The 17th of Tammuz —The Fast That Opens the Three Weeks of Grief
The 17th of Tammuz is the day a single breach in a stone wall changed the course of Jewish history, and it is the day each year on which we begin to feel the loss anew. On this fast the walls of Yerushalayim were broken through, and within three weeks the Beis HaMikdash itself lay in ashes. We do not mark it as a distant memory but as a wound still open, because in any generation that does not see the Mikdash rebuilt, the loss is counted as if it happened in our own days. At Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Charities, this is the season we feel most keenly that tefillah and tzedakah belong together — that mourning which does not move us to action is only half a teshuvah. Through the Three Weeks, until Tisha B’Av, we live inside what the navi calls the narrow straits, and the way through them is paved with prayer and with giving to the poor of Eretz Yisroel.
This article is an invitation to understand what was lost on this fast, what the day asks of us, and why our grief has always carried a thread of hope. Let us walk through it as one would learn it in the beis medrash — slowly, and with the heart awake.
Understanding the 17th of Tammuz
Shiva Asar B’Tammuz (the seventeenth of Tammuz) is a public fast day observed from dawn until nightfall, falling in the summer month of Tammuz and opening the three-week mourning period known as Bein HaMetzarim. It is one of the four fasts that mourn the destruction of the Batei Mikdash, and the prophet Zechariah names it tzom harevi’i, the fast of the fourth month, since Tammuz is the fourth month counting from Nissan (Zechariah 8:19). The obligation falls on all adult men and women alike, as a communal fast rather than a private one, though the minor fasts carry leniencies that Tisha B’Av and Yom Kippur do not.
The Mishnah teaches that five calamities befell our ancestors on this day, and the breach of Yerushalayim during the second churban is the one for which the fast is named in halachic memory (Mishnah Taanis 4:6). The fast is established in the Rambam’s listing of the four communal fasts and codified in the Shulchan Aruch (Rambam, Hilchos Taaniyos 5:2; Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 549:1). Its purpose, the Rambam writes, is not sorrow for its own sake but to awaken the heart to the paths of teshuvah, to remember our own deeds and our fathers’ (Rambam, Hilchos Taaniyos 5:1). A first-time learner should come away knowing this is a dawn-to-night fast that begins the Three Weeks; one who keeps it every year should note the precise framing — the day is a summons to return, not merely to mourn.
The History and Origins of the 17th of Tammuz
The Mishnah enumerates five tragedies of this day: Moshe Rabbeinu shattered the Luchos when he descended to find the Golden Calf; the Tamid, the daily offering, ceased during the siege; the walls of Yerushalayim were breached; the wicked Apostomos burned a Torah scroll; and an idol was set up in the Heichal (Mishnah Taanis 4:6). The Gemara addresses an apparent difficulty, since Scripture records that in the first churban the city was breached on the ninth of Tammuz (Yirmiyahu 39:2), while the Mishnah gives the seventeenth — and resolves that the seventeenth marks the breach of the second Beis HaMikdash, the one our fast commemorates (Taanis 28b). From that breach the Roman legions poured into the city, and the path to the burning of the Mikdash three weeks later was set.
What binds these five events is not coincidence of calendar alone but a single theme that Chazal preserved in the mesorah: each was a rupture between Israel and the Divine Presence. The broken Luchos, the silenced offering, the breached wall, the burned scroll, the defiled Sanctuary — each tore a thread that joined the people to Hashem. The poskim who shaped today’s practice, from the Rambam’s codification of the fast to the Tur and Beis Yosef’s treatment of its laws (Tur and Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 549–550), understood the day as the opening of a season of return rather than an isolated commemoration. We do not read the churban through the lens of politics or human failure of strategy; the Gemara accounts for it in its own terms, as the consequence of the nation’s deeds. The breach in the wall was the visible sign of a breach that had already opened within.
The Prayers, Readings & Customs of the 17th of Tammuz
The 17th of Tammuz carries the full liturgy of a public fast, woven into Shacharis and Mincha. Selichos, penitential prayers composed for the four fasts, are recited in the morning service, mourning the day’s losses and pleading for mercy; the exact selichos for Shiva Asar B’Tammuz are printed in the standard fast-day selichos and vary slightly by nusach. Avinu Malkeinu (our Father, our King), the litany of supplication familiar from the Yamim Noraim, is added at Shacharis and Mincha. On 17 Tammuz, the shaliach tzibbur recites Aneinu in the repetition at Shacharit and Mincha as a separate berachah between Goel Yisrael and Refaenu. Individuals recite Aneinu in Shomea Tefillah; in standard Ashkenazi practice this is generally at Mincha, while the Mechaber records that on the four public fasts it may be said in all tefillos.
