The failed attempt of Rabbi Yehuda the Hanasi to cancel the fast of the XNUMXth of Av

The fasts and fasting that accompanied the destruction of the house presented the Romans to everyone as public enemies and perhaps even motivated trends of anti-Roman, somewhat messianic tendencies, such as characterized the Jewish rebellion both during the Great Revolt, both in the Diaspora rebellion during the days of Emperor Trianus and in the rebellion of Ben Khosva. Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi therefore sought to abolish the fasts and penances of the XNUMXth of Tammuz and the XNUMXth of Av, perhaps less because of a sense of redemption than because of the fear of being shaken into a rebellious, messianic vortex saturated with apocalypticism

What do we know about Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi? who was the son of Rabbi Shimon ben Gamaliel, who had close ties with the Roman government and even with the Imperial House, who edited the Mishna, which was known for its great wealth, which brought the Jewish community in the Land of Israel to economic achievements and more. Some of us know that behind him are important halachic rulings such as the Sikrikon law in relation to land assets, partnership laws and crimes between Jews and foreigners, and in general that this president was a great reformer as someone who sought to create a bridge between the halachic law and the changing reality. However, and let's face it, how many of us are aware that this president sought to uproot two fasts and penances - those of the XNUMXth chapter and the XNUMXth chapter of Tammuz? And that is why we will call its course a real earthquake and that is what will be discussed in this article.

Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi was the son of President Rabbi Shimon ben Gamaliel, who was as strict as he was on many subjects, probably as a result of his being as a boy in the camp of the rebel ben Khosva in Beitar, including the fasting and fasting of Tisha B'Av, and thus we open the subject of our discussion.

Well, the same Rabbi Shimon ben Gamaliel, the president of the Sanhedrin, several years after the rebellion of ben Kusaba, from 150 CE onwards, expressly stated as follows: "All that eats and drinks in T. Bav, as if eating and drinking on Yom Kippur" (Talmud Babylon, Ta'anit p. b). The XNUMXth of Av, as is well known, was a day of fasting and fasting that symbolized the destruction of the two temples - the first and the second in terms of a dramatic and tragic symbol like no other, which explains the statement of Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel, who was under the indoctrination of the rebellious Ben Kusaba in Beitar, and there he probably absorbed fanatical insights and even Messianic.
The above statement about the relationship between T'Bav and Yom Kippur was not phrased in such a similar way against the background of a certain vacuum. The knowledge suggests that statements were made and perhaps even attempts were made to touch upon the importance of fasting on the XNUMXth of Av, and which is why the above-mentioned president made his dramatic and decisive announcement, regarding the fencing of the foxes that terrorize the vineyards.

And in our case we will ask and say: Did the article - "the act of fathers mark the whites", or the other article - "fathers ate unripe and the children's teeth will be priests" fulfilled in the son of this president? Definately not! And in fact the opposite is true. The son of Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel, aka Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, the subject of our article, who was a great reformer, dared to "betray" the Beit Abba tradition when he asked to try and cancel the fast of the XNUMXth of Tammuz and the fast of the XNUMXth of Av, considering an unprecedented earthquake. And that is the main point of the discussed article.
And surely the basic question will arise in this regard - why and why? And this will find its answer and clarification immediately later.

Well, when we open the Babylonian Talmud in tractate Megillah we read as follows: "Rabbi Elazar said, (in the name of): Rabbi Hanina said...Rabbi (Yehuda the President) planted a sapling on Purim and bathed in the water (spring) of (the city) Tzipuri on the seventeenth of Tammuz, and asked to be uprooted ( cancel fasting) Tisha B'av. And they did not acknowledge (acquiesce) to him (to his request, to his ruling). Said before him (asked to correct and soften what was said) Rabbi Aba bar Zebda (and argued that) Rabbi, that was not the case, but Tisha B'Av that began to be on Shabbat, he (the above event took place) and we postponed it (the fast in question) after Shabbat, and Rabbi said ( Yehuda the President): Since (fasting) is rejected, it will be rejected (become a practice at all), and the sages (members of the Sanhedrin) did not admit (agree to it)" (Talmud Babylon, Megillah XNUMX, p. XNUMX-p. XNUMX).

