The Piyut 'Ezkerah Matzuk' for Asarah B'Teves - Rabbi Isser Springer shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to “Lema’an Yishme’u,” a podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 We’re approaching 10 Teves, and as the prophet Zechariah says—and with Hashem’s help, we’ll return to his words later—“The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth will become days of joy and gladness and happy occasions for the house of Yehudah; so love truth and peace.” May these days become days of joy and gladness. We hope that by the time 10 Teves arrives, our class will be a lesson in distant history, about an ancient period of exile. In any event, in this class we’ll learn about the events of Teves—not just 10 Teves, but other events as well. And with Hashem’s help, as we said, they’ll be events of the past. Our class will be based on the Selichos for 10 Teves. In the Selichos for 10 Teves, as on the other fast days, such as 17 Tammuz, we say three piyutim each time. The first piyut on 10 Teves is “Ezkera Matzok.” That’s the piyut we’ll discuss. In poetic language, it recounts the events of the month of Teves besides 10 Teves. Sometimes, when we say it in shul, we don’t even notice that it speaks about events other than the beginning of the siege on 10 Teves. We’ll try to study the piyut, see which events it describes, understand the prayer better, and connect more deeply with the events our people have lived through over the generations. And with Hashem’s help, if, G-d forbid, there is a fast, may it be a meaningful fast, an auspicious time, as the Alter Rebbe explains in Igeres Hateshuvah. First, let’s talk about the author and the general structure of the piyut. Its author was named Rabbi Yosef. We know his name was Rabbi Yosef because, at the end of the piyut, the initial letters spell Yosef. Most of the piyut follows the alef-beis: each section has three lines beginning with successive letters—alef, beis, gimel—and ends with a phrase from a verse. Then it continues with daled, hei, vav, and ends with a phrase from a verse, and so on.

02:33 Speaker 2 At the end, though, the initial letters spell the name Yosef, and that’s how we know the author’s name was Yosef, Rabbi Yosef. But there is still some doubt about which Yosef wrote it. Two paytanim named Yosef are possible authors. One is Rabbi Yosef Tov Elem. Rabbi Yosef Tov Elem was among the earliest Rishonim, living in France about nine hundred years ago. He preceded the Tosafists. They mention him and discuss his piyutim, considering which halachos can be derived from them. Rabbi Yosef Tov Elem wrote the well-known piyut that ends with the words “Chasal Siddur Pesach.” Originally, it was a piyut for the Shabbos Hagadol prayers, summarizing the laws of Pesach. It was customary to weave the laws of Pesach into a piyut during the prayers, ending with “Chasal Siddur Pesach.” That line appears in some Haggados. We know that the Alter Rebbe did not include “Chasal Siddur Pesach”—and Pesach continues throughout the year—but in any event, that line comes from a piyut by Rabbi Yosef Tov Elem, one of the great paytanim and Rishonim of France some nine hundred years ago. That is one opinion about who composed “Ezkera Matzok.” The second opinion takes us to roughly the same period, but to Spain. Rabbi Yosef ibn Avitur was one of the great paytanim in Spain at that time. He was a student of Rabbi Moshe. Rabbi Moshe ben Rabbi Chanoch came to Spain through a fascinating chain of events known as the story of the Four Captives. We won’t go into that story now, but Rabbi Moshe arrived in Spain, settled there, and became a prominent rabbi. Rabbi Yosef ibn Avitur was one of his students. After Rabbi Moshe’s passing, his son, Rabbi Chanoch, was appointed to lead the community. Unfortunately, Rabbi Yosef had a dispute with him that led to a series of unpleasant events. But in any event, he remained one of our great sages, Rabbi

