Dear Reader sh’yichyeh,
This week was the fast day of the tenth of Teves. On that day, in the year 3336 from Creation (425 BCE), the armies of the Babylonian emperor Nevuchadnetzar laid siege to Yerushalayim. Later, the city walls were breached, and on 9 Av of that year the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed. The Jewish people were exiled to Babylonia for 70 years.
While for many, those in the northern hemisphere, it is the shortest fast of the year (as it is in middle of the winter with an early sundown), the Beis Yosef writes that it has a unique stringency: It is the only fast day that – if calendrically possible – we would fast on Shabbos, just like Yom Kippur! This is – besides the fact that they are both on the tenth of the month – based on a Pasuk in Yechezkel (24:2): “Son of man, write for yourself the name of the day, this very day (‘הַזֶּה אֶת עֶצֶם הַיּוֹם’); the king of Babylon has besieged Jerusalem on this very day.” We see that the Navi uses the same term “בְּעֶצֶם הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה” that the Torah uses for Yom Kippur.
On 10 Teves 5748, a Hakhel year, the Rebbe spoke a Sicha after Mincha and connected many of the aspects of the fast of 10 Teves to the general theme of Hakhel:
Regarding a fast day, the Rambam (Hilchos Taanis 4:1) writes: “On each and every day of the … fasts …, we pray in the [following] manner. The ark is taken out to the street of the city, and all the people gather together…” The Navi (Yeshaya 57:13) says: “When you cry out, let your collections save you” and the Midrash (beginning of Parshas VaYeishev) explains that this Pasuk is referring to gatherings that inspire us to do T’shuva.
Also in that sicha the Rebbe discusses how the number ten is a full and all-encompassing number. It is a total of all the individual numbers before it. In short, it is a number of unity. This fast is on the tenth day of the tenth month! This is supposed to awaken in us the idea that we must use this day to receive the ko’ach to unite with all of the Jewish people. This is the idea of the Pasuk of Hakhel (D’varim 31:12): “Assemble the people, the men, the women, and the children, and your stranger in your cities, in order that they hear, and in order that they learn and fear the Lord, your God, and they will observe to do all the words of this Torah.”
We mentioned earlier, that one of the connections between Asara B’Teives and Yom Kippur is the fact that they both have the words “בְּעֶצֶם הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה” used in relation to them. In chassidus, the word “בְּעֶצֶם” refers to the essence of the Yid. That, understanding that we are all connected at our essence, is the secret of attaining true Jewish unity. While externally we are all different, and therefore one may feel that they can’t unite with another Yid, when one focuses on the “בְּעֶצֶם” then it all comes together.
We will finish with the words of the Rambam (end of Hilchos Taanis) : All these [commemorative] fasts will be nullified in the Messianic era and, indeed ultimately, they will be transformed into holidays and days of rejoicing and celebration, as [Zechariah 8:19] states: “Thus declares the Lord of Hosts, ‘The fast of the fourth [month], the fast of the fifth [month], the fast of the seventh [month], and the fast of the tenth [month] will be [times of] happiness and celebration and festivals for the House of Judah. And they shall love truth and peace.’”
Rabbi Avtzon is the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Lubavitch Cincinnati and a well sought after speaker and lecturer. Recordings of his in-depth shiurim on Inyanei Geula u’Moshiach can be accessed at http://www.ylcrecording.com