In the Jerusalem Talmud, this parasha was worded a little differently: "Rabbi came to Bar Zebda in the name of Rabbi Hanina (claimed that) Rabbi (Yehuda the President) asked to break (fast) Tisha B'av and they (the sages of the Sanhedrin) did not allow him. Rabbi Lazar said to him (though he came to comfort you, perhaps because of the honor of the president): I was with you and you did not say the most (you did not say that), but Rabbi asked to remove Tisha B'av, which began to be on Shabbat, and they did not allow him (the sages of the Sanhedrin). He (Rabbi) said: Since it is rejected, it will be rejected. They said to him: It will be postponed until tomorrow" (Talmud Yerushalmi Taaniyot chapter XNUMX set p. XNUMX).

Before us is an unprecedented, revolutionary attempt, perhaps equivalent to a real earthquake, to cancel the Tisha B'Av fast, which was so sacred, practiced and deeply rooted in the ancient Jewish culture. This is a sophisticated exercise by President Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi to cancel the aforementioned fast in a very "bastard" way: he chose to bathe in the spring of Tzipori on the seventeenth of Tammuz, and not just a private bath but in front of the public and sages. So what is the "importance" of bathing on this particular day? Well, let's not make the "wet" move easy in our eyes, because this day is considered a well-known and famous fast day - a day when the soldiers of the Roman legion penetrated in 70 AD through the cracked walls of Jerusalem, in the heart of the great rebellion and the process of its suppression, which symbolized more than anything the destruction of the Second Temple .
And this will be evidenced by the Tanit Sunnah and its interpretations in the Talmud and Midrashim. And so the "treacherous" behavior of Rabbi Yehuda the Hanasi will be understood, as if of course, as seeking to uproot a heavy foundation stone in the mythological wall of the People of Israel.

Well, the fact that Rabbi Yehuda the President bathed on that day, on the seventeenth of the Tammuz, in a spring belonging to the birds of the city, which was considered one of the two capitals of the Galilee (next to Tiberias), but was a foreign city to all intents and purposes and had a Hellenistic-Roman culture, was thereby a statement in the context of the relationship between Jews and foreigners, between Jews and Hellenistic and Roman communities. And not this one, but this one is also found in the birds of a Roman temple and a Greco-Roman theater, and the city in general was crowned after the suppression of Ben Kusba's rebellion as a central polis city and its name was changed to Dio-Caesarea, to teach about Roman-cultural indoctrination, when within the above name is embodied the name of Zeus, head The Olympic gods in Greece. This, in the presidential visit, was because of a statement whose main purpose was the necessary normalization of the relationship between the Roman government and the Jews, and as we will see later, this was because of a statement related to what came to mind - the abolition of fasts and fasting.
Furthermore, the city was known for its elaborate and complex water system, all of which was the work of Roman construction, and this certainly explains the issue of the president's bathing in a "bird's carriage". Also, the close ties of the president with the authorities of the Roman Empire and its leaders are well known, such as the quasi-mysterious figure, who appears in the Sage literature, named "Antoninus", whose identification may include at least three emperors: Septimius Severus, Caracalla and Alexander Severus. And hence it is not for nothing that the president finds an "opportunity" to bathe "precisely" in a "bird's car" on a day of fasting that involves the breaching of the walls of the city of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE, as if he seemingly ignores the date and kicks its historical significance so dramatic, so grave. And this is to create the appropriate background for canceling the fast from one and the fast from the other.

