The fast of the seventeenth of Tammuz is like Salieri to the ninth of Av’s Mozart—overshadowed by the fast that commemorates the destruction of both first and second Temples (Mishnah Ta’anit 4:6) and therefore overlooked in contemporary Jewish culture. Jews will still be going hungry on the lesser dawn-till-dark fast. The seventeenth still memorializes the day that Moses came down from Mt. Sinai, saw the lascivious feasting and dancing around the Golden Calf and broke the tablets that had just been given him by God. Read more...

Note: This drash references an earlier contribution written by Rabbi Elliot Dorff. Please click here to read. Read more...

On the seventeenth of Tammuz the tablets were broken by Moses when he saw that the Jews had made the golden calf; the daily offering was nullified by the Roman authorities and was never sacrificed again; the city walls of Jerusalem were breached; the general Apostemos (probably Antiochus Epiphanes) publicly burned a Torah scroll; and Manasseh placed an idol in the Sanctuary. (Ta’anit 26a-b). Read more...