This coming Sunday, July 21, 2019, is a day of public fasting (תענית ציבור) that commemorates the 17th of Tammuz. On that day we also inaugurate a period of 3 weeks, until the 9th of the month of Ab, dedicated to mourning the destruction of our Bet haMiqdash (= Temple of Jerusalem) and other tragedies suffered by the Jewish people.
Five tragedies happened to the Jewish people on the 17th of Tamuz.
1. The Tablets of the Law were destroyed.
2. An idol was placed in the Sanctuary of the Bet HaMiqdash.
3. The daily sacrificial offering was interrupted.
4. Apostomus publicly burned a Sefer Tora.
5. The walls of the city of Jerusalem were destroyed.
1. THE TABLETS OF THE LAW:
The 17 of Tamuz is forty days away from Shabuot. Moshe went up Mount Sinai on the 6th of Sivan, and remained there for forty days. On the evening of the 16th of Tamuz, when the people thought that Moshe was no longer going to return, they made and worshiped the golden calf. The next day, when Moshe came down from Mount Sinai and saw the Yehudim worshiping the golden calf, he broke the tablets containing the Ten Commandments.
2. AN IDOL IN THE TEMPLE
The rabbis disagree on the precise timing of this event. Are we remembering what happened in the time of King Menashe in the 7th century, before the common era or what happened at the time of Apostomus, the same Roman general (year 50 of the common era) who burned the Tora and offended and provoked the Jews?
We will see first the first opinion. In the 9th century BCE, the people of Israel were divided into two kingdoms: Israel and Yehuda. The kingdom of Israel, also known as the 10 tribes, was destroyed in 722 BCE by the Assyrians. The kingdom of Yehuda survived. We are called Yehudim (Jews) because we descend from the kingdom of Yehudah (later known as “Judea”). Menashe (709-642 BCE) was one of the kings of Yehuda. There are two facts that characterized his reign.
1. He was the king that stayed in power for the longest time : 55 years.
2. Menashe was probably the worst king in the history of Am Israel. Undoubtedly, the worst king of the Kingdom of Yehuda.
His father was a great Tsadiq, Hizquiyahu, and according to our tradition, his grandfather was the prophet Yesha’ayahu. Menashe converted Yehudah in a vassal state of Assyria. This meant that the Jews became subjects of the king of Assyria, and as a consequence, they virtually adopted the Assyrian religion. The king’s goal in summiting his Kingdom to Assyria was to obtain political stability, but the price was the systematic eradication of Judaism, including all the sacrifices and holy services of the Bet HaMiqdash. Menashe introduced Assyrian idolatry, worship to Baal, to Ashera and to all the constellations of heaven (astrology). He brought into Israel the obot and ide’onim, that is, diviners, sorcerers, magicians and idolatrous wizards. Menashe ordered to kill and murder thousands of Jews who opposed his religious reform. According to some opinions, Menashe murdered his own grandfather, the prophet Yesha’ayahu. Menashe’s action caused the Tora to be completely forgotten for two generations, as it says in Melakhim II (21: 2-6) “Menashe did everything that offended HaShem: he practiced the abominable ceremonies [of idolatry] of the nations that HaShem had expelled to inherit their land for the Israelites. He rebuilt the pagan altars that his father Hizquiyahu had destroyed. He erected altars in honor of B’aal and made an image of the goddess Ashera… He prostrated before all the stars of heaven and worshiped them … In both courtyards of the Temple of HaShem, [Menashe] built altars in honor of the stars of heaven. He sacrificed his own son in fire, practiced magic and sorcery, and visited necromancers and spiritists. He continually did that which offended HaShem, provoking His wrath. “
The biblical text also tells what happened, according to this version, during the 17th Tammuz.
21: 7: “[Menashe] took the image of the [Assyrian] goddess Asherah, whom he himself had commanded to make, and placed it in the [Shrine of] the Temple …”
It is possible that on the 17th Tammuz, when we remember the introduction of an idol in the Bet HaMiqdash, we are also lamenting and doing Teshuba for all the bad things that happened with our ancestors in the time of King Menashe.