And in order to explain the ear and the eye, we will quote here the explicit text in connection with those dates taken from the Mishnah, and thus the wording of the text: "Five things happened to our ancestors on the seventeenth of Tammuz and five on the ninth of Av. On the seventeenth of Tammuz the Tablets (Tablets of the Covenant by Moses) were broken, and the Tabel Hatamid (the Tabel Hatamid that was offered every day in the Temple and Batel due to the Roman siege and the destruction that followed), and the city of Jerusalem was breached (the Roman invasion of the city) and Apostamus burned the Torah (an act whose details are unknown to us and perhaps In connection with the decrees of Antiochus or Hadrian)) and placed an image (idol) in the temple (temple). On Tisha B'Av our ancestors were decreed not to enter the land (Israel. Perhaps in the desert) and the sword of the Temple in the first (the destruction of Nebuchadnezzar) and in the second (the destruction of the Second Temple during the suppression of the rebellion), and Bitar was captured (the stronghold of the rebel Ben Kusaba in 135 AD) and the city was plowed (as the symbolic Roman custom) of peripheral plowing with a pair of cattle to symbolize total and eternal destruction). When a father enters, he rejoices" (Mishnat Tanit 6:XNUMX). Associating so many dramatic events to the two above-mentioned dates indicates the depth of the chronological pain from this and the earthquake that was expected from this in relation to the reformatory course of Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi. And he is "ripe"...

And perhaps, the wording of the text in the Jerusalem Talmud: "... said (Rabbi): Since it was rejected (on the XNUMXth of Av), it will be rejected!" Some sort of "nasty" hint of postponement = displacement and annulment sticks out, when those opposing Sanhedrin members were indeed afraid of a halachic drafting exercise, and immediately stated: "It will be postponed until tomorrow!"

Let us add another element to the aforementioned historical fabric. Zipori was, no less and no more, one of the most important centers in the travels of the Sanhedrin, in its sometimes forced wanderings, as the Sanhedrin wording in the sources was in the interpretation - "postcards". It was the seat of the president and the meeting place of the Sanhedrin. And why precisely in Zipori and before that in Usha and then in Tiberias and Beit Shaarim. These were places that allowed the Roman authorities to monitor the Jewish leadership activity, not exactly explicitly and physically, but also indirectly and covertly and sometimes that was enough. There, in Zipori, Roman forces operated in permanent military camps, large or small. Apparently, of course, this does not go so well with the very deep and checkered friendship system between the president and the Roman leadership. Well, the connections were excellent, but Rome as Rome knew how to distinguish between the emotional side and the rational side, and the pragmatic side, as it did in many places throughout its empire, considering the game between autonomy and criticism and surveillance.

So, we are left with two questions on the agenda, two perplexities intertwined in each other's arms: First, why did the president choose to carry out the judicial move, which was considered something like a real earthquake, precisely in the highly charged Biz of Tamuz, as mentioned above? Second, was there a more significant, deeper, more revolutionary intention hidden behind this move?

First, it becomes clear from reading the text that the idea of ​​uprooting the XNUMXth Lent in Tammuz was a sort of "trial balloon" for a much more significant move. More than that, President Rabbi Yehuda, unlike the presidents before him, was opinionated and stubborn, standing firmly behind his intentions and plans. He took advantage of his leadership character, the recognition he received from the public, and especially the close ties that developed between him and the top Roman government, to present his intentions to the public, even in terms of checking borders, and let's not forget that the event was in Tzipori, in terms of the seat of the Sanhedrin and a Hellenistic-Roman cultural center and cover Military geographic than that.
Moreover, the idea timed on the XNUMXth of Tammuz (as mentioned, the day the walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Romans) was not carried out on a different day and in a different context, it was said during a theoretical and pre-halachic discussion in the Sanhedrin, but on the very same day, in the examination of the Korat of "a finger in the eye" of Lent The expected consecration on that very day. And more of this kind - the forbidden bathing on the day of the fast on the one hand and bathing in a foreign facility (after all, it is not for nothing that the water reservoir is called in Greek - in "Bird's Carriage") and more in Parhasya on the other hand.

