Among the dates penned in
Megillat Taanit and which were all forbidden to fast thereon, and for others also forbidden to lament the dead thereon, are to be noted the following: • "And from the eighth day thereof (i.e. the lunar month of
Nisan) until the end of the [last] festival day [of Passover], the
Feast of Weeks (
Shavu'ot) was restored, [being days on which] it is prohibited to mourn" [Original
Aramaic: ] :[
Excursus: This episode has been explained by
Rashi in
Babylonian Talmud (
Taanit 17b, s.v. ) to mean the vindication of the
Pharisees over the
Boethusians in the days of Rabbi
Yohanan ben Zakkai, when the Boethusians held the errant view that the people of Israel are to only begin counting the seven weeks, or 49 days of the
Counting of the Omer, after the first Sabbath that follows the first Festival Day of Passover, which method would invariably cause a delay in the counting, and push back further the
Feast of Weeks (''Shavu'ot
) which falls on the 50th day. According to the Pharisees, on the other hand, whose opinion is Halacha, the Counting of the Omer begins immediately following the first Festival Day of Passover, which happens to be the Sabbath day of rest spoken of in , that is to say, Passover itself, and they begin the counting on the following day, on the 16th day of the lunar month Nisan, in which case the festival day known as the Feast of Weeks
will always fall on the 6th day of the lunar month Sivan. When Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai prevailed over the Boethusians at this time, the days were commemorated as a semi-holiday; Shavu'ot'' being restored to its former time of observance.] • "On the twenty-third day of the same (i.e. the lunar month of
Iyar), the inhabitants of the Citadel (
Acra) departed from Jerusalem" [Original
Aramaic: ] :[
Excursus: The appended date recollects an event that happened in the second year of the high priesthood of
Simon Thassi, son of
Mattathias, in the year 171 of the
Seleucid era (141/140
BCE), in which the Jewish nation, by order of
King Demetrius the son of Demetrius from Crete, evicted from the residential area of Jerusalem, known as the "Citadel" or
Acra, those who had taken-up residence in that part of the city and who had been allied with the enemies of Israel, and who had long waged a cultural war with the Jewish nation, killing them, and rejecting Jewish mores and manners. After these had been evicted, among whom were Jewish
apostates, the residential area known as the "Citadel" was resettled by
Torah-abiding citizens. The event is mentioned in the
First Book of Maccabees (13:49–52):
"... And they entered into it on the three and twentieth day of the second month, in the year 171 [Seleucid era] with thanksgiving, and branches of palm trees, and harps, and cymbals, and psalteries, and hymns, and canticles, because the great enemy was destroyed out of Israel."] Dor is mentioned in the 3rd-century
Mosaic of Rehob as being a place exempt from tithes, seeing that it was not settled by Jews returning from the
Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE. Straton's Tower (Caesarea) seems to have had the same status, as Rabbi
Judah the Prince exempted fruits and vegetables that were grown in Caesarea from being tithed (Jerusalem Talmud,
Demai 2:1), since the nation of Israel had not initially settled in that part of the country during the exiles' return, until the days of Alexander Jannaeus.
