have been annulled, new ones should be added? — With what are we here dealing? With the period when the Temple was still standing at the Second Destruction; v. Ta'an. 26b. Supra on Deut. VI, 4 reads, ‘on the seventeenth’ following J. Ta'an. IV, 8 that also point in their evidence since in the absence of witnesses the New Moon is on the first time the breach was made on the seventeenth, the ‘ninth’ mentioned in the text being due to miscalculation caused by the confusion of the time, v. Tosaf. s.v. vz ]. other three are found in the Tosefta of Sot. VI and Sifre on Deut. VI, 4. had happened on that date. It dates back in part before the destruction of the Second Temple (v. Shab. 13b). Its present form dates from the days of Hadrian. the Temple. Bathing and haircutting were prohibited on fast days. ox, "We have no share in the God of Israel"’]. Graetz, Geschichte III, 2 p. 572 during the reign of Queen Salome when the Pharisees were in power. For other views, v. Lichtenstein, H, HUCA, pp. 283ff].