Why Did the Talmudic Sages Not Institute Three Weeks of Mourning? [Talmud Tuesday]
There is no notion of three weeks of quasi-morning in the Talmud
Today is 17 Tammuz on the Jewish calendar and, as such, it is a fast day (although only sunrise to sundown). In fact, it is a fast day from Talmudic times. The next fast day on the calendar is 9 Av, which is – like Yom Kippur – a sundown to sundown fast, which will occur in three weeks. The Sages of the Mishnah identify five separate sad incidents that occurred on each of these days.1
Since 9 Av is, effectively, the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, the Talmudic sages incorporated various mourning practices, to help one create the sad experience in addition to making it a fast day. To further enhance the feelings of sadness/mourning, the Sages of the Mishnah also included the days in the week leading up to 9 Av as refraining from laundering clothes and from haircuts.2
However, our story does not stop there. While some sages wanted to keep it there, there were also other sages who wanted to expand the mourning practices: Rabban Shimon, son of Gamliel, wanted to keep it the week in which 9 Av occurred; Rabbi Meir wanted to expand it up to the beginning of the month; while Rabbi Yehudah wanted to include the whole month!3 Fortunately, Rabbi Yehudah’s expansive option was not decided to be the halakhah.4
One of the interesting pieces to this conversation is considering why the Sages did not try to chronologically connect 17 Tammuz with 9 Av? There was an easy route once they were mentioned together in the Mishnah to make the entire interceding time to be a quasi-mourning period. Yet they did not take it. Was it because it was too long? Yet, Rabbi Yehudah suggested the entire month of Av, which would have been even longer! I don’t believe this is the end of the conversation – there are probably other possibilities….
—
1 – mTa’anit 4:6
2 – mTa’anit 4:7
3 – bTa’anit 29b
4 – bTa’anit 30a