Schürer suggests that Dor, along with
Caesarea, may have initially been built towards the end of the Persian period.] After laying siege to Scythopolis for one year, the city was taken and demolished. On the very same day on which John Hyrcanus's sons fought with Antiochus Cyzicenus, John Hyrcanus had gone into the Temple to offer
incense, when he heard a
divine voice discourse with him that his sons had just then overcome Antiochus.] were removed from
Judea and from
Jerusalem" [Original
Aramaic: ] :[
Excursus: The date transcribed here is alluded to in
Babylonian Talmud (
Sanhedrin 91a), where the lunar month of this event is said there to have happened in
Nisan instead of
Sivan. In any rate, the event refers to the days of
Alexander the Great who, when he passed through the
Levant, was greeted by Jews,
Canaanites (Phoenicians),
Ismaelites and
Egyptians, the latter three of these groups demanding of Alexander to adjudicate in cases involving themselves and the nation of Israel, from whom they had traditionally collected the public tax. When Alexander heard their arguments and saw that they had no real basis of merit, he released the nation of Israel from having to pay monies (taxes) to these public officials.] The vindication of the Pharisees over the Sadducees and Boethusians gave rise to this date being held in honor, until the
Scroll of Fasting was cancelled altogether.] The
Sadducees, however, in defiance of Jewish tradition, whenever dividing the inheritance among the relatives of the deceased, such as when the deceased left no issue, would perfunctorily seek for familial ties, regardless and irrespective of gender, so that the near of kin to the deceased and who inherits his property could, hypothetically, be his
paternal aunt. The Sadducees would justify their practice by
A fortiori, an inference from minor to major premise, saying: "If the daughter of his son's son can inherit him (i.e. such as when her father left no male issue), is it not then fitting that his own daughter inherit him?!" (i.e. who is more closely related to him than his great granddaughter). Rabban
Yohanan ben Zakkai tore down their argument, saying that the only reason the daughter was empowered to inherit her father was because her father left no male issue. However, a man's daughter – where there are sons, has no power to inherit her father's estate. Moreover, a deceased man who leaves no issue has always a distant male relative, unto whom is given his estate. The Sadducees eventually agreed with the Pharisaic teaching. The vindication of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai and the Pharisees over the Sadducees gave rise to this date being held in honor.] • "On the seventeenth day thereof (i.e. the lunar month
Elul), the Romans were taken out of Judea and out of Jerusalem" [Original
Aramaic: ] :[
Excursus: The event here referenced is briefly alluded to in
The Jewish War of
Josephus. During the first year of the outbreak of the war with Rome, in c. 64
CE, in the month
Gorpiaios (lunar month
Elul), the Roman army that was stationed in Jerusalem, under their commander Metilius, sought refuge in the towers that were built in the Upper City of Jerusalem when the Zealots had come together in anger over the mistreatment by the Roman Procurator, Florus. The Zealots descended upon the Roman army in great numbers and surrounded them and would have killed them, had it not been for Eleazar b. Jair, the leader of a party of Zealots, who gave to the Roman commander assurances under oath that they would be allowed to leave the city, without harm. Although the oath was later breached and some of the Romans were killed, according to Josephus, "there being no more than a few slain out of an immense army [that had been given a safe egress out of the city]." The departure of the Romans from the city was received with great gladness and declared a day of rejoicing.] who revered himself as a god and who had decreed that a statue of his own likeness be dedicated and set up in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. To affect his plan, he ordered
Petronius the Roman governor of Syria to carry the image to Jerusalem, and to erect it there, but if the Jews would not admit of such an image, to presently make war with them. This act, being known, caused a great consternation among the Jews, so that when Petronius had arrived in
Ptolemais to spend the winter with his troops before proceeding on to Jerusalem at the Caesar's bidding, he was met there by members of the Jewish nation who went out to placate him and to dissuade him from erecting Caesar's image in the Temple. Meanwhile, one of the Jewish High Priests heard a Divine voice proceeding out of the Holy of holies, whereby it said in the Aramaic tongue: "The work that had been decreed by the enemy to be brought against the Temple Sanctuary is now cancelled." While Petronius was deliberating on what to do, with respect to Caesar's orders, a dispatch came to him with a letter informing him that Caesar Caius had been assassinated in Rome. With his assassination, the ill-designs of the Roman emperor came to an abrupt end. When an inquiry was made as to when the Divine voice was heard, in retrospect it was learned that the Divine voice and the Caesar's demise happened on the very same day, namely, the 22nd day of the lunar month Shevat (a date corresponding to 26 January
anno 37 of the
Common Era).] :[
Excursus: The sense here is explained in the
Babylonian Talmud (
Taanit 18b) and in the
Jerusalem Talmud (
Taanit 12a) as having the meaning of the day in which vengeance was taken against the executioner of
Lulianos and Paphos who were killed in
Laodicea. Lulianos and Paphos were righteous men of the Hebrew nation who had, willfully, put themselves in harms way, in order to prevent the massacre of the innocent and unsuspecting community of Israel whom they served, and who had been wrongly accused of murdering a Gentile child. According to a rabbinic source retrieved from the
Cairo Geniza, they had been killed on the 5th day of the lunar month Adar, a day in which public fasting was later made on their account. Their wrongful deaths were swiftly vindicated by the Roman authority in one week, when the executioner was himself killed, and the date being made into a day of public celebration. This day was the first day of the days mentioned in the
Scroll of Fasting that was cancelled, after it had become known that the day also marked a day of sadness, when
Abtalion and
Shamaiah were executed some years earlier on that very day.] ==Scroll of Fasts==