04:38 Speaker 2 Yosef ibn Avitur. So that is the question of who wrote the piyut: Rabbi Yosef Tov Elem or Rabbi Yosef ibn Avitur—Rabbi Yosef Tov Elem of France or Rabbi Yosef ibn Avitur of Spain. As we’ve seen, the piyut is structured in groups of three—each stanza has three lines following the alef-beis, while the fourth is a phrase from a verse and does not follow the alphabetical sequence. Now let’s turn to the piyut itself. The first section is an introduction. “I recall the distress that befell me”—I remember the troubles, the distress that happened to me. “With three blows He struck me in this month”: not just one blow, on 10 Teves, but three. Later in the piyut, we’ll see that there is reason to say there were four. As the piyut later says, “I speak of all four.” The piyut discusses four calamities, but one of them did not actually occur in Teves, as we’ll see. “He cut me down, thwarted me, struck me”—the paytan uses expressions that convey the hardship. We won’t explain every line of the piyut, because our format calls for brevity. The first section ends, “But now He has wearied me.” Those words are from Iyov. Iyov says that he understands that speaking about his troubles won’t help him, but his pain is so great that he cannot keep from speaking. As the Rebbe mentioned a number of times, when it hurts, you cry out. That is the piyut’s first section, its introduction. Now we move to the next section, which begins with the letter daled, as we said. It speaks about a calamity, an event that took place on 8 Teves. Its effects continued to unfold for a long time, as we’ll soon learn. The paytan says, “On the eighth of this month, He darkened me, left and right.” “Darkened me” describes the light fading. “On the eighth of this month” means 8 Teves. “Left and right”—

06:57 Speaker 2 “Left and right” means the entire world. The whole world grew dark. “And for all three I established a fast”: three days were designated as fast days because of this event. What event brought darkness to the whole world? What event led to three days of fasting? The paytan says, “The Greek king forced me to write the law in Greek.” The Greek king compelled me, forced me to write the law—to write the Torah—in Greek. The paytan concludes, “Plowmen plowed upon my back; they lengthened the furrow.” This expression is based on the verse in Tehillim, “Plowmen plowed upon my back; they lengthened their furrows.” But the paytan uses a slightly different form of “lengthened the furrow” so that it rhymes with “fast,” “Greek,” and “right.” The piyut rhymes. What does the verse mean, “Plowmen plowed upon my back; they lengthened the furrow”? It says that the plowmen plowed, as it were, upon my back—which, of course, represents terrible humiliation. “Plowmen plowed upon my back.” But not only that: they lengthened their furrows, or “lengthened the furrow,” as the paytan puts it. What does that mean? Ordinarily, even when plowing, there’s a rest from time to time. There’s a break between the furrows: you plow, the animal works hard, but then the row is finished, and you rest. You move a little way toward the next row without working hard. But they lengthened the furrow. They kept going, plowing without even allowing time to rest. So far, we’ve explained the plain meaning of the second section: the decree on 8 Teves, when the Torah was translated into Greek. But we need to understand why this was such a serious problem. We know that on Rosh Chodesh Shvat, which is coming up soon, “Moshe began to explain this Torah.” Our Sages say that he translated it into seventy languages. There have been, and presumably will be, translations of the Torah. What was the great calamity in its being translated into Greek? The Rebbe explains that the Greeks represent wisdom from the opposing side—Greek wisdom, the culture that dominated at the time. It represented

09:38 Speaker 2 the culture of the opposing side. The Greeks wanted to take the Torah and make it no longer a form of Divine wisdom, but something that fit into the wisdom of the opposing side, into the intellectual framework of flesh and blood. And we do see that many Jews at the time were influenced by the Greek translation. They did not study the Torah in its original, in the Holy Tongue, but studied it only as it appeared in Greek translation, and their entire way of life changed as a result. The Rebbe offers a very interesting insight. The Greek decrees came about a hundred years after the translation—the decrees that led to the war of the Chashmonaim and to Chanukah, which we celebrated not long ago. The Rebbe says that the decrees resulted from the translation of the Torah into Greek. The Torah was translated into Greek in the year 3515. The decrees came 101 years later, in 3616. A hundred and one years had passed, but the Rebbe says that does not change the fact that they were a result of the translation. Why were they a result of it? We know what is explained in Chassidus about “making them forget Your Torah.” The Greeks did not seek to stop people from studying Torah altogether. They sought to make them forget that it is Your Torah—that Torah is wisdom beyond reason and understanding, beyond the intellect of flesh and blood. That was what bothered the Greeks. And “to turn them away from the statutes of Your will.” That is what the Greeks wanted, and it developed, over time, from what had happened 101 years earlier. The translation of the Torah into Greek had, as it were, taken the Torah out of the realm of Divine wisdom and placed it within human intellect. Apparently, the Greeks absorbed this, made use of it, and gradually imposed decrees on the Jews as well: from now on, only the Greek translation of the Torah. You might still be able to go on studying in Hebrew, in the Holy Tongue, but it would be only in the style