At both Shacharit and Mincha on a public fast, the Torah reading is Vayechal Moshe (Exodus 32:11–14; 34:1–10), recounting Moshe’s plea after the Calf and the revelation of the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy. At Mincha, Ashkenazic practice reads the haftarah Dirshu Hashem b’himatzo (Isaiah 55:6–56:8); see Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 566:1, with Rema ad loc. On the Seventeenth of Tammuz, this is especially fitting, since the Mishnah lists the breaking of the Luchos among that day’s calamities.
Beyond the fixed liturgy, many take on extra Tehillim, learn the laws of the season, and use the daylight hours for the cheshbon hanefesh the day is meant to provoke. The customs of mourning that now begin — refraining from weddings, music, and haircuts through the Three Weeks — are taken up in detail on our Three Weeks page, since they extend well past this single fast.
What the 17th of Tammuz Means: A Deeper Look
The arc of this day runs from rupture to the possibility of repair. Each of its five tragedies is a different kind of breaking, and read together they teach how a people loses, and ultimately recovers, its closeness to Hashem. Let us draw out four of its ideas.
The breach of the city walls. A wall is the boundary that makes an inside possible; when it is breached, what was protected lies exposed. We may understand the breach of the protective wall as the external mirror of an inner collapse of the bonds that held the nation together. For the reader, the lesson is intimate: the walls that guard a marriage, a home, or a soul are rarely lost in a single blow, but through a slow erosion that one day shows itself as a visible breach. The fast asks us to notice the first cracks while they can still be mended.
The shattered Luchos. That the Luchos broke on this very day, centuries before the churban, is striking in the eyes of Chazal. Traditional sources place both the broken tablets and the breach of the city on this date, inviting us to see a pattern of rupture from the start. There is a link between the broken tablets and the breach — both are the loss of the form that holds the holy in place. We feel this in our own lives whenever a structure that once contained something sacred — a routine of learning, a discipline of prayer — falls away, and we are left holding the fragments.
The silenced Tamid. When the daily offering ceased, the steady heartbeat of the avodah stopped; the connection that had been constant became, suddenly, absent. The Tamid was the most ordinary of the offerings, brought every single day without fanfare, and its loss teaches that the gravest break is often the quiet ending of a faithful routine. For us, it is the small consistencies — the daily davening, the unremarkable act of giving — whose disappearance hollows out a life long before any dramatic fall.
The idol in the Heichal. The placing of an idol in the Sanctuary is perhaps the most jarring of the five, because it is not absence but substitution — something false enthroned in the place meant for the Divine. The danger the day warns against is not only that holiness can be lost, but that something hollow can be installed in its seat and mistaken for it. The day asks each of us to look honestly at what we have allowed to occupy the center that belongs to Hashem alone.
The Laws & Customs of the Fast
The 17th of Tammuz is a minor fast, and its laws differ in important ways from the stringency of Tisha B’Av. The fast begins at amud hashachar (dawn) and ends at tzeis hakochavim (nightfall), so the night before is not part of the fast; one who wishes to eat before dawn may do so, but after sleeping one must ordinarily have stipulated beforehand in order to resume eating (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 564:1; the fast is completed at nightfall per Orach Chaim 562, and the four-fast obligation is in Orach Chaim 550:1). Only eating and drinking are forbidden — unlike the five inuyim of Tisha B’Av, there is no prohibition on washing, anointing, leather shoes, or marital relations on this day.
Because the minor fasts are less severe, halacha extends real leniency to those for whom fasting is difficult. Pregnant and nursing women are exempt when fasting causes them suffering, and one who is ill is not obligated to fast at all, though such a person should consult a rav and ordinarily eats only what is necessary (Mishnah Berurah, Orach Chaim 550:8). When the 17th of Tammuz falls on Shabbos, the fast is deferred to Sunday, the 18th — and because Tisha B’Av always falls on the same weekday as the 17th of Tammuz exactly three weeks later, that year’s Tisha B’Av is likewise pushed off. The day also inaugurates the practical mourning of Bein HaMetzarim, whose restrictions on weddings, live music, and haircuts intensify as the Nine Days approach. The distinction between a binding din and a widely kept minhag matters throughout this season, and where customs differ between the Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities, each follows its own received practice.
