Yonatan Sredni: THE TENTH OF TEVET- SIEGE THE DAY!

On Tuesday evening I waited for the bus from Bnei Barak to Jerusalem, but made a conscious effort to let the ‘regular’ bus # 400 go buy and boarded the ‘mehadrin’ bus #402. I chose the 402 because it gets to the capital quicker, not because I was making any kind of ‘statement’. When the 402 arrived I boarded and sat in aisle seat next to a Haredi gentleman near the front of the bus, but felt quite uncomfortable. I turned my head towards the back of the bus, looked past the rows of men, and saw a few women in the rows behind the back door, but the very last rows were empty. One male soldier, who had boarded with me, had taken a seat in the empty second to last row, so I, feeling quite bold, got up and headed to the last row of elevated seats which I had to myself. As I observed the bus from the back row, men in the front, a few women in the back and me in the rear, I realized something - nobody cared!

Granted, if I were a woman and had insisted on sitting in the front of the bus, a heated ‘discussion’ might have erupted. But a man sitting in the back of the bus was of no consequence to the passengers in front of me. It reminded me of a scene from a silly movie about a car race where one of the drivers rips off his rear-view mirror and proudly declares, “Whatever is behind me is not important!”

Today is Asarah B’Tevet (Tenth of Tevet), a ‘minor’ public fast day on the Jewish calendar, which commemorates the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia - an event that began on that date and ultimately culminated in the destruction of the First Temple (on Tisha B’Av). The 10th of Tevet seems to get very little public attention. Perhaps it is because it has always been a ‘minor’ fast day, not in the ‘big leagues’ of major fasts like Tisha B’Av. Also, as a ‘dawn to nightfall’ fast which falls in the winter time, it barely lasts twelve hours, and therefore comes and goes virtually unnoticed.

According to Kings II, on the 10th day of the 10th month (Tevet), in the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign (425 BCE), the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, began the siege of Jerusalem. A year and a half later, on the 17th of Tammuz in the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign (427 BCE), he broke through the city walls. The siege ended with the destruction of the Temple three weeks later, on the 9th of Av, the end of the first Kingdoms and the exile of the Jewish people to Babylon. The Tenth of Tevet is thus considered part of the cycle of fasts connected with these events, which includes: Shivah Asar B’Tammuz (17th of Tammuz) and Tisha B’Av (9th of Av).

In reality, the events of the Tenth of Tevet were only the beginning. The really ‘important’ or major events didn’t begin till the events of the 17th of Tammuz, which culminated with the destruction of the Temple on Tisha B’Av. So, I can ‘almost’ understand those who have a ‘rear-view mirror’ response to the Tenth of Tevet.

But recent events in Israel have changed my opinion about the Tenth of Tevet. A different kind of ‘siege’ is taking place. It may have started out as a curiosity, a few signs in Haredi neighborhoods demanding that women walk on the other side of the street, but it has evolved into something much bigger. An eight year old girl in Beit Shemesh was accosted on her way to school for not being dressed ‘modestly enough’. A female soldier was verbally harassed for refusing to go to the rear of a public bus. But perhaps the biggest shock of all was the use of young Haredi children dressed in striped concentration camp uniforms and yellow stars in last Saturday night’s counter-protest. By evoking the Holocaust, a taboo has been broken and a thick red line has now definitely been crossed.

After the establishment of the state of Israel, The Chief Rabbinate of Israel chose to observe the Tenth of Tevet as a "general kaddish day" for the victims of the Holocaust, many of whom lack identifiable yahrtzeits (anniversaries of their deaths). The somber fast day of the Tenth of Tevet is the proper time and place to invoke the memory of those who died in the Holocaust, and not at a sectoral public protest like last Saturday night.

But fast days are not just about fasting. In fact, we are taught that if one fasts and prays, but does not do ‘chesbon nefesh’ (soul searching) and engage in T’shuva (repentance), the fasting is meaningless. Jewish public fast days were established as a time for introspection and reconciliation. It is a time for examining ourselves and our society. It is a time for looking back in our rear-view mirror and looking forward towards where we are headed. If the Tenth of Tevet teaches us anything, it is that the first signs of trouble matter. The siege of Jerusalem began on Tenth of Tevet, but it lasted over a year. During the time of the siege I’d be willing to bet that many thought it would pass with time and nothing would come of it. The Hebrew expression, still used today for many troubling current situations, ‘Na’avor gam et ze’ (‘This too shall pass’) comes to mind. But the Tenth of Tevet, although it may be a ‘minor’ fast day, is anything but minor. We need to see the signs when the ‘siege’ begins; we need to recognize where things are headed and set things right before it’s too late. We can’t just wait and hope for it to pass. We cannot refuse to look backwards and simply disregard what is behind us in our past. Pardon the pun, but we need to ‘siege the day’!

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Yonatan Sredni was born and raised in northern California (Palo Alto), but has lived in Israel since 1994. He has a BA in English from San Diego State University and an MA in Creative Writing from Bar- Ilan University. His short stories, most of which combine his passion for baseball with Jewish themes, have been published online in Cyclamens and Swords and The Jewish Magazine. His short essays and op-ed articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post and Israel National News.