Imu Shalev: Welcome to Into the Verse, where we share new and unexpected insights about the parsha or an upcoming holiday … diving deep into the verses to uncover the Torah’s own commentary on itself.

Hi, I’m Imu Shalev. Today we’re going to discuss Shiva Assar B'Tammuz, that fateful day on the Jewish calendar where the walls of Jerusalem were breached thousands of years ago. It kicks off the period of time known as the Three Weeks, leading up to Tisha B’Av. And I want to be honest with you, if slightly heretical, the 17th of Tammuz, the Three Weeks, Nine Days, Tisha B’Av - not my thing.  If I had been alive during the period of the Temple, or if my grandfather had been alive, then maybe I’d mourn…but thousands of years later? I feel a bit fake summoning the feelings of mourning inside for Tisha B’Av. But to add insult to injury, not only am I mourning something that happened thousands of years ago, the destruction of the Temple, but I’m supposed to mourn a second event…the destruction of the walls of the city that the Temple happened to be in…three weeks earlier? Why not combine the two events into one day? It feels sort of excessive. How is Shiva Asar B’Tammuz different? What focus does the day have which is not already covered by Tisha B’Av? 

This week on Into the Verse, we’ll hear from one of our scholars, Rabbi Ami Silver, as he explores the deeper meaning behind this fast day. I believe what he comes up with can shed new light on the meaningful reflections we should engage in on Shiva Asar B’Tammuz and throughout the Three Weeks.

Rabbi Ami Silver: Shiva Asar B'Tammuz is a fast day commemorating the fall of Jerusalem to foreign hands. Twice in our national history, a foreign army broke through the walls of the holy city on this day. It marks the beginning of the Three Weeks, a period of intense mourning that culminates with Tisha B'av, the day the Temple was destroyed. 

Is it Israel's Bad Luck Day?

And if that's not enough tragedy for one day, the Mishna lists four other calamities that took place on the 17th of Tammuz. The first one was at Mount Sinai. This was the day that Moshe shattered the luchot, the tablets of the Ten Commandments, upon seeing the Golden Calf. Then, during the Babylonian siege of the First Temple, it was the day the Kohanim ran out of animals to sacrifice for the daily tamid offering. Generations later, on this very day, a Roman general, named Apostamos, publicly burned a Torah scroll. He then placed an idol in the heichal, the most sacred room in the Temple.

But is it just a coincidence that all these terrible moments happened on the same day? Is the 17th of Tammuz just Israel's bad luck day, or is there something else going on here? Is there a common theme that runs throughout the events of this day?

What Is the 17th of Tammuz Really About?

It seems that, in one way or another, most of these events led up to the Temple's destruction. It really makes sense, then, that it's the beginning of the Three Weeks. But there's one event here that doesn't fit the mold, one that's clearly not like the others.

The breaking of the Tablets has nothing to do with Jerusalem or the Temple. It didn't even take place in the Land of Israel. It happened hundreds of years before the Temple was built, out in the desert at the foot of Mount Sinai.

So which one is it? Either this fast is commemorating a collection of events that just happened to fall out on the same day; or it really is a day that commemorates Jerusalem, and the luchot made it in by happenstance.

Or, maybe there's something about this day that we're not seeing, something that ties all of these events together. We need to take a deeper look at the story of the breaking of the luchot to understand what it's doing here and what it might have to teach us about the meaning of this day.

A Closer Look at the Original Calamity on the 17th of Tammuz

So, what was going on when Moshe broke the tablets? Forty days have gone by since God revealed the Ten Commandments, and Moshe has been up on the mountaintop, talking with God.

The entire nation is camped out at the foot of Mount Sinai, waiting for Moses to return, when something begins to stir in the camp: 

וַיַּרְא הָעָם כִּי-בֹשֵׁשׁ מֹשֶׁה לָרֶדֶת מִן-הָהָר

(Exodus 32:1)

The people saw that Moshe was late in coming down the mountain. 