Secondly, the above can be seen as a kind of cheeky experimental balloon on the one hand, or a testing of limits with a pragmatic flavor, that is - to examine what the public's reaction will be to this and in particular - the reaction of the members of the Sanhedrin to this. Checking borders why and for what? And for this it is written in the above text - "And (Rabbi Yehuda the President) asked to cancel (fasting and fasting) Tisha B'av" considering the day that marks the destruction of the Second Temple, the Second Temple. And hence the chronological connection between the first and current bewilderment and certainly given the mythological emotional context - the double destruction of Jerusalem, which symbolized a deep breaking point in the hearts of the Jewish public. And more than that - the Jewish public might have linked the uprooting of the fasts with a dangerous collaboration between the presidency and the Roman authorities.

For the matter discussed in general, at the time Professor and Rabbi Prof. Aharon Oppenheimer was required in 2007 in the master series "Great Spirits and Creation in the Jewish People" edited by Prof. Aviad Ravitzky. And so Prof. Oppenheimer wrote, among other things - "Rabbi Yehuda the President believed that due to the peace, well-being and autonomy given to the people in Israel in general and the Jewish leadership institutions in particular under the rule of the Sewar (emperors), there is no longer any point in enduring the famines of the Holocaust. Even though the Temple was not built and even though the nation does not have absolute independence. A clear expression of this political view of his, as well as his view of his days as the beginning of redemption and his desire to instill this feeling in the people of Israel. It can be seen as his attempt to cancel the fasts of the XNUMXth of Tammuz and the Tisha of Av, which are days of mourning for the destruction of the Temple.

Well, if we summarize Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi's motives for canceling fasting and fasting on the seventeenth of Tammuz and the ninth in Ab Eliba according to Prof. Oppenheimer, then it is as follows: circumstances of peace, well-being and autonomy under the rule of the Suvirites and a sense of the beginning of redemption, when fasting and fasts detract from this feeling.

At this juncture, may I add a few more reasons for the aforementioned revolutionary course of Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, and most of them revolve around the fear of the outbreak of an anti-Roman rebellion, and this fear was not far from reality when during the term of office of the doomed president, two central figures in Roman history faced each other - the reigning emperor and the claimant For the imperial crown from this - i.e., the emperor Septimius Severus and the claimant to the crown, the rebel, Pascanius Niger. The difficult war between them, and partly even in Province Palestine, was fought between 193 and 194 CE, when the Jews sided with Septimius Severus and led by Rabbi Yehuda the Hanasi, and perhaps in this context the figure of "Antoninus" in the Sage literature can be identified as the aforementioned emperor. Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi feared an anti-Roman rebellious awakening in the Land of Israel, when after the destruction of the Second Temple, the revolt of the Jewish Diaspora in Rome and the revolt of Ben Kosba, it was certainly possible to find beyond hints about such and other tendencies to renew the Jewish rebellious movement against Rome.
President Rabbi Yehuda came out against this atmosphere on quite a few occasions, when the fear was of a severe and painful Roman blow against the Jewish public, in a similar way to the one that fell upon the head of the Jewish public after the rebellion of Ben Kusaba (135 AD) and this after the various political, economic and local reconstruction processes, and especially Ones that influenced the texture of positive relations with the Roman government.
Moreover, Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi certainly had something to lose if and when the anti-Roman rebellions materialized. His close personal ties with the Roman leadership, his unprecedented political status, his financial wealth, including huge estates that he received on rent and lease from the Romans... all of these were supposed to come to nothing as a result of the awakening of Jewish rebellion and more in the problematic area between Egypt, Syria and Babylon from the point of view of the Romans, which could have landed on The Jewish communities in the Land of Israel suffered an extremely fatal blow, and therefore Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi made the greatest efforts to forge ties with the Romans and to calm the Jewish public, and at least the fanatical-Messianic factions that ran and stirred within it.

The questioner will rightly ask: What is the difference between the attempt to cancel the fasts and penances of the XNUMXth of Tammuz and the XNUMXth of Av and the above?

