{"id":79443,"date":"2020-08-30T16:04:02","date_gmt":"2020-08-30T13:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=79443"},"modified":"2020-08-30T16:04:02","modified_gmt":"2020-08-30T13:04:02","slug":"the-fifth-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-fifth-month\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fifth Month"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Our chapter is dated to the 4<\/span>th<\/span> year of the reign of King Darius the Mede (corresponding to the 68<\/span>th<\/span> year after the destruction and, hence, two years before the Second Temple would be rebuilt), on the 4<\/span>th<\/span> day of the 9<\/span>th<\/span> month, which is given the name \u201cKislev.\u201d (See also 1:7 that names the 11<\/span>th<\/span> month Shevat.) Zechariah is one of the sources of the understanding that the current names of the months are Babylonian.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Tanakh generally uses ordinal numbers for the months, with such exceptions as \u201cthe month of <\/span>aviv<\/span><\/em>\u201d (Dt. 16:1) signifying an agricultural phenomenon, and \u201cthe month of <\/span>eitanim<\/span><\/em>\u201d (1 Kings 8:2), \u201cthe month of <\/span>ziv<\/span><\/em>\u201d (1 Kings 6:1), and \u201cthe month of <\/span>bul<\/span><\/em>\u201d (there, v.38), apparently vestiges of the Canaanite calendar. It is only during the period of exile and, later, throughout the Second Temple era, that the current names were employed, as noted by Ibn Ezra in his commentary to Exodus 12:1: \u201cThis month [i.e., Nisan] shall be, for you, the chief month; the first, for you, of the months of the year.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Nisan, Iyar, Sivan, indeed the names of all the months, are not Hebrew but Chaldean. Therefore, not one of them is to be found in Scripture save for the prophecies of Zechariah, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, and the Scroll of Esther\u2014who were in the Diaspora.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this chapter, the advice of the prophet was sought regarding a question: \u201cShall I weep and practice abstinence in the fifth month, as I have been doing all these years?\u201d (3). The fifth month (from Nisan) is the month of Av and the petitioners were asking whether the mourning practices associated with that month were to be continued, even though a good deal of the new Temple had been completed and sacrifices were again being offered. His answer is in Chapter 8.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fact that the question mentioned \u201cthe fifth month\u201d and not, specifically, the ninth day thereof, plus its reference to both weeping and abstinence, would seem to indicate that it was posed to two related practices: the abstinence from physical desires\u2014such as eating and drinking\u2014that marked the fast day of Tish`a b\u2019Av<\/em>, and weeping, which was characteristic of the entire month of Av. Indeed, the Mishnah stipulates: \u201cWhen Av begins, one limits enjoyment\u201d (Ta`anit 7:6).<\/span><\/p>\n

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