The 10th of Teves: The Day That Changes Jewish History

so today's class is dedicated by mrs by rabbits and hannah scharfstein in loving memory of her beloved father haravagan biakovic mendel zuber rav zuber rabbi zuber hashem yin kim damn and may avengers blood was the chief rabbi of the orthodox community in stockholm in sweden then he relocated to the united states of america and moved to boston and on new year's new year's day 1953 which was yud dala tavis the 14th of davis he was murdered at the young age of 55. and his daughter dedicates this class in his eternal memory may he serve as an eternal source of of light and inspiration and terror in your shamayim to his whole family and to all of us and to all of the jewish people and thank you so much for the dedication it's also dedicated to mrs sharpton mrs hannah scharfstein in honor of her 90th birthday a great milestone barack hashem larry cristiano shanahan one day before the yard said of her father you'd gimmeltavis on the 13th of davis in fact as she once told me he took her to her birthday party in boston that's where they lived and then when he was going home through a park he was attacked and killed so her birthday is one day before her father's yard site mr strivestein has been a for many many years a participant and pillar of our classes back in new york and now virtually with her unending participation and contribution and sharing ideas insights feedback feelings excuse me and very encouraging words so thank you very much for being such an extraordinary participant and viewer and listener and disciple and friend this past shabbos the entire family came here to muncie to celebrate right near my house actually so it was a really beautiful shabbos to see the beautiful family you created over these last nine decades and we wish you today i many many many long happy healthy prosperous years filled with abundance of health and nachos and thank you so so very much and mazel tov happy birthday congratulations today's class is also dedicated by our very very dear friends and neighbors from the neighborhood dr michael and liz michelle in loving memory of liz's father review rabbi irving levy he passed away 22 years ago on the 11th day of tavis rabbi levy was a very well-known talmud a respected terrorist scholar a legendary balkheset pillar of kindness and one of the earliest founders of the munsi community who really helped build the jewish infrastructure of tyra and yiddish guide here in muncie including founding the school ashar and being a unique source of help for individuals and communities over many decades to hey nishma say sir thank you so much for your friendship for your for your partnership for your love for your dedication and may rabbi levy yitzchak serve as an eternal source of light and inspiration and love to you to the entire family to all of us and to all of the jewish people thank you again very very much today is the tenth day of the month of tavis asura batavis it's one of the four fast days that has been established by the prophets and recorded in the tanakh in which we mourn and grieve for devastating events in jewish history i'm going to try to get through this the best as i can um each year we have four different fast days that commemorate the events surrounding our national exile and here they go and i'm doing it in the order from the beginning of the year from the month of nisan the first one is known as shiva a-s it's the 17th day of the hebrew month of thomas that's when the babylonians broke through the walls of jerusalem in order to capture and destroy the city the walls of jerusalem were breached the first temple in the second temple one by the babylonians the second one by the romans then comes the second fast three weeks later the period is known as the three weeks this is the fastest tisha buff to shabbat means the ninth day above that's the day when both the first holy temple and the second holy temple were burnt down and destroyed the first one by the babylonians the second one by the romans the first one in the year in the jewish calendar 3338 3338 gimmel shillah and the second one gamalalafem 3000. five i'm sorry three thousand uh tough tough guys three thousand uh 828 so three three three eight and three eight twenty eight in the english calendar the first destruction is usually associated with 586 bce and the second one with 68 after the common era so this happens on the ninth day of of the third fast comes right after rosh hashanah the third day of tishrei is known as some geday the fast of gedalia it's the day when the last hope for the sovereignty of israel the sovereignty of the jewish people in the holy land after the destruction was destroyed violently destroyed as we will see this was after the destruction of the temple there was still a glimmer of hope and that glimmer of hope was also extinguished finally we have the fourth faz day which is today the tenth of tavis this is the fast day that commemorates the day when the babylonian army surrounded late siege on the walls of jerusalem the army surrounded the walls of jerusalem and they waited there for two and a half years they also built towers as we will soon see from the tanaka they built the towers around and around but it took two and a half years until they managed to penetrate the walls to breach the walls which as we learned was in the month of thomas now let's think about these four fast days the first fast day is they breached the walls and they entered into jerusalem three weeks later they burned down the temple they destroyed all of jerusalem a few months later at san godalia that's when gedalia the leader of the jewish people after the destruction is murdered and this community of the jewish people living in the holy land comes to an end everybody has to escape we're going to get into the details so each one of these is really a stand-alone catastrophe you're dealing with conquest destruction exile the downfall of a kingdom each one of them was a serious catastrophe in the jewish world it changed jewish history what i want to focus on is this fast asari batavis the 10th of davis what happened on this day actually there was no invasion they didn't shoot any arrows they didn't take any captives they didn't murder any jews what they did was they came and they set up camp now it took two and a half years until they managed to breach the wall but at this point nothing happened they just surrounded this jerusalem they built towers around and yet it was established as a faster even though there was no destruction no tangible destruction that happened yet it was the beginning why was this established as a fast day it would seem less significant even though it's an important day but it would seem less significant than the other three dates the other three fast days when actual destruction took place death murder decimation extermination what is more not only is it a fast day but as we view how the prophet iscal describes this day it emerges that it actually has a unique element of pain to it there's a unique component to it that in a way is more powerful even than the three other facets and let's see this inside because the text here will be extremely valuable so i'm going to ask you to open your source sheets those of you who