Well, first of all, fasts and fasting that accompanied the destruction of the house presented the Romans to everyone as public enemies and perhaps even motivated trends of anti-Roman, somewhat messianic tendencies, those that characterized the Jewish rebellion both during the Great Revolt, both in the Diaspora Revolt during the time of Emperor Trianus, and in the Ben Kusaba Rebellion. Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi therefore sought to abolish the fasts and fasts of the XNUMXth of Tammuz and the XNUMXth of Av, perhaps less due to a sense of redemption (as this matter will be mentioned immediately later), but more specifically from the fear of being shaken into a rebellious, messianic vortex saturated with apocalypticism.
Second, perhaps a pragmatic, productive thought passed through the president's mind, and its concern was the fear of whining and a fatalistic investor who would project on the well-being and recovery of the Jewish economy during his time.

Thirdly, as mentioned, the fear of financial-personal damage to the assets of the presidency that will be caused by fasts and hunger strikes that will blacken the policy of the Roman authorities and their conduct in general. And it is not without reason that the Babylonian Talmud emphasizes the relationship of the president with the Roman government, which went beyond just relationships between the ruled and the ruler: "And God said to her: 'Two nations (giants and peoples) are in your belly'" (Genesis 23:XNUMX). Do not attack (call) Gentiles, but proud ones. Rav Yehuda said, Rav said: These are Antoninus and Rabi, who did not leave out of their table neither radish nor horseradish nor quince. Not in the hot days and not in the rainy days" (Berachot Nez p. XNUMX). That is, extreme wealth and productive quality. And in the treatise Baba Metzia (here p. XNUMX) the Talmud sails above and beyond when it compares the wealth of the manager of his stables to the reduced wealth of the Persian king in favor of Rabbi Yehuda the Hanasi.

Fourthly, Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi was portrayed as a manipulator ruler ("Rabbi respects the rich" in the Talmud's parlance - Baruchot Mag p. XNUMX), who promotes property owners even more than scholars and upgrades them to stand in the municipal authority (although there is nothing to talk about at that time about democracy, but there is a limit to this as well in a quasi-totalitarian regime that led and led his rule). Alongside these phenomena, Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi was portrayed as assertive and sometimes strict and even aggressive. True or false, real or exaggerated and legendary, a midrashic testimony, for all the dubious reliability inherent in the Midrashic treasure, Baal Kohelat Raba (XNUMXth) testifies about the servants of the president who were decent beaters of those who refused to follow the rulings issued by the president and more of this kind. These testimonies along with others that tell about the president's foreign bodyguards, as was customary in contemporary Roman culture, provide some kind of drive to bring up the issue of abolishing fasts and fasting, as if the president said to himself and those around him -
"I and none more", or - "who will oppose me at all", in terms of an almighty supreme ruler. Moreover, the president demanded that the public pray for his safety during his lifetime, and this under the influence of clear Roman drivers.

Fifth - Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi is considered a great reformer when he relied on economic and social circumstances, somewhat imperial connections, personal tastes and more. And for example a few examples: the amendment of the Sikrikon Law to normalize life on the issue of property rights regarding land. That is, the cancellation of the status of the person who purchased encumbered land and was seized by the authorities and is considered a usurper; Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi's order to exempt Caesarin, Beit Govrin and Beit Shan from the obligation of tithes to make life easier for Jewish farmers or owners of agricultural property, who lived in mixed cities; the regulation of the oil permit of foreigners, which allows its purchase by Jews; Mutual peace between Jews and non-Jews, mainly in mixed cities, and even the burial of non-Jews by Jews and vice versa, and even conducting mutual eulogies, when the overall reasoning is "for peaceful purposes", we were striving for good neighborly relations. For similar reasons, Rabbi Yehuda the Hanasi canceled the beacons in connection with the mathematical-astronomical calculation of determining the number of days of the month.
In addition, the president's amendment to the halachic law was known in connection with the annulment of an excommunication imposed by the sages of the Sanhedrin, and we will also add the honorable status that the president gave to the Greek language alongside the Hebrew language, both in order to bring Jews and foreigners closer in the cities of the polis in Israel, and even to flatter and flatter the Roman authorities, whose language was more Greek (for reasons of arrogance) than Roman-Latin.