12:09 Speaker 2 of the Greek translation of the Torah: studying Torah solely through human intellect, without a connection to what is beyond reason and understanding, without a connection to G-dliness beyond the bounds of the world. That is why this decree was so severe. That is why a special day was established to remember it, a fast observed by the righteous, and why we mention the day and grieve over it in the Selichos: 8 Teves, the day the Torah was translated into Greek. Let’s move to the next passage in the Selichah, the passage about 9 Teves. What happened on 9 Teves? “I was under wrath on its ninth day, in shame and disgrace.” I was under great wrath, a wrath that brought deep shame and disgrace. What was the great event that caused me such shame? “He withheld from me the robe of splendor and the diadem.” Like many passages in this liturgical poem, this stanza can be interpreted in several ways, but throughout our discussion, with Hashem’s help and without making a vow, we will stick to one interpretation. “He withheld from me the robe of splendor and the diadem.” The robe of splendor refers to the Kohen Gadol’s vestments, the breastplate. And the diadem—the Kohen Gadol’s forehead plate can be called by that term, a diadem of beauty. “He withheld from me the robe of splendor and the diadem.” What happened? “The one who spoke words of beauty was torn away on that day.” There was someone who was a Kohen Gadol, as we can already tell, and who also spoke words of beauty: he taught Torah to the Jewish people. On this day, he passed away. “The one who spoke words of beauty was torn away on that day.” Who was he? Ezra the Scribe. The passage ends with words from a verse: “He is Ezra the Scribe.” This day, 9 Teves, was established to remember the painful event, says the poet Rabbi Yosef: the day Ezra the Scribe passed away. But there is more to explain. What was it about Ezra the Scribe’s passing? Over the generations, many great people passed away—the Tannaim, the Amoraim, the prophets—each on a different day. What happened

14:37 Speaker 2 on this day, when Ezra the Scribe passed away, that we specifically mention it in the Selichos as “the day I was under wrath, in shame and disgrace”? What is so distinctive about this day that it expresses such wrath and shame? It seems we can explain this in light of our Sages’ teaching that Ezra was Malachi, and that when Chaggai, Zechariah, and Malachi passed away, prophecy departed from the Jewish people. It seems that on this day we mark not only the passing of Ezra the Scribe as an individual, but the end of an era—the era when the revelation of G-dliness was more widespread, the era of prophecy. This day marks the end of that era. That seems to be why we mention it as an especially painful day, more so than the days on which other Tannaim, Amoraim, prophets, and so on passed away. Still, there is more to explain about the nature of 9 Teves. There is a very ancient work from the Second Beis Hamikdash period, predating the Mishnah according to most opinions, called Megillas Taanis. Megillas Taanis says that people fast on 9 Teves, “but our Rabbis did not write what it was for.” Rabbi Yosef Karo rules the same way in his Shulchan Aruch: “On 9 Teves, it is not known what calamity occurred on it.” We do not know what happened on this day. We do not know why our Sages established it as a fast in Megillas Taanis. In his commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, the Taz asks about this. The Taz is one of the major commentators on the Shulchan Aruch and one of the central commentators whose work, printed alongside it, covers all four of its sections. He asks: What does Rabbi Yosef Karo mean when he writes that we do not know why we fast on this day? Surely we know. Anyone who says the Selichos and pays attention to what he is saying—or, alternatively, listens to our class—knows that 9 Teves is the day Ezra the Scribe passed away, and that is why we fast. First of all, it is possible that Rabbi Yosef Karo did not say the Ashkenazic Selichos, because the Selichos of