A halachic note on who fasts: The minor fasts, including the 17th of Tammuz, were accepted by Klal Yisroel as obligatory, yet they carry leniencies that Tisha B’Av does not. Those who are ill, and pregnant or nursing women who find fasting difficult, should not compromise their health and ought to ask a rav.
The Spiritual Power of Tefillah and Tzedakah
The Gemara teaches that tzedakah saves from death, citing the verse that “righteousness delivers from death” (Bava Basra 10a; Mishlei 10:2). Rambam describes the highest form of tzedakah as helping a person stand on his own feet through a gift, loan, partnership, or work (Hilchos Matnos Aniyim 10:7). And to connect tzedakah specifically to a fast day, the Gemara says that “the reward for a fast is in the charity distributed,” together with Rambam’s teaching that the purpose of the fasts is to arouse the heart to repentance (Berakhot 6b; Hilchos Taaniyos 5:2). On that basis, tefillah and tzedakah can be presented together as parts of a single avodah.
This is the heart of what Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Charities was built to make possible. Rabbi Meir Baal Haness left a legacy to intercede in Heaven for those who give to the needy of Eretz Yisroel in his memory, and the Three Weeks — the season of teshuvah and rebuilding — is when that legacy speaks most directly to us. The breach we mourn on this fast began with frayed bonds between Jew and Jew; the repair begins with the outstretched hand. To fast is to feel the loss; to give is to begin to mend it.
Give Tzedakah in the Merit of Rabbi Meir Baal Haness The 17th of Tammuz opens three weeks of mourning the breach in our walls — and the surest way to rebuild is through the giving that binds the people together. Let your fast become a merit for the poor of Eretz Yisroel and a step toward nechamah. Donate Now
About Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Charities
Rabbi Meir Baal Haness Charities, founded in 1799, is one of the oldest and most trusted tzedakah organizations serving the poor of Eretz Yisroel, upholding Rabbi Meir Baal Haness’s legacy that those who give to the needy in his memory find heavenly intercession in their time of need.
Today it distributes funds to Torah scholars, widows, orphans, and needy families throughout Eretz Yisroel — an unbroken chain of compassion and a zechus for the giver and their family.
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Frequently Asked Questions About the 17th of Tammuz
The 17th of Tammuz commemorates five tragedies, chief among them the breach of the walls of Yerushalayim during the destruction of the Second Beis HaMikdash (Mishnah Taanis 4:6). That breach began the three weeks of calamity that ended with the burning of the Mikdash on Tisha B'Av, which is why the fast opens the mourning period of Bein HaMetzarim.
No. It is a minor fast observed only from dawn until nightfall, and only eating and drinking are forbidden — not washing, anointing, or wearing leather shoes. The leniencies for the ill and for pregnant and nursing women are far broader than on Tisha B'Av or Yom Kippur, and a rav should be consulted in cases of difficulty.
The prophet Zechariah refers to it as tzom harevi'i, the fast of the fourth month, because Tammuz is the fourth month when counting from Nissan (Zechariah 8:19). The same verse promises that this fast will one day become a festival of joy.
When the 17th of Tammuz falls on Shabbos, the fast is deferred to Sunday, the 18th of Tammuz, since we do not fast on Shabbos for these minor fasts. Because Tisha B'Av always lands on the same weekday three weeks later, it too is pushed off that year.
The Rambam is explicit that the purpose of these fasts is to stir the heart toward teshuvah, not merely to grieve (Rambam, Hilchos Taaniyos 5:1). The mourning is real, but it is meant to move us — toward return, toward repair, and toward the giving that mends the bonds whose fraying brought the churban. You can learn more on our Jewish fast days guide.
Closing
The 17th of Tammuz asks us to feel the first wound of the churban honestly, and then to answer it the way our people always has — with teshuvah, with tefillah, and with tzedakah for the poor of Eretz Yisroel. May the giving we do during these days of bein hametzarim hasten the fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy, when the fast of the fourth month will be turned into joy and gladness, and may we merit speedily to see Yerushalayim rebuilt, bimheirah b’yameinu.
