Patrick Comerford
Asarah B’Tevet (עֲשָׂרָה בְּטֵבֵת), a Jewish fast commemorating the siege of Jerusalem, began at dawn this morning (Friday 10 January 2025). The fast, known by its date in the Hebrew calendar, Tenth of Tevet, the tenth day of the Hebrew month of Tevet, is a minor fast day in Judaism. It commemorates the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. Like other minor fasts, Asarah B’Tevet begins at dawn or the first light and ends at nightfall or full dark.
Asarah B’Tevet is unique in two ways: it is the only fast that can fall on Friday and it is the only fast that cannot fall on Shabbat.
Asarah B’Tevet is observed as a day of fasting, mourning and repentance. On this day, pious and observant Jews try to refrain from food and drink from daybreak to nightfall, and add Selichot or penitential prayers and other special supplements to their prayers. The fast ends at nightfall, or as soon as one see three medium-sized stars in the sky.
The fasting is in mourning for the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II, an event that began on this date and that led to in the destruction of Solomon’s Temple, the First Temple, the downfall of the Kingdom of Judah, and the Babylonian exile of the Jewish people.
The fast day is not related to Hanukkah but follows that festival by one week. Whether the 10th of Tevet occurs seven or eight days after the last day of Hanukkah depends on whether the preceding Hebrew month of Kislev has 29 or 30 days in the relevant year.
According to II Kings, on the 10th day of the 10th month, in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign (588 BCE), Nebuchadnezzar II began the siege of Jerusalem. Eighteen months later, on the 17th of Tammuz at the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign (586 BCE), he broke through the city walls. Later, the Romans would similarly break through the walls of Jerusalem on the 17th of Tammuz.
The siege by Nebuchadnezzar ended with the destruction of the Temple three weeks later, on Tisha B’Av, the end of the first kingdoms. The elite of Judah were taken in exile to Babylon. The Tenth of Tevet is part of the cycle of three fasts connected with these events.
The first reference to the Tenth of Tevet as a fast appears in Zechariah 8, where it is called the ‘fast of the tenth month.’ One opinion in the Talmud states that the ‘fast of the tenth month’ refers to the fifth of Tevet, when, according to Ezekiel, news of the destruction of the Temple reached those already in exile in Babylon. However, the tenth is the date observed today, according to another opinion found in the Talmud. Other references to the fast and the affliction can be found in Ezekiel and Jeremiah.
According to tradition, the fast also commemorates other calamities that occurred throughout Jewish history on the Tenth of Tevet and the two days preceding it.
On the eighth day of Tevet one year during the 3rd century BCE, a time of Hellenistic rule of Judea during the Second Temple period, Ptolemy II Philadelphus ordered the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. It is said 72 sages were placed in solitary confinement and ordered to translate the Torah into Greek. This work later became known as the Septuagint.
Judaism now sees this event as a tragedy, reflecting a deprivation and debasement of the divine nature of the Torah and a subversion of its spiritual and literary qualities. They reasoned that the Torah’s legal codes and deeper layers of meaning would be lost when translated from the original Hebrew. Many Jewish laws are formulated in terms of specific Hebrew words employed in the Torah; without the original Hebrew wording, the authenticity and essence of the legal system would be damaged.
The mystical ideas contained in the Torah are also drawn from the original Hebrew. As such, these would not be accessed by individuals studying the Torah in Greek – or any other language – alone.
Tradition says that Ezra, the leader who brought some Jews back to the Land from the Babylonian exile and who ushered in the era of the Second Temple, died on 9 Tevet. But according to the earlier sources, the specific tragedy of 9 Tevet is unknown. Other sources add that Ezra and Nechemiah died on this day.
Because today is a minor fast day, those who are ill, even if their illnesses are not life-threatening, are exempt from fasting, as are pregnant and nursing women who find fasting difficult. Nor should one refrain from bathing in preparation for Shabbat when the Tenth of Tevet falls on a Friday, as happens this year.
The Tenth of Tevet is the only minor fast day that can fall on a Friday in the current Hebrew calendar. When it does, the unusual event of a Torah and Haftarah reading at the mincha right before Shabbat takes place. This is fairly rare, but happens this year on this day (10 January 2025), and also happened in 2023.
If the Tenth of Tevet falls on a Friday, then the fast is observed until nightfall, even though Shabbat begins before sunset, and even though this requires one to enter Shabbat hungry from the fast, something typically avoided. It cannot be determined for sure whether other fasts would have the same ruling, because no other fast day can fall on Friday, except for the Fast of the Firstborn when Passover begins on Friday night.
In Israel, Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the deceased, is recited on this day for people whose date or place of death is unknown. Consequently, many rabbis have designated this as a day of remembrance for the Holocaust and the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The kaddish is recited on this day for people whose date or place of death during the Holocaust is not known. Because of this, today’s fast has acquired its unofficial Hebrew name, Yom Ha-kaddish ha-kleli, or the General Kaddish Day.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
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