Tamuz is one of the months in the Jewish calendar, which has 29 days. On July 8, 2012, according to the Gregorian calendar in force in Russia, it corresponds to the seventeenth day of this month in the year 5772 of the Jewish calendar. On this day, one of the Jewish posts begins, established in memory of a series of sad events in the history of this people.
The most ancient of the misfortunes that the Taanite treatise of the Jewish Talmud relates to this date is the loss of the tablets with the ten commandments. The Prophet Moses returned with them from Mount Sinai to the people he had taken away from Egypt, but saw an idol cast from gold - the Golden Calf - which was worshiped by the Jews. The Prophet could not control himself, could not restrain the tablets of stone, and they crashed.
Another misfortune relates to the times of the siege of Jerusalem by the army of Babylon, when the sacrifices were stopped in the Temple due to the fact that it was not possible to deliver sacrificial animals to it. This happened already at the moment when the enemies were able to penetrate the city and soon the Temple was destroyed for the first time.
Its second destruction is also related to the date of 17 tamuz - almost half a century later that day, other troops besieging Jerusalem, this time the Roman, broke through the city walls. This decided the fate of the Temple and forced the Jews to leave their lands.
In a later period, this date includes the incident 16 years before the uprising against the Romans, the burning of the Torah by Apostumos, the governor of King Antiochus. It marked the beginning of new persecution of the Jews.
The fifth reason for the fast is called the placement of a stone idol statue in the Temple, although different sources diverge on the exact date of this act. Some of them attribute the event to the era of the First Temple and are accused of the crime of King Menashe, while others believe that the same Apostumos did this in the era of the Second Temple.
Fasting begins at dawn of 17 tamuz. As during other public posts, the Torah and specially written texts are read in synagogues. Three weeks of "half-mourning" days prepare the Jews for the next mourning period, which begins on 9 Av, so these days believers do not celebrate or listen to music, do not cut their hair and do not buy new clothes, and also do not eat fruit from the new crop.
