12/16/2021 - Tenth of Tevet

Connecting and understanding Jewish history is just as important as evolving and understanding my Jewish identity.

In all honesty, I had never heard of the Tenth of Tevet until I was flipping through Jewish Holidays by Michael Stressfeld. It's a minor fast day mourning the siege of Jerusalem from Babylonian forces that resulted in a Jewish exile. More specifically, it mourns the destruction of the First Temple.

There is history, and then there is Jewish history. Understanding the timeline and significance of Jewish history is kind of learning Hebrew. You can still be Jewish and not be able to recognize the characters, but it would make a lot more sense if you could. With that, I'm assuming you can still be Jewish without really knowing the history, but it makes a lot more sense when you do.

It would have been frustrating to fast for a day if I didn't understand the reasoning. But after some research and excerpts from A Short History of Jewish People by Raymond Scheindlin, the fast felt deliberate. I'll be honest, I voluntarily chose to drink a cup of cold brew midday because I was dozing off. It made the fast feel slightly less genuine than I would have liked, but that's on me.

While fasting cannot compare to the destruction of the First Temple and Jewish exile, it made me aware of what I was fasting for. Sporadic urges to snack halted when I remembered why there is a fast on the Tenth of Tevet. Understanding what Jews of that time must have felt when not only being kicked out of their home but also watching it be desecrated. 

Like I mentioned in my previous entry, part of being Jewish is feeling emotions together. So while I was not there, fasting was able to serve as a reminder of the devastation we must have felt at the time.

I understand that it's a minor fast day, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was a minor event in Jewish history. I think it's important for me to observe fast days (holiday doesn't sound like the right word for this one), even the minor ones, to better understand and connect to a complex history that shaped Judaism into what it is and will be.

For me, fasting is not a slow-ticking countdown to when I can eat again. I mean, I get hungry, but it's not about feeling hungry, ya know?  For me, fasting felt like a reminder of the emptiness they must have felt losing everything all at once.