are on zoom i put it in the link in the chat so you can open it up those of you who are on youtube are on the yeshiva.net if you go to the yeshiva.net and you'll see this class has source sheets we're going to the prophet yajuska who was ighasco ezekiel heskel was a prophet who lived at the end of the era of the first temple in fact he relocated he was exiled to babylonia and during these events of the destruction of jerusalem he was not living in the holy land he was already living in babylonia from a previous exile the vulcanettes of the babylonian emperor exiled some jews 11 years earlier but in babylonia which is present-day iraq ezekiel yejasco had a prophecy on this day when these events happened in jerusalem on the 10th of davis living in iraq has a prophecy and he records it it's chapter 24 of the book of yikasku elai bashanah in the ninth year the ninth year of what the ninth year since the reign of the final jewish monarch in judea the last king from the dynasty of king david that would reign over the jewish people over israel at the end of the era of the first temple his name is sitka yo he would ultimately be blinded by the babylonian king and exiled to babylonia his children would be slaughtered in front of him in the ninth year of the reign of tsitikiyah on the tenth day of the tenth month what's the tenth month if you begin counting the months from the month when the jewish people left egypt as the torah says in exodus parachute that that becomes the first month the month of our emancipation the month when we became a people so the month of davis is the tenth month right nis and e or sivan thomas of elo tishrik and kislev teves is the tenth month so ezekiel writes on the 10th month on the 10th day of the month i have a prophecy god speaks to me what does god say let's see ben adam o mortal human being record this date this exact day first he says record this day the name of this day i want you to record it then he says this very day this exact day of your life because on this very exact day the king of babylon has laid siege to jerusalem wow this is an expression that we don't have with any other fast the fast are all recorded in the tanakh the prophet the prophets have instituted these four fast days but here there's a special prophecy where god tells ye haskell on this day you're going to have to record this day and he uses the word twice which means this very exact day this means that hashem is telling ezekiel that there's something unique about this day that has to be recorded in fact it has a fascinating ramification in jewish law go to the next source says lived approximately in the year 1340. he was as one of the great sages of spanish jury rabbenu david he's most known for a commentary he wrote on the sid of the prayer book because he laments that most jews don't know the meaning of the prayers and the reasons behind most of the customs associated with the prayers so he took it and he made it his goal to write a commentary on davening and it's known as commentary on davine here is what he writes in his section on fast days and i quote fourteenth century spain arbor satsuma all the four fast days the four fast days will be postponed if they will conflict with shabbos for example if the ninth day of falls out on shabbos we don't fast on shabbos we push it off the tenth day of tavis this fast day will never fall out on chapters according to our calendar the tenth of tavis will never coincide with shabbos but sometimes the tenth of tavis can happen on friday fallon on friday and then you fast even though it's friday but i want you to know even if theoretically the tenth of tavis would have fallen out on shabbos because the prophet haskell in the beginning of chapter 24 says that hashem said record this at this very exactly it's exactly the same language that's used for yom kippur and yam kippur is the one fast day that overrides shabbos because yom kippur is the original fast day of biblical fast day that comes from the time of moses from the time of the turrets not like these four fast days that were added later at the end of the first temple era with the destruction yum kippur is the original holiday and the terrorist says about yom kippur but you have to fast on this very day so our sages learn out from this there's no pushing it off there's no supplementing the fast day compensating for the first day on a sunday on another day no but etsa miami said this very day you have to fast on says theoretically if our calendar would allow the tenth of tavis to fall out on shabbos we would fast even on shabbos because here too it says god says record this very day as a day of catastrophe there's no pushing off there's no even tisha buff doesn't have this so this means there's something about the 10th of davis when apparently nothing dramatic happened outside of the babylon king laying siege but he didn't invade he didn't destroy he didn't murder he didn't shoot arrows he didn't take anybody captive he didn't make it to the temple he didn't even make it into the city and yet this fast as compared to him kipper and the stringency in the sense that it's so stringent that it would have overrided jabba's in fact the base joseph yosef cairo the 16th century great codifier a writer of the shulhamaru quotes the savudraham in the laws of fasts he questions him he says any day and i don't know where he got this from he finds that this is such a novel idea that that asura batava is the tenth of tavis the fast in a way is more stringent even than tish above it's a continuum kipper and the truth is that would rahm says if if our calendar would allow it it also has practical relevance because there was a there was a significant time in jewish history when they used to sanctify the new month not based on the calendar but based on the new moon this this this continued for a few hundred years after the destruction of the second temple so the fast day has already been established according to the would mean that they fasted on shabbos that's fascinating in the fifth sixth century that's when a man named rabbi hillel established the calendar and the calendar is fixed so we know in advance when yom kippur is going to be when the 10th day of tavis is we know it's not going to be on shabbos the 10th day of tavis won't be on shopify kipper could sometimes be on shabbos but before the calendar was established for the first half of jewish history the way the new month was established was not based on a calendar it was established afresh anew every single month there were two witnesses who had to observe the birth of the new moon we gave quite a few classes on this how it worked it was a fascinating procedure and they came to testify and the court would then establish reshredis according to that the tenth of tavis could fall out on choppers it could fall out on chops and according to the rambam i'm not going to get into this going to the rambam it's possible that the supreme jewish court of sanhedrin will be established even before moshe is coming and therefore then again they're going to renew the establishment of the new month based on witnesses not on the counter so again this avodah may be very relevant but what do we see from here the bottom line is there's something fascinating that would