Sixth - in continuation of Prof. Oppenheimer's argument that the president saw his days as the beginning of redemption and wished to infect his contemporaries with this feeling, this assumption can be strengthened to a certain extent by the fact that the period of the president in question was considered the strongest of all its predecessors from various aspects and as, perhaps, a feeling that "full establishes a "poisoning cup" of destruction and fasts, and a kind of drive must be created in favor of resurrecting the body of the Jewish public, and the president's attempt to blossom the two experimental balloons was aimed at this category - one to cancel the XNUMXth of Tammuz fast as a promo to displace the Tev Bab fast, and the last one in order to intensify the feeling of Athalta Dagaola.

Seventh - maybe it even crossed Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi's mind to cancel and uproot the heavy mourning customs of Yom Kippur, maybe, if and when he tried to uproot the fast and fasting of the XNUMXth of Tammuz and the XNUMXth of Av, he would have succeeded, and based on what, maybe , that the degree of resistance of sages will be somewhat loose? He relied, similarly, on the fact that the fast of the XNUMXth of the Father was not from Dauriata, that is, from the Bible, but from Durban, and therefore, and due to the power of his presidency, including his personality and prestige, lest he thought that the fast from Durban could be uprooted by a "mountain uprooter" like him. He also relied, it seems, on disputes among the sages themselves as to whether the time of fasting is on the XNUMXth of Av or on the XNUMXth of it. That is, the alleviating debate, in principle, about trying to uproot the mourning custom for that problematic day from a chronological point of view.

Eighth - according to the tradition in the Tractate Ta'anit in the Babylonian Talmud, the XNUMXth of Av was a decreed day concerning the calamities that have befallen the people of Israel since time immemorial, and even from the ancient days of the Bible, such as what was decreed on the desert generation that would not enter the Land of Israel because of the sin of the spies. And even regarding the destruction of the first house. And what was this date? You guessed it right - Yom T' Bav. Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi therefore asked to put an end to that disastrous period in consideration of entering into better days.

And don't make it easy for us. It is definitely about revolutionary regulations that have almost no equal during ancient Jewish history. And the success that President Nahal has had in this matter shows not only the rationality of the matter but the extent of his governmental power.

always succeeded? Probably not, and the next example will bring us very close to the subject of the attempt to cancel the fasts and fasting above. Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi requested, for such understandable, thoughtful and progressive reasons, to cancel the mitzvot of shmita, considering a considerable earthquake in the world of Judaism. Rabbi Yehuda the President took into account the fact of the large number of "Savior refusers" especially after the destruction of the Second Temple, but this move was thwarted by a group of Sanhedrin sages, and the President decided to drop the issue and force his will in the face of that opposition.

Well, armed with the above examples and the President's ideas for displacing fasts and fasting, we will return to the discussion regarding the XNUMXth day of Tammuz and the XNUMXth of Av. The quote we made at the beginning of the article ended in a rather shameful fiasco. An opposition group raised a voice of opposition to the above move of Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi - in principle and even against the "experimental balloon" he raised in Tsipri. The opposition was not so strong and sharp and maybe even moderate, and this is learned from the Talmudic expression - "and they did not thank him". Moreover, one of the members of the Sanhedrin hurried and, as if defending the president, came out with an excuse along the lines of: 'Understand, the president meant something specific-chronological, that is, in the case where Tisha B'Av falls on this Sabbath, and therefore it (the fast and Lent) should be postponed, "simply ” after Shabbat. It seems that the group of opponents agreed to the above-mentioned kind of compromise, and which the president therefore jumped in and announced: "Since (the day of Lent) has been postponed, it will be postponed (in general)" (Talmud Babli Megillah XNUMX, p. XNUMX). But the sages have theirs: "And the sages did not admit (did not agree)" (ibid.).
And so the issue was buried for him to this day.

We therefore reviewed Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi's experimental process to cancel the XNUMXth fasts of Tammuz and XNUMXth of Av, when he relied, it seems, on a number of weighty claims. But this attempt was not successful, and even more than that - it did not raise questions and disputes in future generations and in fact to this day.

And between us it is interesting and surprising how such a move received only a scant mention in the sources. It seems that the editors had a hand in the matter and for obvious reasons.