They expect him to return by now, but he's nowhere in sight. So what do they do? וַיִּקָּהֵל הָעָם עַל-אַהֲרֹן – they gather around Aharon, וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלָיו – they say to him, קוּם עֲשֵׂה-לָנוּ אֱלֹהִים אֲשֶׁר יֵלְכוּ לְפָנֵינוּ – make a god to walk before us, כִּי-זֶה מֹשֶׁה הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלָנוּ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם – because this man, Moshe, who took us out of Egypt, לֹא יָדַעְנוּ מֶה הָיָה לוֹ – we don't know what happened to him.

Before you know it, everyone hands their gold over to Aharon, who throws it into a cauldron and makes a golden calf. The people then look at their statue and say: וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלֶּה אֱלֹהֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלוּךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם – This, Israel, is your god who took you out of Egypt (Exodus 32:4).

What? They just experienced the real God speaking to them at Mount Sinai! They witnessed the ten plagues and the splitting of the sea! Now they're replacing God with a statue and saying that this inanimate cow brought them out of Egypt? It just doesn't make sense.

And if we go a bit further back, the cow's not the only thing they're confused about. When they don't know what happened to Moshe, they say that they need אֱלֹהִים אֲשֶׁר יֵלְכוּ לְפָנֵינוּ – a god to walk before them. But if it’s Moshe who’s missing, why do they want a god? Why don't they just turn to Aharon or Miriam and ask one of them to take charge? Instead, they ask for a god to take Moshe's place.

Then, they call Moshe: מֹשֶׁה הָאִישׁ – this man, Moshe – אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלָנוּ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם – who took us out of Egypt. All of a sudden, it's Moshe, the man, a human being, who took them out of Egypt, not God! It's as if God Himself, capital G-O-D, has completely disappeared from the picture, and He's been replaced by Moshe, the man.

But how could this be? How could the people confuse Moshe for God? They're standing at Mount Sinai. God's cloud is hovering on top of the mountain.

It seems really strange, but ask yourself, is this the first time the people tried replacing God with Moshe? Was there another time they wanted Moshe to take on God's role, to stand in His place?

It happened right here at Mount Sinai, just 40 days earlier. When God revealed the Ten Commandments to the nation and spoke to them directly, they went into a panic. It was so overwhelming for them, they thought they were about to die. They turned to Moshe and begged him דַּבֵּר אַתָּה עִמָּנוּ וְנִשְׁמָעָה – please, Moshe, you speak with us – וְאַל יְדַבֵּר עִמָּנוּ אֱלֹקים – don't let God talk to us anymore – פֶּן נָמוּת – lest we die (Exodus 20:16). They couldn't handle this direct contact with God. They wanted Moshe to be their intermediary and speak in God's place.

And now, they're waiting for Moshe to come down the mountain, and he seems to have disappeared. What could have possibly happened to him? Maybe, they think, that Moshe died up there. It wouldn’t be such a crazy thought. When they came close to God, they almost died. Even before God spoke to them at Mount Sinai, he told them again and again, “Don’t come near the mountain! Don’t touch it. You’ll die instantly!” And now Moshe walked into God’s cloud, and he’s gone. Maybe he's not coming back. This is what happens when you get close to God. No one can relate to God directly, not even Moshe himself.

A sense of dread begins to settle in. Suddenly, the people are on their own, stranded in the desert. They're camped around a mountain without a plan or a map – and now, without their guide. In their desperation, they say, "Let's make a god – אֲשֶׁר יֵלְכוּ לְפָנֵינוּ – to walk before us" (Exodus 32:1). They've lost their demigod Moshe. Now, they need something to go before them and make them feel safe, even something as absurd as a golden cow.

It reminds me of those mornings when I bring my daughter to preschool, and she cries and holds onto my leg and doesn't want to let me go. But then I reach into my pocket and give her something of mine, a handkerchief, or even a crumpled up picture from my wallet, and the tears stop. She clutches the object in her arms, smiles at me, and we kiss goodbye. All she needs at that moment is something to hold onto, to make her feel like I'm still with her.

Now, this is cute when it happens between a child and a parent, but when we do this with God, it's a real problem. Because when it comes to God, a security blanket isn't a sweet momento. It can actually distance us from God.