16:57 Speaker 2 the Sephardim do not include this Selichah. They say different Selichos, which, on the contrary, imply that Ezra the Scribe passed away on 10 Teves rather than 9 Teves. In any case, the subject is complicated. Halachos Gedolos, one of the earliest halachic works after the completion of the Talmud, and perhaps even the earliest, says: “On its ninth day, our Rabbis did not write what it was for.” It then adds: “On that day, Ezra the Kohen and Nechemiah son of Chachaliah died.” So we see that the author of Halachos Gedolos—there is a dispute, by the way, about who its author was—knew that Ezra the Scribe passed away on that day, yet still did not know why the day had been established as a fast. The author of our Selichah apparently concluded, based on teachings of our Sages, as the Rebbe notes—apparently teachings that are no longer in our possession—that the fast was established because Ezra the Scribe passed away. And we have tried to add some explanation of why his passing is marked so prominently. But other explanations have been given for the fast of 9 Teves, and they can also help us understand why our Sages, in Megillas Taanis, concealed or omitted the reason for fasting on that day. We will discuss two explanations. One opinion is that this was the day that man—may his name be erased—was born, and that is why we fast on 9 Teves. Various calculations have been offered for this; we will not go into them. But according to this opinion, we unfortunately understand very well why our Sages did not state that the fast was because of that man’s birth. At a time when Christianity held power, there was a very real and serious danger in saying things that directly challenged it. Censorship was active, and so they apparently preferred to omit the matter. That is one opinion. A second opinion takes us somewhere entirely different. It is the explanation of the Raavad—not the Raavad we know from his critiques of the Rambam, but

19:19 Speaker 2 A different Raavad, who lived a little earlier. There were about three Raavads around the same period. We’re now quoting the first Raavad. The first Raavad tells a story in his book Sefer Hakabbalah. He tells of Rabbi Shmuel HaNagid, who held an honored position in the court of the king of Spain. At the same time, he did not forget his fellow Jews; he looked after them. He supported Torah scholars throughout those lands from his own resources and bought many books. Anyone in Spain or in any of the other lands we mentioned who wanted to devote himself entirely to Torah study—Rabbi Shmuel HaNagid paid for his support. The first Raavad, Rabbi Avraham ibn Daud, author of Sefer Hakabbalah, goes on to tell us that when Rabbi Shmuel HaNagid passed away, his son Rabbi Yosef HaNagid was appointed in his place. The son had all his father’s virtues, says the Raavad, except for one. What was the one virtue Rabbi Yosef lacked? He did not give as his father had. He had grown up wealthy, in the home of his father, Rabbi Shmuel HaNagid, and had not shared the burden of the people of his city. So he became very proud, and this aroused jealousy. Eventually, he was killed on 9 Teves. And... okay. The Raavad concludes: From this we know that they designated this day through ruach hakodesh. When Megillas Taanis says that this day is a fast day but does not say why, that is not for no reason. The authors of Megillas Taanis wrote with ruach hakodesh that on this day, far in the future—about a thousand years later—a tragic event would take place. They could not yet write what it was. Of course, it had not happened yet, but that was the reason they established the fast. In the maamar we mentioned, the Rebbe uses these words of the Raavad to make another, very interesting point. There is a well-known book by one of the Tosafists called She’eilos Uteshuvos Min Hashamayim. Most books of responsa contain questions the author received from other people. Sometimes the author wrote questions himself for the sake of discussion, as happens in some works of responsa. But this book of responsa is unusual. One of the Tosafists, Rabbi Yaakov of Marvege, asked questions—but he asked them through a dream, and the answers were answers from Heaven. She’eilos Uteshuvos Min Hashamayim, a very unusual book. In that book, one entry gives a date, 19 Kislev, and says that 19 Kislev is a day of good tidings. The Rebbe asks: What does it mean that 19 Kislev is a day of good tidings? What special good tidings came on 19 Kislev? We know of no special tidings on 19 Kislev in Jewish history. The Rebbe answers that the special good tidings of 19 Kislev were the Alter Rebbe’s release from prison in 5559. That was hundreds of years after Rabbi Yaakov of Marvege received the Divine revelation recorded in She’eilos Uteshuvos Min Hashamayim, saying that 19 Kislev is a day of good tidings. But the Rebbe says: We see that Megillas Taanis, a work of revealed Torah, can mark a day because of something that will happen a thousand years later. So She’eilos Uteshuvos Min Hashamayim, whose whole subject is Divine revelation, can certainly speak of an event that will take place hundreds of years in the future.

