The multiple fasts of Tevet
The question is glaring – what was so bad about translation? Where would Torah learning be in our generation without the availability of so much literature in the vernacular of so many nations?
“With three blows this month He struck me down … He extinguished my light on the eighth day of this month … the Greek king forced me to render the Torah into Greek. On the ninth I was subjected to God’s wrath (on this day) was taken away the giver of goodly words” – Ezra the scribe (Selichot for Tevet 10). These events are additional to the better known reason for fasting on Tevet 10, Nebuchadnezzar’s commencement of the two-and-a-half-year siege of Yerushalayim that culminated in the destruction of the first Temple and the Babylonian exile. However originally all three were proclaimed as fast days; they were subsequently rolled into one.
The above-mentioned translation of the Torah into Greek is known as the Septuagint. In the third century BCE, 72 Torah sages, sequestered in 72 separate rooms by Ptolemy, were each ordered to produce a translation. On Tevet 8, 246 BCE, they revealed 72 identical translations. This was miraculous, especially since as enumerated in Tractate Megillah (9a/b) there were (at least) 13 places where each of the translators intentionally but identically diverged from the literal translation. Despite that miracle, the rabbis viewed this event as one of the darkest days in Jewish history, saying that “for three days darkness ruled the earth” (Orach Chayim 580:2 citing Megillat Taanit). Tevet 8 was even compared to the tragic day Israel made the golden calf (Soferim 1:7).
The question is glaring – what was so bad about translation? Where would Torah learning be in our generation without the availability of so much literature in the vernacular of so many nations? (Imagine Daf Yomi today without ArtScroll.)
A key to the answer is that there are multiple meanings, implications and nuances to every Hebrew word in the Torah. With a translation you effectively deal with just one meaning; the richness and potential of each word is lost. That is why Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov (Sefer HaToda’ah) likened that translation to a lion trapped in a cage. The Greeks felt they had “trapped” the mighty Torah by translating it; they no longer were in awe of it. They didn’t know that the Torah could not be adequately translated and that all they had trapped was a likeness.
Nevertheless, because of this translation Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel saw Greek translation (Tractate Megillah op cit) as the only translation of the Torah with which one could fulfil the obligation of Torah reading. Rabbi Chiya, another talmudic sage, even saw in this Greek translation a fulfilment of Noah’s blessing to his sons (Bereshit 9:27): “God shall beautify the way for Yefet, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.” Yefet represents Greece, and Shem represents Israel; the beauty of Yefet has value when it is incorporated into the tents of Shem.
Yet to conclude, it seems that the sages feared that the Greek translation advanced the agenda of the Hellenist Jews to bring Greek culture into Jewish life. As is the case today, in their generation too there was danger that the availability of Torah wisdom in the vernacular preempted the need to study the original. And so the question remains: How do we balance that against the disadvantage of nonavailability of translated sources to those unfamiliar with Hebrew? Perhaps as the sages often stated regarding questions difficult to solve: “Teikou.” That word is an anagram for “Tishbi y’taretz kushiyot u’ba’ayot” – Elijah known as “the Tishbi” will (at the time of the Messianic era) answer our questions.
So much for Tevet 8. What about Tevet 9?
That same source cited above regarding Tevet 8 strangely states that the ninth is also a fast, albeit that “it is not known which tragedy happened on it”. As per the text of our Selichot, it is the “yahrzeit” of Ezra who led the return of the Jewish people to Israel after the Babylonian exile, put a stop to the wave of intermarriage endemic at that time and legislated laws and practices guaranteeing the continuation of authentic Judaism to this very day. So if his yahrzeit is the reason for the fast, why would the rabbis purposely hide it and give that sad day an anonymous character? And as there are opinions that Ezra’s yahrzeit is in fact Tevet 8, the mystery regarding Tevet 9 only deepens. All of which leads some to a very different and startling approach, connecting this Hebrew date with nascent Christianity, for which, incidentally, the Septuagint marked the previous day would also become the foundational biblical text.
One suggestion is that Tevet 9 represents the first “December 25” hence in light of Jewish suffering from Christianity, a fast was instituted though publicising its basis could have created trouble for Jews. But at a very different level it is strangely suggested that Tevet 9 marks the passing of one of the founders of Christianity as a distinct religion, who some sages may have felt did a great service to Judaism in making it clear that Jews could not accept the then widespread world view similar to today’s hybrid termed Messianic Judaism. As pointed out in a lecture by historian Rabbi Dr Yitzchak Breitowitz (available on the OU website) that theory associated with no less than the Apostle Peter whose original Jewish name according to the sages was Shimon (hence reference to him as Simon Peter), is already found in the medieval text “Machzor Vitri” (Rashi’s era). The veracity of the story, (including a suggestion that he composed the prayer “Nishmat kol chai” recited on Shabbat, Chagim and at the Seder) is open to question. But it too might explain the hesitancy of rabbinic writers to name a venerated founder of Christianity as the source of this fast which could also have provided a rationale for persecution (even though in that context Tevet 9 as a fast could have been to honour his memory, as per the now almost universally forgotten concept of fasting on a yahrzeit).
Even as interfaith relationships have developed over more recent times we would do well to recall past efforts to maintain our distinctiveness.
Shabbat shalom,
Yossi
Yossi Aron OAM is The AJN’s religious affairs editor.
comments