rahm says this is the only fast that is comparable to jaim kippur to understand this i want to learn with you the story itself the story of what happened on the tenth day of tavis and the reason it was established as a fast day is recorded in two other places in tamac it's recorded in ezekiel it's also recorded in the book of kings kings 2 chapter 25 where the chronology and the history of the waning days of the second of the first temple are recorded by the book of malachim based kings 2 chapter 25 and finally it's recorded in the last chapter of jeremiah year miyo perek nunbeis chapter 52 there again the chronology of events is recorded let's see it in malachi bay's pericarphae malachim 2 chapter 25 kings 2 chapter 25 let's see inside says it was on the ninth year of the reign of sitki yo remember he's the last king it's the not it's the 10th it's the 10th month the 10th day of the month as we learned it's the 10th of davis bonneville we did the translation in the source sheets it's the ninth year of his reign on the tenth day of the tenth month moves against jerusalem with his own with his whole army and he besieges it he dwells near it and they build towers against it all around vatavia ir matsuk the city continues to be in a state of siege at ashta estres until the eleventh year of king city oh this means the siege continues from the 10th of davis in the ninth year for another two years but not just another three years another two and a half years because batista next verse it's only on the ninth of on the ninth day of the fourth month which is thomas here the famine has become so acute in the city there was no food left for the common people after two and a half years of starvation nobody has food anymore because the babylonians are not letting anybody go in and not let anybody go out so this siege actually actually caused the devastating famine and what happens is here so finally the walls of the city are breached after two and a half years on the ninth day of tamils now we fast on the 17th day of thomas and the talmud discuss it was there a difference between the first temple breaching of the wall the second temple breaching of the wall was nine three it was the ninth day of time was recorded because people were so con one opinion of the talmud is kill kill the heartache was so powerful people were so confused that they got their dates wrong so it says the ninth of the month even though it was really the 17th of the month that's a whole discussion it's for another class we once gave a tish above lesson on it what happened here with the confusion of the dates the 9th to 17th and then the tamar continues kings 2 25 on the fifth month what's the fifth month of right nissan year 7 on the seventh day of the month this is the 19th year of the reign of kingdom hadn't sir of babylon bonneville yerushalayim was the chief butcher the chief of the guards an officer of the king of babylon came to jerusalem on the seventh day of the month of of navusradan one of the chief commanders and generals of the netser the king of babylon enters into jerusalem the wall was breached a few weeks ago the wall was breached almost three weeks ago on the ninth of thomas but now he comes in vayisraif as basade noives basal melato it's called butter shall i was called basically burns down the house of hashem he burns down the king's palace he burns down all of the houses of jerusalem he burns down the house of every notable person in jerusalem the entire force of kasdem of the chaldean force that was with the chief of the guard tore down the walls of jerusalem on every side around and around the walls of jerusalem war were torn down we already have a record here of why we fast three days right we started with the tenth of tavis the siege we continued with the breaching of the walls and tamils we continued with the burning of the temple and many other homes in jerusalem and tearing down the walls on in this in the fifth month the month of off there's one last story khadnetzer of babylon put a jew gedalia the son of achikam the son of shafa in charge of the people whom he left in the land of judah which means yes so many jews were slain the temple was destroyed jerusalem was destroyed thousands and thousands of jews were exiled to babylonia but the king of babylon allowed a community to remain in judah in the land of yehuda inherited israel he allowed remnants of the jewish people to remain and continue living there and he appointed a leader and the leader was somebody he trusted his name was giddalyahu gedalia the son of a son of shuffle comes the seventh month that's the month of tishrei netanyahu the son of elisha who was from the royal descent of the jewish people he comes with ten men and they murder gadalia they strike him down and he dies they also killed the other jews that were there and they also coiled the babylonians that were present with him at mitzba they all were killed and now the jews who remained were fearing for their life the babylon king would take revenge and they all escaped from the land of israel they went to egypt and the last remnant the last spark of sovereignty the last glimmer of sovereignty in the land of israel was completely destroyed that day that's why it's known as siam gedalia the fast of gedalia which happens on the day of rosh hashanah it's in the seventh it's the seventh month on on gimbal is actually writes it happened on rosh hashanah but we don't want to fast that rosh hashanah it's a holiday so we push over the fast but that's a separate subject the same so here we have the exact chronology of events of jewish history from the book of kings 25 and the same chronology is in jeremiah 52 it was the ninth year of the reign of sitka yo in the tenth month on the tenth day of the month the vulcad netzer came with his entire army to jerusalem and they besieged it and they built towers against it all around and he continues to go through the story the city was in was in a siege until the 11th year of meaning for more than two years by the ninth day of the fourth month the feminist was so powerful there was no food for the people and that's when the walls were breached and three weeks later a little more than three weeks later the temple destroyed so here we have in two places in the tamar the chronology of events from the 10th of davis all the way two and a half years later from the ninth year of the reign of satya two and a half years later the final destruction of the temple and a few months later the murder of gedalia right afterwards in the seventh month which again destroyed the final presence of the jewish people in israel with their own sovereign leader under the jurisdiction of the babylon babylonian emperor that's why we fast on these four fast days the 10th of davis 17th of thomas ninth of of and the fast of dalia but now let's take this one step further and focus on those words that are not found in jeremiah or in kings they're only found in jihad you remember our first source ezekiel 24 hashem tells god tells them mortal man i want you to record us i go back to the first source i want you to record this date this exact day this self same day that's what be etsy means because on this self same day on this very day the king of babylon laid siege to jerusalem where