אֶת-הַכֶּ֥בֶשׂ אֶחָ֖ד תַּעֲשֶׂ֣ה בַבֹּ֑קֶר וְאֵת֙ הַכֶּ֣בֶשׂ הַשֵּׁנִ֔י תַּעֲשֶׂ֖ה בֵּ֥ין הָֽעַרְבָּֽיִם
This coming Sunday, July 17, 2022 we will observe the fast of the 17 of Tamuz, a day of public fasting. The rabbis mentioned 5 tragic events that happened on that day in Jewish history. One of them was that the daily sacrifice in the Temple was discontinued.
Every day, in the Bet haMiqdash, two sacrifices were offered, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The daily sacrifice was so important that it was also offered on Shabbat and even on Yom Kippur. This Mitsva was fulfilled uninterruptedly from the time it was commanded to Moshe Rabbenu until the 17th day of Tamuz in the year 586 BCE, that is, for about 700 years.
At the time of the first Bet haMiqdash, the Babylonian army invaded Jerusalem. The walls of the city were destroyed on the 9th day of Tammuz. But the Bet haMiqdash, which was protected by internal walls, continued to operate, and the offering of the daily sacrifice was the best evidence of it. The Gemara says that on the 13th of Tamuz the Cohanim, the priests who were in charge of the public sacrifices, began to run out of animals. The Cohanim tried to bribe the soldiers of the invading army and get the animals at any cost. This worked for four days, until the 17th of Tamuz. That day, for the first time in 700 years, the daily sacrifice was not brought. And the Bet HaMiqdash, though still standing for three more weeks, virtually ceased to function as such.
The Gemara (Yerushalmi Ta’anit Chapter 4) tells us that something similar happened in the days of the second Bet haMiqdash (year 68 of the common era). The Kohanim were trying to acquire animals from the enemy army. Two buckets filled with gold coins were being handed over to them thru the wall. And in return the Romans gave them two Kosher animals for the daily sacrifice. Until one day, the Romans took the gold and in the buckets they placed two pigs, which fortunately jumped out of the bucket before reaching the other side of the wall. This event, however, remained in the memory of the people as a national trauma.
In the famous book “The War of the Jews” (volume 6) author Flavius Josephus writes: “Titus, the Roman general who led the conquest of Jerusalem in the year 68, ordered his army to open a breach in the wall of the city so that its soldiers could access it without difficulties. That day Titus heard that the daily sacrifice had not been offered [for the first time since 516 BCE] and the Jewish people, hearing this sad news was completely demoralized. “
Today, unfortunately, we do not have the Bet haMiqdash. But according to the indication of our prophets, the sacrifices have been replaced by the Tefilot (prayers). The first Tefilla we say in the day is called Shaharit, which comes to replace the morning sacrifice (tamid shel shahar), and the second Tefila of the evening, Minha, replaces the sacrifice of the afternoon (tamid shel ben Ha’arbayim).
We also recite in the mornings a text from Tehilim, religious poems written by King David, called Shir Shel Yom. Every day of the week we recite a different text. And before the recitation we say: “This was the song that the Leviim were singing in the dukhan. The Levites, who were the assistants of the Cohanim, were in charge, among other things of the music and the songs that were sung in the Bet haMiqdash. These poems of Tehilim were sung by the Leviim, a choir of a minimum of twelve men, in the dukhan, which was a platform with three steps, at the moment that the daily sacrifice was offered, in the morning and in the afternoon.