21:35 Speaker 2 So we’ve discussed this stanza, the third stanza of the piyyut, which deals with 9 Teves. We saw that according to the poet, the tragic event that occurred on 9 Teves was the passing of Ezra the Scribe. We also discussed other events associated with that day: the birth of that man, may his name be erased, or the death of Rabbi Yosef HaNagid in Spain many years later. Now let’s turn to the fourth stanza of the piyyut, which is really its central stanza, the thread running through it. We are talking about 10 Teves. This appears in the Selichos for 10 Teves. This stanza does indeed speak about 10 Teves, but from a less familiar angle. The poet says in the verse beginning with the letter yud: “On the tenth day, the son of Buzi the seer was commanded.”

23:47 Speaker 2 “The seer” is, of course, someone who sees—a prophet, who can see far into the future. The son of Buzi is Yechezkel the prophet. What was Yechezkel commanded on 10 Teves? “Write for yourself in the book of vision”—write down this prophecy, this vision—“as a remembrance for a people brought low and despised,” a remembrance for a people in exile, “this very day.” What exactly is going on there? What does Yechezkel have to write? Let’s say a little about that period, the time of the destruction of the First Beis Hamikdash. In the period leading up to the destruction, there were two principal true prophets, both of whom prophesied about it. One was in Eretz Yisroel: Yirmiyahu. He prophesied about the destruction and also lived through its events, but we won’t go into that at length. The second was Yechezkel. Yechezkel was among those exiled to Babylonia eleven years before the destruction, in the well-known exile called the Exile of the Craftsmen and the Smiths. When Yechonyah, king of Yehudah, was exiled, some of the finest people went into exile with him, Yechezkel among them. Yechezkel prophesied in Babylonia; Yirmiyahu prophesied in Eretz Yisroel. Both prophets gave a similar message: destruction was coming. The false prophets of that period prophesied that there would be no destruction. The Jewish people—the ordinary Jew—did not always know who was a true prophet and who was a false one. On this day, 10 Teves, Hashem told Yechezkel: I will perform a miracle through you, and through that miracle everyone will know that a prophet of Hashem dwells among them. What would happen? Hakadosh Boruch Hu said to Yechezkel: We are in Babylonia. In Babylonia, people do not know what is happening in Eretz Yisroel. Those devices—the devices through which we are watching this class, and all the other devices we have today—did not exist then. A Jew in Babylonia knew what was happening in his own village. He would hear what was happening in a nearby city after a few days. What was happening in Eretz Yisroel, especially during a war and a siege, he could learn only after

26:18 Speaker 2 several months, as we will see later as well. Hakadosh Boruch Hu said to Yechezkel: Know that a siege began today, and write down today that the siege began today. When the day comes and it becomes clear that the siege of Jerusalem really did begin on 10 Teves, the Jews will understand that you truly are a prophet of Hashem. That is the angle from which the poet, Rabbi Yosef, writes about 10 Teves. He does not write—interestingly, why doesn’t he write?—“10 Teves, the day the siege began.” Instead, he writes about 10 Teves as the day Hashem gave a sign through Yechezkel so that people would know he was a true prophet. It was the day Yechezkel, in Babylonia, knew through prophecy what was happening in Eretz Yisroel, in a way that could not be denied or argued away. The fourth stanza ends with the words “this very day.” Regarding 10 Teves, the words “this very day” are written, and our Sages drew a comparison to the words “this very day” written in the Torah about Yom Kippur. Therefore, if 10 Teves were to fall on Shabbos, it would be permissible to fast on Shabbos. But we won’t go into that novel point; there is room to discuss it. Let’s move to the fifth stanza of the piyyut, which speaks about the fourth event that took place in the month of Teves. This fourth event happened on 5 Teves. Until now we’ve spoken about 8 Teves, 9 Teves, and 10 Teves, and now we turn to 5 Teves. In our generation, we know 5 Teves as a day of celebration, but in their day, 5 Teves had a tragic significance. Before we read the stanza, let’s give some background, because it is very hard to understand without it. We know that there are four fasts observed because of the destruction. These four fasts are not mentioned as fast days; quite the opposite, they are mentioned as Yom Tov days. Where are these four fasts mentioned in the Prophets? The place is in Zechariah. Zechariah