else do we have these expressions says it's found yum kippur but let's see some other places where it's found let's take a look which means on on on this self same day is not a common term in the tanakh it's found a few places where is the first time the first time is go back to your source sheets genesis chapter 7 on this very exact day on this self-same day again the etzemaya maza nayak and his three children and his wife and his three daughters-in-law come into the ark next parsha's boy it also says about avraham he circumcised himself on this very self same day in by exodus chapter 12 of the name it was after 430 years on this self same day on this exact day all of the troops the army of hashem left the land of egypt then of course we have it on yum kippur we quoted it before in leviticus 23. the khalma no work should be done on this self same day on this very exact day it's the day of atonement jim kippur and later the terrorist says whoever is not going to fast on this self same day which is why we know that yom kippur you have to fast on the very day of yom kippur there's no pushing over the fast at the end of the terror we have it once more mushroom is about to pass away deuteronomy on this very exact day and he says go up to the mount navai and that's where you're going to pass away do you see a common denominator between all of these it's very clear it's extremely clear and i thank this insight i saw from rabbi david rabbi my colleague their friend rabbi david formancelita and alphabeta.com and all the common denominator here is that these days represent not just an event but a shift in history everything afterwards is never going to be the same but walks into the ark when he comes out of this ark he's not going to encounter the same world as the madrid says the world that nayak lived in was completely destroyed he came into a whole new world and it was not easy so when nayak comes in this very day comes in this is not just a technical description of the day he walked into the ark this day is going to be remembered for eternity because this day represents could you put yourself a mute in the zoom your mind whoever is on zoom if you could please put yourself on mute i don't want to put myself on mute but if you could put yourself a mute we would appreciate it okay thank you thank you very much represents there is a rift in history this day is going to be remembered as a turning point on the emergence of a new world that's the first batsma yamaza what about the next one we mentioned i spoke about avraham circumcision that too but i'm not going to go through all of them i'm going to go through most of them avraham's circumcision was also one he becomes a he becomes a new person and his descendants for eternity who go through this covenant and now have the identity of a jew in parishes boy on this day they left egypt this would never be this they would never be the same this was a nation that were slaves and they were emancipated they were liberated for eternity that maharal famously says in guris hashem chapter 41 that the liberation of egypt was an innate transformation a metamorphosis in the very psyche of the jew and the very psyche of the world we don't perceive any more the human being as essentially a slave you're a free person you deserve to be free it's worshiping a free god who wanted the human being to serve him with freedom and liberty and joy so this day is not just the day they left egypt this day represents a shift in consciousness all revolutions in history of slaves revolution revolution of slaves rebelling and creating a mutiny against subjugation were inspired by this story and this changes the faith and destiny of the world the jewish people are now an independent nation who would be charged in changing the landscape of planet earth through the torah yem kipper what about yem kippur yom kippur is all about transformation the jew posthum kipper is not the person preemptive is the day of metamorphosis of renewal of rebirth of absolute cleansing something happens on this day that makes it unrecognizable from previous days it's an interesting law that there was four garments that the high priest wore onion kipper and he could never use them the next time kipper once they were used once they had to be hidden forever he couldn't use them again why not and one of the explanations is because yom kippur is all about newness it's that today there's a newness we spoke last week about atta this is the concept of now the last one here is dvarim moshe goes up to the mountain and jewish history will never be the same that presence of moses in the jewish world changed everything because this was the man who took them out of egypt the man who was the greatest prophet who ever lived the human being who received the terror from hashem over 40 years in sinai in the desert and he taught it to the jewish people he's the one who gave them the tablets came down with the ten commandments maisha rabbanu was the quintessential ambassador messenger of hashem the greatest prophet yes jewish history would continue and maishrabenu would inspire us forever but that day he changed everything ultimately they would now be students of joshua they would be students of other great people but that connection with moshe and having the presence of mushroom what he represented it was not part of history anymore so we see this common theme in batsamayas and now we'll understand that of the tenth day of tavis of our sara batevis now we'll understand the power of it the significance of it why this word is used and why the abu dhabi says this is similar to yem kippur we could now see the connection why we asked in the beginning why was it even established as a fast day why is it compared to the other catastrophes when at this moment nothing really happened but we could now see the pattern when we read about the siege of jerusalem in jeremiah 52 the last chapter of yermia or in malachim being kings 2 25. we understand that it's not just the day when the babylonian troops happened to surround jerusalem and built towers it was the first domino to fall in a string of events that includes all of the other three fast days because the siege is laid the walls were not yet breached but the walls will be breached the temple will be destroyed gedalia will be assassinated it all happens in this chapter in tanakh but it begins it begins with the tenth day of tavis that's a moment because when the babylonians lay siege upon jerusalem they didn't do anything yet they didn't shoot arrows they didn't kill anybody the jews still have food but the tide begins to turn from redemption to exile this is the beginning it's not the end but it's the beginning and that is extremely significant because very often in life we wait till the catastrophe happens till the disaster unfolds in its full drama and its full consequences god is telling haskell don't look at it that way you have to have vision to be able to identify not just the end but the beginning of the end not just when the sun set completely and it's all dark but when the sun is beginning to set in our own lives we have to be able to identify those cracks in the wall that are not dramatic but if they're not taken care of now they can heaven forbid lead to destruction it's