Thursday 22 July 2027 marks the fast of the 17th of Tammuz.
Fast begins at 03.57
Fast ends at 21.33
Minchah at 14.00
To attend the service, you must send an identity document via
The 17th day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz is considered by rabbinic tradition to be one of the most mournful days in the Jewish calendar.
The Mishnah teaches us that on that day, over the course of our history, five misfortunes befell the Jewish people, which are:
The first Tablets of the Law were broken by Moses who, upon coming down from Mount Sinai after forty days and forty nights spent there to receive the Torah, found the people, or a part of them, engaged in pagan worship of a golden calf, in the presence of which they offered sacrifices and did abominable things.
On the same day, by the hand of the Babylonians in 587 BCE and of the Romans in 70 CE, a breach was made in the walls of Jerusalem and the city was occupied. This led to the consequent destruction of the Temple and the deportation of the Jews.
Also on the 17th of Tammuz, the daily offerings at the Temple ceased because, due to the occupation, no one could enter and leave Jerusalem, so there was no longer the possibility of bringing animals for sacrifices.
On that same date, at the time of Roman rule, a statue of a deity was placed in the Temple; finally, Apostomos publicly burned a Torah.
All these calamities led the Masters to schedule a day of fasting.
This fast is to be observed from dawn until the moment it begins to be dark in the sky.
By Rav Alberto Sermoneta
The fast of the 17th of Tammuz commemorates the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians, a prelude to the burning and sacking of the Temple that took place on the 9th of Av in 586 BCE.
Just as this latter date recalls other ill-fated events in Jewish history, starting from the episode of the spies sent by Moses to scout out the Promised Land up to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, the 17th of Tammuz also recalls other misfortunes.
Among these, in particular, the breaking of the Tablets of the Law by Moses at the sight of the Jews dancing around the golden calf. The Sages have said that all the misfortunes that have happened to the Jewish people in their long history serve to pay in part also for that sin, committed only 40 days after the Ten Commandments had been promulgated, which included the prohibition of idolatry. Moses, according to the opinion of most of the Sages, broke the Tablets of the Law on his own initiative (another thing that Moses did spontaneously was to postpone by one day the gift of the Torah by G-d).
Many have wondered (and not only among the Sages): why did Moses break the Tablets? After all, they were of divine workmanship and therefore the most sacred thing imaginable. Breaking them might seem an extremely sacrilegious act. How dared Moses do such a thing? Various answers have been given. We present here the very interesting answer found in the commentary on the Torah Meshekh Chokhmà, by Rabbi Meir Simcha Ha-Kohen, born near Vilna in 1843 and who died in 1926 in Dvinsk, in Latvia, where he had been rabbi for almost 40 years.
"And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and broke them beneath the mount" (Exodus 32:19).
The Torah and Faith are the foundations of the people of Israel. All holy things, such as the land of Israel, Jerusalem, etc., are secondary and particular, and their holiness is subordinate to that of the Torah. For this reason there is no difference of time and place for everything that concerns the Torah, and it is identical both in the land of Israel and outside of it, apart from the specific commandments concerning the soil of the Land (of Israel). The Torah is the same both for a person who has reached the highest level, like Moses "man of G-d", and for the most humble one. Moses himself was nothing more than an intermediary (see Deut. 5:5), and the Torah is not intrinsically bound to him, but has in itself its own raison d'être. In fact G-d and the Torah are one and the same, and just as He has His own raison d'être, so too does the Torah, and the existence of the latter depends on nothing other than that of the Holy One, Blessed Be He. However, he who possesses a limited intelligence fails to conceive of a reality necessary in and of itself without any other purpose. Therefore (the children of Israel) sought by every means to make forms and images for themselves that would represent ways of access to Heaven, and they said: this is the Chariot for the Divinity, this is what controls and turns all the affairs of the world. To these forms they paid worship, offered sacrifices and burned incense. The unrestrained dances originated from their concrete and visible concepts. All this stemmed from the fact that Moses had delayed returning to the camp, and their faith was consequently shaken; they sought to make a calf for themselves and to bring down a spirit from above into it, decreeing that that was the chariot of the divinity, which controlled the earthly world and which had brought them out of Egypt. A similar sin was subsequently committed also by Jeroboam (1 Kings, 12).
This was the reason why Moses became so angry, and shouted, saying: How can you think that I am important, and that I possess any holiness outside of the commandments of G-d, to the extent that in my absence you made yourselves a calf! But I am a man like you and the Torah does not depend on me. Even if I had not come at all, the reality of the Torah would not have changed. Do not think that the Temple and the Tabernacle possess intrinsic holiness, far from it! Blessed G-d dwells within them in the midst of His children, but if they commit a transgression, holiness entirely abandons (the sacred objects), which become ordinary objects for profane use. Titus entered the Holy of Holies (of the Temple in Jerusalem) accompanied by a prostitute, and nothing happened to him, because the Temple was by then devoid of all holiness. And even more: the Tablets of the Law, "the work of G-d", they too are not intrinsically holy, they are so only by virtue of you. The moment the bride commits adultery beneath the chuppah, the Tablets become equal to pieces of clay devoid of any holiness. They are holy only as long as you observe them. In conclusion: there is nothing sacred in the world to which one should pay worship and submit. Only G-d is holy, in His own essence, and to Him alone are homage and worship due. All sacred things are such only as a result of the command of the Creator, who commanded to build a Tabernacle where sacrifices and offerings are to be presented, to Him alone. Now we can understand why Moses, "when he drew near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing" and understood how great their error was, "became angry and threw the Tablets from his hands": he wanted to make it understood that there is no holiness and divinity outside the reality of the Creator, blessed be His holy Name. If Moses had handed over the Tablets to them, they would simply have replaced the calf with the Tablets, without understanding their own error. But when he broke the Tablets, they understood how far they were from the goal of faith and the pure Torah. There is no holiness in creation except by virtue of the fact that Israel observes the Torah in accordance with the will of the Creator, may His blessed holy Name be praised, the true Being. For this reason the book of Deuteronomy (4:15) warns us: "no image you saw…".
Translation and adaptation from Hebrew by David Gianfranco Di Segni (originally published in Shalom)