28:46 Speaker 2 Zechariah was one of the last prophets, one of the shorter prophets included in Trei Asar—the twelve prophets whose small books were gathered together. Zechariah lived at the beginning of the Second Beis Hamikdash period, when most Jews did not go up to Eretz Yisroel. Most stayed in Babylonia. About forty-two thousand went up, while the majority remained in Babylonia. Those who stayed did not attach much importance to the building of the Second Beis Hamikdash. We know that even among those who went up, some saw the Second Beis Hamikdash and remembered the beauty and size of the First. When they saw the Second Beis Hamikdash, they wept. They did not rejoice; they wept at the memory. Later, it was renovated by Herod, and it was said that anyone who had not seen Herod’s building had never seen a beautiful building in his life. But when the Second Beis Hamikdash was first built, it was not so impressive, at least physically. Spiritually, too, certain things were missing. For these and other reasons, they did not regard it as a Geulah. They even wondered whether they should continue fasting on the fast days instituted because of the destruction. They sent an envoy, a representative, to ask the prophet Zechariah, who was in Eretz Yisroel, whether they should continue fasting. Zechariah gave them a lengthy answer. He gave them a good talking-to, as we would say, and stirred them to teshuvah. Among other things, he said the well-known verse: “Do not devise evil against one another in your hearts.” At the end, he said the verse we quoted at the beginning: “The fast of the fourth, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be for the house of Yehudah days of joy and gladness and festive occasions.” In practical terms, he told them not to fast. But notice something interesting: in this verse, the only verse in Tanach that speaks of these fasts, Zechariah does not state the dates in the month on which they are observed. He says “the fast of the fourth”—the month of Tammuz—but does not say which date in Tammuz. “The fast of the fifth”: we know that is Tisha B’Av,

30:51 Speaker 2 but the verse does not say so. “The fast of the seventh” is in the seventh month, the Fast of Gedaliah on 3 Tishrei, but the prophet does not say so. And “the fast of the tenth” is in the month of Teves, but that is not stated either. The Tannaim Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Shimon, among the greatest of the Tannaim, disagree about this: What is the date of the fast observed in Teves, and what event does it commemorate? One opinion says it is the date we know, 10 Teves. Why 10 Teves? Because that is the day the siege began. The other opinion says no, the fast is on 5 Teves. Why 5 Teves? What happened on that day? It was the day the exiles, the people living in Babylonia, heard that the city had been struck. A fugitive arrived and said, “The city has been struck.” The Beis Hamikdash was burned on Tisha B’Av. The wall was breached on 17 Tammuz. Only half a year later did the news reach Babylonia. In Tishrei of that year, and then in Cheshvan and Kislev, the Jews in Babylonia still thought—and presumably still prayed—that the Beis Hamikdash might be saved. Then suddenly, on 5 Teves, the first fugitive arrived. We can imagine him with unkempt hair, torn clothes, and the dust of the road all over him. He arrived in Babylonia and told them, “My friends, the city has been struck.” When had it been struck? On 17 Tammuz and Tisha B’Av. But for the Jews in Babylonia, the day they heard was an intensely painful day. According to one opinion, that is the day the Jews marked as a fast day. They fasted on that day. The Gemara explains that this opinion has an advantage. The view that the fast is on 5 Teves places the events in the order in which they happened. First, the wall was breached on 17 Tammuz; then the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed on Tisha B’Av. Gedaliah son of Achikam, the leader of the impoverished remnant of Israel, was killed on 3 Tishrei, about two months after Tisha B’Av—almost three months—and after that the news reached Babylonia. But according to the view we

