"So said the God of the Armies, you shall observe the fourth fast, the fifth fast, the seventh fast, and tenth fast..."כה אמר ה' צבאות צום הרביעי וצום החמישי וצום השביעי וצום העשירי…
So there we go. Females are exempted.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
The Fourth Fast
Today is Yud-Zayn Be Tammuz, the so called Fourth Fast. I am not a Talmud scholar so I am unable to explain what disaster of the interminable Jewish history it commemorates. Jews love to fast, and they need no special reason for it. Zachariah the Prophet says:
So there we go. Females are exempted.
So there we go. Females are exempted.
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6 comments:
One no longer needs to be a talmud scholar - all you need to do is consult Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_of_Tammuz
"According to the Mishnah (Taanit 4:6) five calamities befell the Jewish people on this day: Moses smashed the Tablets of the Law, the daily tamid offering ceased to be brought, the walls of Jerusalem were breached, the Roman military leader Apostomus burned a Torah scroll prior to the Bar Kochba revolt, and an idol was erected in the Temple."
צְבָאוֹת is not usually translated as "army" but "hosts", meaning not a military force but the legion of angels that God commands.
Sorry, Anonymous, I dont buy the explanation. Calamities befell and keep befalling to Jews every day of the calendar, so it seems to me strangely artificial to look up what happened this day in history? And what about Zachariah? It is more reasonable to say that (1) the reason for the fast was forgotten and later they made it up (2) they wanted to fast and this seemed a good day for it. And what about Zachariah?
Regarding "hosts". Jews in the Diaspora (and mental Diaspora) fear all military interpretation of the Tanach, even when it is clear and direct. No angels but armies.
You are probably right about the unknown reasons - the Mishnah is full of this kind of post hoc reasoning because it was written centuries later. That Zachariah just numbers these fasts rather than naming them shows that either their reason was so well known at the time (but lost to us) that it was not worth mentioning, or that they had no reason other than you held a fast every so often. But if you hold religion to a scientific standard, it all falls apart - we don't know the reason behind most of what is in the bible - it's all gloss that came centuries later.
As for "armies" vs. "hosts", what does the phrase "the Lord of the Armies" mean? Hosts is usually used because it (with the appropriate gloss) actually makes sense whereas "Army God" does not.
Gods of the Armies (Elokim Tzabaot) it is. Regarding its meaning, why plural, gods? why armies? I dont know, but you maybe right that "armies" refers to the "hosts of the heavens": the Sun, the Moon, the Stars.
Why plural? Of course you are not the first to ask this question.
Wikipedia again provides the answer (or at least AN answer):
"Elohim has plural morphological form in Hebrew, but it is used with singular verbs and adjectives in the Hebrew text when the particular meaning of the God of Israel (a singular deity) is traditionally understood. Thus the very first words of the Bible are breshit bara elohim, where bara ברא is a verb inflected as third person singular masculine perfect. If Elohim were an ordinary plural word, then the plural verb form bar'u בראו would have been used in this sentence instead. Such plural grammatical forms are in fact found in cases where Elohim has semantically plural reference (not referring to the God of Israel). There are a few other words in Hebrew that have a plural ending, but refer to a single entity and take singular verbs and adjectives, for example בעלים (be'alim, owner) in Exodus 21:29 and elsewhere."
Of course this begs the question of WHY a plural word was used to refer to a singular God? No one knows the answer to this - there are some theories by modern scholars (NOT the rabbis) that Elohim was a collective noun for the whole pantheon of Semitic gods and that when these gods were replaced by the singular Hebrew God, they kept the same name for Him but singularized it.
Another answer, which I find more likely, is as follows:
"It is worthy of note that, in the Biblical Hebrew (as well as in many other languages, such as Yaqui) the customary grammatical "plurality" of a word is often simply that: a grammatical plural. The use of "plural" forms for singular nouns is common in the Hebrew Bible, and often connotes quintessence, uniqueness, or might rather than plurality (though it may connote both). Thus, the phrase "מלך מלכי המלכים" ("melekh maləkêi ha-məlâkhim") does not refer to "a king, kings of kings", but to "a king of unsurpassed kingship"; שיר השירים, ("shir ha-shirim") does not refer to "a song of songs", but to "a song that is the quintessential song"; ימים רבים ("yamim rabim") refers to "a great sea" as easily as to "great [or 'many'] seas". A clue to this is the Hebrew grammatical term for "plural": lâshon rabbim, meaning a term of grandiosities."
One never stops learning. Thanks.
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