And this is exactly what happened with the Golden Calf. First, the people had Moshe to speak to them instead of God. But soon enough, they're saying it was him, not God, who delivered them from Egypt. Then once Moshe is gone, they're too scared to be alone with God, they need a second line of defense. So, they build a statue in his place, and it becomes their symbol for God.

It wasn't so much an idol for them to worship, as it was an attempt to protect themselves from God. The Torah calls the golden calf עֵגֶל מַסֵּכָה (Exodus 32:4). The plain meaning is a molten calf. But interestingly, in modern Hebrew, the word “masecha” also means "mask." In a sense, the people used the calf as a mask for God. They created it to take God's place and to distance themselves from Him so that they wouldn't have to face God directly.

Moshe can see this when he comes down the mountain. He realizes that it's not just the calf that's the problem: it's what the calf represents. He sees that the people aren't ready for a direct relationship with God. And here Moshe is holding the luchot in his hands, a physical gift that God Himself handcrafted for His people. Nothing like it had ever existed before. But as precious and unique as the luchot were, it wasn't worth giving them to the nation if they were going to be misused as yet another replacement, another mask, for God.

And so Moshe smashed the luchot to the ground to send a message to the people: Your relationship with God will never be possible if you keep trying to hide from it, if you keep choosing symbols over God Himself. Moshe challenged the people to stop running away and to finally confront their fears of entering into a relationship with God. It was a wakeup call about the dangers of symbols and how easily they can be misused.

Finding a Common Theme in the 17th of Tammuz

So, does all this relate to Shiva Assar B'Tammuz? Can it help us understand the meaning of this day?

Let's go back to the list from the Mishna: The tamid was the daily offering in the Temple, it was its beating pulse. The word itself means "always" or "constant." Even when our city was surrounded by enemies, the fire in the Temple continued to burn, the service of the Kohanim was unshaken. Until one day, it all came to an abrupt stop. The Babylonian army blocked anything from entering the city, and the priests ran out of animals to sacrifice. That everlasting fire was no more, and in an instant, the symbol of our enduring connection to God was lost.

Then there’s the walls of Jerusalem: it was once unimaginable that the holy city, God's eternal home, could ever be destroyed. But on the 17th of Tammuz, this belief came crashing down before our very eyes. Jerusalem's "unbreakable" walls turned to rubble beneath the feet of enemy armies.

Then, Apostamos showed us how devastating the actions of a single man could be. He took a Torah scroll, the embodiment of God's word, and set it on fire for all to see. It's an act of hatred that we've seen replayed throughout history, during the Crusades, the Inquisition, pogroms, and Nazi Germany. It's a haunting sight, the height of desecration and cruelty. One man stood in complete defiance of all that we believe in, and there was nothing we could do to stop it. He then placed a foreign god in the heichal, turning God's holiest, most intimate space into a house of idolatry.

The luchot, the tamid, Jerusalem's walls, a Torah scroll, the heichal: these are some of the most sacred objects in our world. They're the closest things we have to God Himself. Losing any one of them would be reason enough to fast, but on Shiva Asar B'Tammuz, every one of them was shattered.

The Meaning of the Fast of the 17th of Tammuz

And perhaps this cuts to the very heart of what this day is about. It’s a day when we lost these symbols that seemed so steadfast and enduring. We mourn their loss and the sense of connection with God that they offered us.

But symbols are not ends in themselves. All too easily, we can fall into the trap of relying on them and ignoring what they're meant to represent: our living, breathing relationship with God.

This day challenges us to evaluate where we stand vis-a-vis God. How do we hide behind the symbols in our lives, instead of relating to God directly? Is prayer a time when I bear my heart to my Creator, or am I focused on getting through all the pages? When I perform a mitzvah, am I checking off boxes in my mental to-do list, or am I seeking to connect to God through my actions?

Shiva Asar B'Tammuz pushes us to confront these difficult questions. It's a time to look beyond our symbols and relate to the foundation of our relationship with God. In a sense, it's the ideal way to enter into the Three Weeks and use this as a time for clarification, growth, and rebuilding.