true regarding our physical health it's true regarding our emotional psychological and mental health it's true about our marriages about our relationships about our families it's true about our communities you know sometimes there's cracks in the beginning nothing is happening no arrows were shot nobody was taken captive the babylonians are just surrounding the city they're laying siege it's still going to be two and a half years until anything significant happens but this is the day that god says this is the betsey moment because in the first day the first temple even though jews sinned and jews were entrenched in idolatry and all other problems nonetheless judaism was in its full pride and glory it was an age of miracles it was an age of prophecies jerusalem was the apple of god's eye you had the greatest prophets living among us it was a spiritual age of unprecedented vibrancy and there were still the items that represented the direct link to moses and to the exodus of egypt so the people had been warned time and time again but can anybody imagine that god would really abandon them that god would destroy his own palace and asara battavis was that be even though this is not the day when the ultimate catastrophe happened but it's the shift happens when those chariots when those troops of the babylonian emperor approach those blasts of trumpets calling for war in the distance the jewish people can see the babylonians approaching preparing to lay the city of god under siege which will continue two and a half years what happens is everything begins to unravel at that moment everything is transformed that which we thought incomprehensible and unfathomable begins to take place if you talk about the holocaust you know there was there was the ultimate devastation and the catastrophe and the gas chambers and the deep deep deportations and the shootings the eisens excuse me the mass shootings in in the east etc but there was the beginning the genesis of it what's called a skull of the purine the beginning in the beginning we dismiss things we dismiss it on a global level we also dismiss it in our personal lives you know we'll get it together but hashem tells us this is the day this is the day it's like when noah went into the tavern everything is going to change at sunrise they were in the lap of god's presence at nightfall they were ostensibly in the palm of the enemy not knowing what the next morning would bring that's why this is the day that's considered at the beginning of everything the beginning of the first exile which even after the return still is not nullified completely it's the beginning of the second exile and it's considered the beginning of the long exile of the jewish people why because it's the day that it all began the walls were not breached yet but the first cracks could be seen that's why the avudraham says it has the stringency of yom kippur and i should add that even today when asari potavis falls out on friday some say that you don't complete the fast till shabbos because you don't want to go into shabbos starving and yet the custom in i think most jewish communities is based on the other opinion that even when asara batavas is on friday we actually complete the fast we come into shabbos hungary we only eat after kiddish friday night after nightfall when the fast is over that's fascinating so even today when asaratevas is not on shabbos we still have a a reflection of its power of its of its stringency that it actually goes in all the way into shabbos on friday we fast all the way till friday night when we're allowed to have the shabbos meal when the fast is over let's now take this one step further the final step there is a unique word that haskell uses a unique word in that first source it's not used in jeremiah it's not used in kings but it's used in when god tells him to record the prophecy he says what does it mean from the word close means he laid siege to jerusalem means he came close to the wall he came close to jerusalem but it's interesting if you look in the previous sources in jeremiah and malachim that's not the term used the term that's used is a matzah matsuri is from the word mitzrayim they put the city in distress in a siege another word that's used as va'ichan allah he dwells near the city but here in school he uses the word sabach and now it's interesting because the word sama even though here it means lay siege but what does it usually mean in tanakh we say in ashrae hashem the god supports all those who fall smika means i lean on you it's a form of supporting you holding on to you are you holding on to me so saying means god is close to all those who fall he catches them he holds on to them he supports them he sustains them here obviously doesn't mean that the king of babylonia was not supporting jerusalem he was putting the siege on jerusalem in order to destroy it but that's the word that's used it could have used another word in the prophets it uses the word samach and that's not a coincidence and this insight i heard myself quite a few years ago from the laboratory on the tenth day of tavis at a fast day and he said something so beautiful and so encouraging he said god wanted italian we have to know how to view jewish history jewish history is not just a story of redemption followed by exile it's a story of redemption followed by exile followed by redemption when the jewish people were exiled from jerusalem when the temple wasn't destroyed was destroyed objective was not god forbid destruction the objective was recreating a deeper relationship that will result in gulula that will result in redemption it's been many years but the journey continues and the truth is think about it it's really inspiring because when did these events happen these events very sad events happened when you're dealing with 2 500 years have passed since these events i told you this happened in the year the destruction was in the year 3 3 3 8 38 since creation it's very easy to remember gimel shalach it's the day that god sent away the jewish people sent them away from the jerusalem giblet three three three eight we're now five seven eighty two so you're dealing with two two and a half millennia later approximately the secular calendar gets a little confusing because it's 586 bce and they're not completely synchronized seems like to be a 150 year gap that's a separate discussion famous article for arab shimon schwab and others in the world of jewish history to try to reconcile the dates but it's beyond the realm of our of our class today when exactly we identify the year of the destruction of the first temple but you're talking about two and a half millennia how old is the united states of america they once asked a chinese politician what he thinks of the chinese revolution and the american revolution and he said i'm sorry they asked a chinese politician what he thinks of the french revolution and the american revolution and he said it's too early to tell you know babies babies a few hundred years so 2 500 years later we are fasting we're commemorating the pain of our brothers and sisters living in the city of god two and a half millennia ago nothing about the world then and the world today is similar everything has changed in fact the world has changed in the last