33:26 Speaker 2 follow, that 10 Teves is the day the siege began, it would seem difficult to understand why the verse gives an order that does not follow the sequence of events. According to our view, 10 Teves should have come first, because that was when the siege began. The siege began long before the wall was breached, the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, and Gedaliah son of Achikam was killed. The question is not so difficult; it can be explained. We can say that the prophet Zechariah listed the events not in the order in which they occurred—which would have put 10 Teves first—but in the order they fall in the calendar year. He listed them by month, not by event or by calamity. That is why 10 Teves comes last: Teves is the tenth month, and if we begin counting from the first month, Nissan, we reach 10 Teves only at the end. With that introduction, we can read the fifth stanza of the piyut. The poet, Rabbi Yosef, says: “If the count follows the order of the months, the tenth is the occasion.” If we explain the words of the prophet Zechariah as following the order of the months, then 10 Teves is not the last calamity but the first, and it appears at the end because of the order of the months. So, “If the count follows the order of the months, the tenth is the occasion”—that is 10 Teves. “Then I wail with my mouth”: I will weep on that day, 10 Teves. “But in my heart I recall the order of the calamities.” If I say that the poet followed not the order of the months but the order of the events, the order of the calamities, then “when the fugitive came to me saying, ‘The city has been struck,’” that was on 5 Teves, not 10 Teves. So there are two possibilities for when we mark “the fast of the tenth,” the fast that falls in the tenth month.

35:43 Speaker 2 There are two possibilities for when we observe it: either we fast on—either we fast on 10 Teves, as is our custom, or we fast for another calamity, the last one, on 5 Teves. In practice, the fast is on 10 Teves. But in the piyutim, in the kinot in which we mourn the destruction, we also mention that day of sorrow, 5 Teves. The next three stanzas of the piyut are its closing stanzas. In fact, the four stanzas we have just studied—the second, third, fourth, and fifth—are the four central stanzas of the piyut. They speak about what happened in the month of Teves: 8 Teves, 9 Teves, 10 Teves, and 5 Teves. The sixth, seventh, and eighth stanzas are closing stanzas. The first of these expresses the depth of sorrow caused by those four events. “For these, I scattered dust upon my face”: I scatter ashes on my face out of grief. “I opened my mouth over all four of them”—over these four calamities. Unlike the beginning of the piyut, which mentions three calamities in our version, the end mentions four. “Over all four, would that I had shot an arrow into my heart.” I would rather have died, shooting an arrow into my heart, than have endured these calamities. “For these troubles, I dug myself a grave.” Of course, he means that because of these troubles, he would rather have dug himself a grave. The poet began with “these troubles” rather than “because of these troubles” because the line had to begin with the letter tzadi. He concludes the stanza: “Hashem is righteous, for I rebelled against His word.” The next stanza is one of hope. “I called upon Your name, seeking comfort for my suffering.” “Seeking comfort for my suffering” could mean that we find comfort, or that Hakadosh Boruch Hu does. As we know, it says, “And Hashem relented concerning the harm He had spoken of bringing upon His people.” But both meanings are probably correct. We regret the wrongs we have done, and it is written that Hashem relents concerning the exile. “See my affliction,” the poet continues, “and hear the voice of my plea.” Hear the prayer

38:05 Speaker 2 mine, “Hear my plea; hasten my salvation. Do not turn Your ear away from my cry, from my plea.” This passage concludes a prayer for the Geulah. Its final section brings together both themes: the pain on the one hand and the hope on the other. “In the month of Teves I suffered greatly, and the course it was meant to take changed for me.” Our Sages say that Teves was given that name because it was meant to bring good to the Jewish people, but its course changed. The plan, so to speak, changed, and that month brought many troubles. “I was wayward, I sinned, and nevertheless”—we pray that Hashem reveal His goodness to me. He who tells the sea, “Thus far shall you come,” who can set a boundary for the sea—we hope that He will also set a boundary for the exile and say to our troubles, “Thus far shall you come, and no further.” With Hashem’s help, this will happen immediately, right now. Until now we have spoken about the troubles of the month of Teves, the troubles we mourn and lament on 10 Teves. On the other hand, the Rebbe says that this day also contains a point of light. On this day, the building of the third Beis Hamikdash began, because we know that the entire destruction is for the sake of the rebuilding. 10 Teves was the beginning—the beginning of the destruction, when the siege had only just begun, but still, it was the beginning. If it is the beginning of the destruction, it is also the beginning of the rebuilding. And with Hashem’s help, even before this talk is published and even before 10 Teves, may we merit the complete building of the third Beis Hamikdash, with the full revelation, immediately, right now.