Imu: So, I started off this episode guiltily sharing that I have trouble mourning an event that happened thousands of years ago. And while listening to Ami’s piece, something profound struck me. A few years ago, when I was looking to hire someone for marketing at AlephBeta, he said, “You know, your pieces are always just so long. You ask great questions. You give great answers. There’s like 30 minutes, 45 minutes of droning on and on until you give me the answer. Just ask your questions and give us the answer.” And I sat kind of dumbstruck with what felt like a very valid critique. But what I said to him is that I don’t think that Torah learning, or really any wisdom learning, is about knowledge. This isn’t math where you learn the answer to five times three, or science, where you ask a question and the point is to learn something new. That’s what we have Google for, to acquire knowledge that we don’t have. That's what we go to school for…sometimes.

But I think that wisdom and Torah work differently than that. I think that wisdom and Torah wake us up to spiritual truths we kind of have already known, which is why when you hear something profound, you become wise about something, you have a feeling like you’re recognizing something. It doesn’t feel like anything new has been added. You sort of nod along and say, “Aha, yeah, this feels right.” And the best teachers, the best Torah teachers, the best teachers of wisdom, their knowledge isn’t google-able. If you ask a wise teacher, “What is the meaning of life?” They can answer 42. It’s not going to mean anything. Instead, they don’t answer you right away. They take you on a journey. They’ll tell you a story, and they’ll lead you to the answer that was inside of you all along. 

That’s the feeling that I had when listening to Ami’s piece on Shiva Asar B’Tammuz. The events of the destruction of the Temple are 2000 years old, so of course I don’t mourn them, not naturally anyway. But the Jewish calendar affixed these days as days of mourning, and if you want to get the wisdom or the spirituality that’s tied up in these days, you sort of have to go on a journey. You have to be willing to slow your life down a little bit and hear a story, to connect to the symbols of the Ten Commandments so that you can feel the loss of their shattering, to connect with an idea of a tamid offering, which is something so alien and foreign to me, so that you can be devastated when it ceases. 

So, I think if you’re looking for something productive to do on Shiva Asar B’Tammuz, first of all, I think you’ve just done it. But I think if you’re looking to be productive somehow, over this period of time, you shouldn’t expect yourself to be in mourning naturally. These days are an invitation to take that journey, to reimmerse yourself in these old stories. Watch an AlephBeta video or, better yet, open the text for yourselves and claim some of that wisdom and spirituality for yourself. Thanks for listening.

That’s our show, but I have an announcement. Tisha B’Av morning, Aleph Beta will be hosting “Kinot Unlocked,” a live zoom event featuring Rabbi Fohrman and some of the other scholars you’ve met on this show. 

If you’re looking for a really soulful, meditative, recital of kinot… this is not for you. This is going to be completely soulless. No soul at all. No, I’m joking. But it is going to be different. Because, for some of us, to experience what kinot is supposed to be, we have to slow down. We have to ask questions. And, hopefully, answer them. 

Instead of simply reciting kinot together, Rabbi Fohrman and the scholars go deep into a few select kinot Aleph Beta style. They mine these haunting poems for midrashic and biblical resonances. 

I don’t think there are any texts in the Jewish canon so in need of attention and analysis, and yet so overlooked, as kinot. Kinot aren’t just sad poems: they’re profound, layered, masterpieces. They weave together voices from every stage of Jewish history, every text we hold dear, and by doing that, they capture our eternal, collective cry for God. 

Come to this year’s event Tisha B’Av morning and see for yourself. Event info is in the description. 

I should mention, this event is open to all Aleph Beta premium members, so if you’ve been on the fence about trying out Aleph Beta, now really is the perfect time. $18 will get you access to the event and to our entire premium library: hundreds of videos on parsha, holidays, and an incredible collection of Tisha B’Av ones. You can literally spend the whole fast day finding meaning with us. I hope you will.   

Again, event info is in the description. Thanks for listening. 

Credits

This episode was written and recorded by Ami Silver. 

When this episode originally aired on Aleph Beta, it was edited by Rivky Stern. 

Into the Verse editing was done by Evan Weiner

Our audio editor is Hillary Gutman 

Our editorial director is, me, Imu Shalev. 

Thank you so much for listening.