hundred years probably more than it was changed in a few thousand years but nonetheless these memories are fresh we're fasting we're praying we're giving extra to dhaka today we're learning more terror we're getting closer to each other we're spiritually growing we're preparing for redemption two and a half millennia later because by the jews they always understood exile is not the ultimate objective destruction is never the ultimate objective it's always a catalyst for introspection for truva for renewal for a deeper relationship for changing the world it's a process just like in our own life when we go through processes of pain and disintegration and our old house our old edifice our old structures fall apart it's never just to fall apart it's in order to be able to build structures that are authentic eternal divine let's take a look in the final words of the rambam this is how my manatees who lived in the 12th century finishes the laws of fast days rambam saif tinius called the last source all these fast days will be obliterated when mashiach comes furthermore they're going to be transformed into holidays into days of festivity and gayety and jubilance and joy nemer as the prophet sharia says so did god say it so much was the first day of the fourth month thomas the fast day of the fifth month of the fast day of the tenth month of the seventh month tishrei the first day of the tenth month davis for the house of yahood are going to become days of festivity days of joy days of great moments of holidays maya them taiwan but just love truth and love peace this is what the prophet says now i can understand why the fast days will be obliterated when the temple will be rebuilt and jerusalem will be the center of of of the jewish the cap the eternal capital of the jewish people and jerusalem will return to its full glory physically and spiritually so why should we fast why should we fast the tragedy is over i got it but why the ram says not only is it going to be nullified there's something else it's going to be transformed why is it going to be transformed tragedy is obviously we don't have to fast why is it greater than why is it better than another day tish above becomes a holiday the day before and after is not going to be a holiday oh sorry betavis you're the olive davis and test davis another the 10th of day is going to become a holiday on one level it's because when you get rid of a day that was a bad day and a difficult day and the issue is gone so you celebrate it because the fact is that the challenge has been removed but there's something even deeper and that is the ultimate objective of every fast day the ultimate objective of every challenge in life is to work through something else and to create a deeper connection in your life in judaism there's no darkness for the sake of darkness fasting for the sake of fasting disintegration for the sake of disintegration it's always a call for a deeper awareness a deeper renewal we don't always understand why and why i have to go through these journeys but every single journey like an eagle it says by yaakov he saw the agallos that joseph sent so the shemishma says that gala comes from the word eagle he saw the circles what joists have taught him is that life is a circle sometimes you're going down in a circle you're not really going down you're just on your way up sometimes a circle expands very wide but you're not leaving anything you're part of it's part of a part of a unified journey in a person's life you never fall into despair so what happens is that the fast day itself becomes a day of joy and similar to what we spoke last week the talmud says that when you do triva out of love the sins become mitzvous it's not just you go away from the sins no not just you nullify the sins it's not even just that you do more mitzvahs because you feel remorse it's much deeper the talmud says in yuma page 86 the sins themselves become mitzvahs in other words the very mistakes that i made are revealed to become springboards of awareness when i work them through they become my most powerful element in my growth and my future of growth but i have to be able to work it through so the fast days which are here to awaken us to chuva as the rambam opens up the fifth chapter of el castaneus its ultimate purpose is the transformation of the negativity so therefore the fast day itself becomes what becomes a festive day and here we'll understand the secret of samach samach means melech bubble the babylonian king supported jerusalem but he didn't so that was said something very interesting in reality physically he didn't but when god records the prophecy to yesco he says i want you to remember there's an element of samakhir because when the jewish people were surrounded by an army and they couldn't leave and they couldn't go in its purpose was to remind them that we are one and in this shipwreck we are going to have to stick together we cannot afford the rifts that have been so catastrophic in jewish history we cannot afford the divisiveness and animosity that has split us apart we have to be together i once heard from the former chief rabbi of israel by israel israel mayor lao the former chief rabbi shlita he said this at the 75th anniversary of the of the auschwitz liberation auschwitz was liberated january 27 1945 75 years later right before corona there was a big event in jerusalem and he said how is it that all of the animals behaved in noah's ark so nicely for a full year why is there no record of the lioness devouring the gazelle or the cheetah devouring the goat the tiger devouring the dog why what happened how were they all so peaceful and he says they realized that if they can't get along in here they'll all be liquidated and destroyed because out there there's a raging flood and he turned to all the leaders of the nations he said there's so many floods out there there's so many dangers out there we are here on this little planet if we can't learn to get along here all of our futures are compromised when the jewish people were surrounded by the babylonian troops it was a divine message you are one you are a united nation we have to work out our issues together we may have differences of opinions this is what we have been exploring in the last classes of the conflicts between the tribes yehuda and the 12 rocks yes we are different we have differences of opinions but the message here was you are now stuck here learn to figure it out together because out there you can't go if you don't learn to work things out right here we will all be destroyed this was a divine message wake up tune into the reality go into a deeper place it's time for real transformation and for real unity and for a real new consciousness sadly it was not heated and ultimately two and a half years later the worlds were br worlds will breach but that's why when god records this prophecy he records it in with a unique word samach which means both he laid siege and also means he supported it because from a deeper divine perspective this crisis was also an invitation for a deeper awareness when a family falls apart when you start finding cracks in your own marriage it's an invitation for renewal for becoming a more real person a stronger person a more honest person a more authentic person