The Lived Mishnah·A Zeman Nakat Project
Tisha B'Av Series
Mishnah 1 of 41
אִם אֶשְׁכָּחֵךְ יְרוּשָׁלָיִם
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MoedSederסדרמוֹעֵד
TaanisMesechtaמסכתתענית
4Perekפרקד׳
6Mishnahמשנהו׳
נושא · Topicהַפֻּרְעָנֻיּוֹת שֶׁל י״ז בְּתַמּוּז וְתִשְׁעָה בְאָבThe calamities of the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av
Mishnah תענית ד׳:ו׳ · Taanis 4:6
This Mishnah is: a list what does that mean?
חֲמִשָּׁה דְבָרִים אֵרְעוּ אֶת אֲבוֹתֵינוּ בְּשִׁבְעָה עָשָׂר בְּתַמּוּז
וַחֲמִשָּׁה בְּתִשְׁעָה בְאָב.
בְּשִׁבְעָה עָשָׂר בְּתַמּוּז
נִשְׁתַּבְּרוּ הַלּוּחוֹת,
וּבָטַל הַתָּמִיד,
וְהֻבְקְעָה הָעִיר,
וְשָׂרַף אַפּוֹסְטֹמוֹס אֶת הַתּוֹרָה,
וְהֶעֱמִיד צֶלֶם בַּהֵיכָל.
בְּתִשְׁעָה בְאָב
נִגְזַר עַל אֲבוֹתֵינוּ שֶׁלֹּא יִכָּנְסוּ לָאָרֶץ,
וְחָרַב הַבַּיִת בָּרִאשׁוֹנָה וּבַשְּׁנִיָּה,
וְנִלְכְּדָה בֵיתָר,
וְנֶחְרְשָׁה הָעִיר.
מִשֶּׁנִּכְנַס אָב, מְמַעֲטִין בְּשִׂמְחָה.
Five things befell our forefathers on the seventeenth of Tammuz,
and five on the ninth of Av.
On the seventeenth of Tammuz:
the Luchos were broken,
the tamid ceased,
the walls of Yerushalayim were breached,
Apostomos burned the Torah,
and an idol was set up in the Heichal.
On the ninth of Av:
it was decreed our forefathers would not enter the Land,
the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed — the first and the second,
Beitar was captured,
and the city was plowed over.
Once the month of Av begins, we reduce our rejoicing.
case/objectrestrictive rulingcondition
Transcript
Summary Chart
The calamities of the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av▾
CaseRulingReason
What befell on the seventeenth of Tammuz?The Luchos broken; the tamid ceased; the walls of Yerushalayim breached; Apostomos burned the Torah; an idol set in the Heichal—
What befell on the ninth of Av?The decree against entering the Land; the Beis HaMikdash destroyed (first and second); Beitar captured; the city plowed—
Once the month of Av begins, what is the practice?We reduce our rejoicing—
All Meforshim
Mishnah Insights
Five blows on the Seventeenth, five on the Ninth▾

Why ruin gathers on a date

These calamities did not all fall in one generation; across centuries they gathered onto the same dates. The Gemara names the principle (Taanis 29a): megalgelin zechus l'yom zakai v'chovah l'yom chayav — merit is steered toward a day already worthy, ruin toward a day already marked. A date, once stained, becomes the vessel for more of its kind — which is why both Batei HaMikdash fell on the same ninth of Av.

The idol: whose, and which Temple?

Which idol was set up in the Heichal? Bartenura, citing the Yerushalmi, records two opinions. One reads it as the idol of Menashe, which places the event in the First Temple; the other reads it as the idol of Apostomos, a Greek ruler, which places it in the Second. Tosafos Yom Tov adds that the two readings turn even on how the word is vowelized: v'hu'amad, ‘it was set up,’ fits Menashe, while v'he'emid, ‘he set it up,’ fits Apostomos. One word, pointed two ways, carries the memory of two different destructions.

עוֹלָמוֹ שֶׁל הַמִּשְׁנָה
When the tamid stopped

‘The tamid was stopped’ is, the Bavli notes, a received tradition rather than a precisely dated event, and Mishnat Eretz Yisrael fills in the history. The Yerushalmi recalls a siege of the Mikdash when the defenders lowered baskets of gold over the wall each day to buy lambs, so that the daily offering would not lapse. Josephus records the moment it finally did lapse, for want of lambs, and the despair that settled over the people — a despair the Romans were quick to exploit in the war for the city. The break in the avodah was felt as a wound, not a technicality.

עוֹלָמוֹ שֶׁל הַמִּשְׁנָה
The city plowed over

‘Nechersha ha'ir,’ ‘the city was plowed,’ is not a figure of speech, and Mishnat Eretz Yisrael fills in what it actually was. Plowing was a Roman founding rite: to establish a new city, the Romans would drag a plow along the line of its future walls. After the Bar Kochba revolt, the governor Tineius Rufus — the ‘Turnus Rufus’ of the Gemara, the official the aggados set against R' Akiva — ran that founding furrow across Yerushalayim, marking out the pagan colony of Aelia Capitolina on the ruins of the Holy City. Rashi reads the mishnah's phrase against Micah's prophecy, Tzion sadeh teicharesh, ‘Zion will be plowed like a field’ (quoted in Yirmiyah 26:18). The day's mourning sits on a literal furrow — the act of erasure was itself the founding of a city built to replace ours.

שְׁאֵלַת חָכָם

If the navi Zecharyah already names these four fasts, did the returnees of the Second Beis HaMikdash actually keep them — in an era when the Bayis stood again? The mishnayos leave it genuinely cloudy.

Series Insights
Series context▾
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Taanis 4:5
The wood-offering days
Mishnah 1 of 41
Taanis 4:6
The calamities the fasts mourn
Next →
Taanis 4:7
The disciplines of the week of Tisha B'Av

The foundation of the whole series

Everything the series observes rests on this mishnah. It names the calamities the fasts were set against — five on the seventeenth of Tammuz, five on the ninth of Av — and grounds the dates in events, not sentiment. The observance-laws that follow are the lived response to what is recorded here.

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