Trutharchivist

So I said I might continue with my Jewish holidays series. Well, here is the beginning of covering things I've missed!

It's around this time of the Hebrew year that we get back to the time I wrote my first SU on the topic - regarding Pesach, AKA Passover.

Barely a single year has passed, and yet - it was a lifetime. I've been reading Frugal Wizard this time last year.

But enough about me! We're here to talk about some of the things I didn't cover regarding Pesach, and I actually want to go for one of the... Slightly less remembered facets. I want to talk about the 7th fast - one of the ones that don't usually count. Also, it will serve in part to talk about something related to the holiday the war here begun at.

So, Ta'anit Bechorot. The Fast of the Firstborn. It's a day of fasting on the day right before Pesach. Most all religious Jews know about this fast, and yet you'll be hard pressed to find even one person that fasts during it. Why is that? And why does such a fast exist in the first place?

Let's start from the latter question. It's kind of easy, because it's in the name. Remember the 10th Plague? The Plague of the Firstborns? Well, during it G-d could've just as well killed the Israelite firstborns as well. They were supposed to die, but G-d took pity on them. For this reason, the firstborn of every family supposedly belongs to G-d and has to be ceremoniously bought back by his parents from the Cohen, the Priest. Oh, yeah, and it holds just for the male firstborns. So for some reason, it also means they should fast during the day before the Plague was to hit.

So yeah, it's a fast only for male firstborns, or fathers of male firstborns whose children aren't of age yet. So is that the reason it's hard to find anyone fasting? Because there aren't many male firstborns?

Wrong. For obvious reasons. Every family has a firstborn (especially nowadays, when death rates among infants are significantly lower in relation to older eras), and it's a 50/50 chance it'll be a boy. Sure, the firstborns are still a small number of the population, but not that much. So why is that?

Well, the thing is... This fast doesn't have much to stand on regarding its origin. It's first mentioned in a relatively late source: it's not from the Torah, Prophets or even the old Sages. It's more of a tradition than a rule. And thus, it was agreed by several rabbis that if there there was an occasion during which there's a religious reason to eat - such as a wedding, for example - the firstborns can eat from it, and afterwards they don't have to fast any longer. But the usual escape isn't via weddings - it's using another mechanism, about which I want to elaborate: the Siyum feast.

You see, Judaism is heavily structured about learning and studying. Our books, written throughout the ages, our our holiest possessions. And so, it is said in Midrash Rabah on the Song of Songs that from the feast king Shelomo (Solomon) made right after his dream we learn that one should make a feast after finishing the Torah - likely because he asked for wisdom, it's as if he just studied the entire Torah or something. Anyway, that developed in what is known today as the Siyum (meaning finishing) Feast: every time someone finishes studying a book - usually one of the 37 Babylonian Talmud tractates, though a tractate of the Jerusalem Talmud or an Order (a collection of tractates, of which there are six) of Mishnah can also count - they gather around as many people as possible, hopefully at least 10 men (a Minyan). They then read out and explain the last paragraph of the book they've studied, sometimes talk a little on thoughts they had while studying it, and then they read out a couple of prayers: telling the book that as they repeat it, it will repeat them (don't ask, it's kind of weird) and that as they remember it it will remember them, both in this world and the next. Then they ask G-d to make the Torah pleasant for us to study, so that us and all our descendants will keep studying it; then they thank G-d for putting them among those who study the Torah. Lastly, they ask that like they finished this book, they could go on to study more of them. After that they say the Resurrection Kaddish and start eating. Though some people start the eating way earlier.

In case you were wondering, yes, it's a whole ceremony - but not a long and tedious one, really, it's mostly relatively short prayers, really. The Kaddish requires ten adult men to recount it, which is why they are needed. 

There's technically a slightly different text for finishing a book of the Tanakh. In addition, one can say a similar text on other religious books that weren't listed. Still, traditionally it's a tractate of the Talmud.

In a way, the holiday of Simchat Torah - the day everything went south for the State of Israel - is just a very large Siyum. You see, every year we read the Pentateuch, divided to 53 portion - with one being read every Shabbat (Saturday), every week of the year. There are some derailing with Shabbats that are during holidays and calculations of reading a specific portion at a specific date, which all lead in the end to the next to last portion being read during the last Shabbat right before Sukkot (unless Yom Kipur is in Shabbat, in which case it's the previous one). The next time we read from the Torah in the regular order is Simchat Torah, and there is much joy during it - we dance with the scrolls of the Torah in the synagogue. We also read the begining of both the entire Pentateuch (Genesis) and of the Prophets (Joshua) - which serves to show both the cycle of studying and repeating and continuing studying farther. Which leads me to another, somewhat less common tradition - of starting the next book you study during the event of the Siyum.

So, generally there are lots of Siyum Feasts during the day before Pesach, and most every firstborn goes to those - and this is why it'd be hard finding anyone practicing the fast.

So, that'll be it for now! I do still have more things I forgot to mention last time about Pesach, but I'm not going to say them right now. Be sure to check out the original SU if you didn't see it yet, for more information I likely won't repeat. Happy and Kosher Pesach to those who celebrate! To those who don't, have a good day!