i can't run away from it anymore when the upheavals become so blatant i can't ignore it i can't repress it i have to confront it and when i confront it i can transform it but if i don't confront it i can't transform it so the samachmelik bubble has a dual meaning in jeremiah and kings over there the story is recorded the way it happened the way it happened it was just a siege a devastating siege which was the beginning of a domino effect that would ultimately result in devastation and decimation and the burning of the temple but when hashem tells ezekiel the prophecy he includes also that higher transcendent message that there's ultimately a deeper opportunity here for renewal and that's the whole purpose of exile what exile did to the jewish people is it brought out and consolidated a relationship with ourselves and with the divine and with the world that was unprecedented because when the jewish people are living in israel and they're living in a time of miracles and they're living in god's palace and they're living in god's city and they're living with prophets the relationship then could also be superficial but what happens in exile is the relationship becomes the deepest relationship because it's just like in our personal life you know sometimes when you feel alienated and when you feel dejected then when you feel like you're in the abyss that's when you have to discover who you really really are that's when you have to fight for yourself you have to fight for your light and the jewish people discovered and fought for their light and their relationship with god becomes a much more essential and deeper relationship that nothing could destroy and our relationship with each other becomes even stronger that even when we were exiled we're not living in the same country anymore jews living from australia from to moscow to london to paris to los angeles to new york and yet we're all connected but how are we connected we're not in one land because the exile brought out a deeper relationship that transcends time and space we're not even in one land but we remained one nation because a deeper bond emerged through exile as a preparation for the ultimate redemption when there will be the ultimate unity spiritually and physically and that's the deeper reason why our sarah batavis is compared to yum kippur what is yum kippur yum kippur is the day of truva ultimate transformation yum kippur is the day when all of our sins become mitzvahs yum kippur is the day of metamorphosis the day of renewal the day the talmud says eat sumaisha mahaprabhu the very day creates atonement that's what rebbe holds schwa is page 13. and even the halacha that you have to do chuva you can't just rely on the day but the very day creates a different type of truth as the rambam puts it what's the power of the day because i named kipper we gave a share and yom kippur the fifth level of the relationship emerges there's nephesh there's different levels of the relationship the core essence emerges and in that level there was no alienation there was no sin so the very day atoned because it demonstrates that there's a level of a relationship where there's complete kinship and intimacy and oneness that nothing can break even sin can't break it's even when you think that you're alienated and you're strange and you're a lost kcm kipper says at your core you're divine you're wholesome you're a glorious piece of infinite art that's what yom kippur reveals and that's the real essence of asari batavas on one level the 10th of davis is the beginning of catastrophe it's the beginning of the end as we explained before but in judaism every disintegration is a call for renovation every demolition is essentially the beginning of transformation and rebuilding and renovation so the beginning of the catastrophe is really the beginning of redemption so it's like yum kippur it's the day of ultimate shrub of ultimate transformation and just like yum kippur is deeper than shabbos because this relationship even goes deeper than all the mitzvahs it's an essential relationship the tenth of davis is going to be transformed in the greatest holiday book into the greatest holiday because it captures the essence of the relationship that is like kim kippur that is going to be revealed through this whole domino effect of exile and despite the pain of it on a physical level on a deeper level what the jewish people did with this was they used it as springboards for extraordinary renewal and transformation to the point that they discovered their own etc their own essence which is never ever disconnected and it comes out even stronger until therefore the great moment as my manatee says when all the fast days including and especially the 10th of davis which is like the very fast days become transformed into great holidays because that represents what they really are all about an invitation to be able to go in to a much deeper relationship that could never be obliterated and to work through even the mistakes and the sins and the errors and realized that each and every single one of them was an opportunity for a new type of growth and a new type of awareness and a new type of transformation and as he finishes the last words but remember love and cherish truth and peace may we experience that speedily in our days in this very asarabate this very tenth of tavis thank you very much take a few questions if there are why is this fast the shortest fast from sunrise till sundown yom kippur is 24 25 hours true it's short in terms of quantity of time it's a winter day and sunset is pretty early so it's a short fast but here we're talking about not the physical length of the fast in terms of quantity but what it commemorates why didn't heskull use the word etzema by the other fasts only by this fast they were also major moments of destruction especially tishomov well that's really the whole point that we're making the point that we're making is that there was something about this day that changed everything in other words tish above some gadalia shiva sabotamos were natural or natural or not natural but consequences of this day the devastation happened those days that's when the death and the murder and the burning but asari betavis is the beginning of it from now what does somebody want to say it's not darkest but it's getting there sorry batavis begins that process that will change life for the jewish people of that era forever and will change jewish history forever until this very day because all the exiles are ultimately connected to each other the sense of alienation and subjugation and the suffering and the pain it all begins as sari potatoes that's its power in the negative that's why it's more powerful than shabbos on the other hand because it has this element this profound negativity to it what does it really mean that hidden inside of it it has the most profound positive positive energy because every descent is for the sake of an ascent and if it's a lower descent it's for the sake of a deeper ascent so on another level if there's so much negative potential embedded in this day you have to ask yourself how much positive potential is embedded in this day if this day is a day that unraveled everything and ultimately it it was revealed to be the etzema that changed jewish history in the negative sense this means that in its ultimate purpose and objective here you have the ultimate positivity that's why it's compared to yum kippur which is the holiest day of the year of positivity that's the connection so this is a very powerful day first of all it's a day when we feel the connection with the jewish history you know sometimes people get upset why do i have to fast yeah i also don't like fasting it's not fun fun to fast some people don't mind but some for some real it's hard to fast but look at i just want you to focus on one thing the connection of of generations you know i know my grandfather's name i know my great-grandfather's name i don't know my great-great-grandfather's name i don't know my great-great-grandmother's name i carry their jeans you carry their genes but what do we know we know the last 50 years we know the last hundred years we can read about 150 years but with these fast days we don't just know from 50 years ago jewish pastors alive your heskel is alive and yearmir is alive and your shalom is alive and the bastish is alive and the memories of destruction are alive we are part of an ongoing story that itself is so powerful and glorious something happened to this people we after all these events we should have not been here any longer we should have been gone wiped off the map reduced to the dust bin of history in mark twain's words that would have been normal just each event on its own was enough to finish us off and then the second temple disaster oh my god and then the barkaichra revolt after that remember this all repeats itself with the second deadpool a few hundred years later but we're here not just to tell the story to relive the story and to hope every day to come back and to witness in our days close to 7 million jews living in the holy land in jerusalem in the holy land these are extraordinary miracles until the great miracle we're waiting for which is the ultimate ghoul or the ultimate redemption when all the jewish people will be reunited back in our holy land and the third temple will be rebuilt with meshiach and jerusalem will be rebuilt not just physically but also as the spiritual epicenter of the world in the most manifested way so the very commemoration of these fast days as the rambam says shows the vision of the jewish people as god's people to understand that life and history is a journey from exile to redemption from multiplicity to oneness from fragmentation to cohesion from divisiveness to ultimate artist ultimate unity okay very good questions let me see if any other questions question are you saying that we wouldn't be able to experience gullah if we as a people didn't go through these experiences it's it's important to qualify that the experience of gullus was and is so difficult and so painful and what people and our people have gone through is beyond comprehension so we don't really understand and comprehend why everything had to happen in our history what we do know is as the navi says the prophet isaiah says in chapter 11 that on that day we're going to say enough to be thank you hashem thank you enough to be enough to be means you have been upset at me or angry at me you have provoked me what are we going to thank him for joshua that's why we really don't understand the depth of gula when we think about mashiach we think okay it's going to be a beautiful world no tuition crisis no sugar crisis no mental health crisis there'll be peace there'll be health which is amazing incredible but can that justify 2 000 years of such profound suffering what can justify it can having a beautiful messianic world justify the six million and even one community of the six million and even one and of course the answer is no this means that we don't really understand the depth of the light that's going to emerge from comes that when we look at it we're going to say aha now i see what god has accomplished that's how incomprehensible the majestic infinite greatness of goula is but what we do know is that every step of gullus of disintegration is a preparation for a deeper relationship through google and it's true in our personal lives as we often talk about you know we go through experiences our own exiles we are subjugated we go through different experiences in our psyche never ever think that it's here to destroy you it's here to hold you down to crush you no no this is gonna be your opportunity to be able to dig deeper into yourself in order to heal and then your real light is going to shine and brighten up the world i didn't realize question i didn't realize that from the siege until the actual breach took two and a half years i thought it was the same year are you sure yes it's clear it says this the siege was the ninth year of tsitio's reign and the breaching of the wall was in his eleventh year and one wasn't davis one was in thomas so it's exactly two and a half years the tenth of tavis two years later and then count shavat other nissin or sivan thomas six months later two years and six months later that's when the walls of jerusalem were breached and three weeks later the temple was destroyed that's why we have these fast days so the first fast day chronologically is the 10th of davis because that's when the siege began and then the second fast day is the 17th of thomas and the third is the ninth of and then the fourth is psalm gedalia chronologically even though in the system of the years if you start with nissan the first is thomas and if you start with tishrei the first is sam gedalia everybody have a wonderful week and we may we experience in our times and in our very day betsey the powerful revelation of him kippur the powerful revelation of truth with a powerful revelation of transformation when every fast day will become the greatest moment of celebration celebration there's a madrid that says sikderopsi el maria's bubble ain't simcha alabatish above the real symbol is going to be tishim of why it's going to be a good day we're not going to fast because when the negative is transformed when the darkness is transformed into light it's the deepest type of light there's light that's generated through light but when you take negative energy and you channel it into a force for positive energy there's no positive energy like that it's true look at it in your own life anything in your life that is negative anything in your life that's surrounding you closing in on you let's make this practical you know you feel like you're behind walls and but somebody's closing in on these walls these walls are getting tighter and tighter every day and the resources of jerusalem are being depleted your resources are being depleted and it's very very hard it's tough but never ever allow yourself to imagine that this is the end that this is here to destroy you khalil heaven forbid rather it's a time to go deeper into myself and deeper into my relationships with myself with my soul with my friends with my family with my god as the king of babylon was besieging the walls of jerusalem on a deeper spiritual level god was reminding us ultimately i want to say hashem i want to support you jerusalem needs to be supported it needs to be elevated to a greater level may we experience that revelation very speedily in our days thank you