One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
תַּעֲנִיּוֹת
Fasts 2
Sefer Zemanim · The ten communal distresses that call for a fast and the trumpets, and the thresholds that decide when trouble has taken a shape a community is permitted to read
3
Deaths on three consecutive days that make a plague
500
Working men, the census that measure is taken against
60%
Of real value, the price collapse that counts as distress
40
Days without rain in the season, and it is a drought
Part 1The ten distresses, and how far the alarm travels
- The list itself. Fasting with trumpets is called for the distress enemies cause the Jews, the passage of an armed force, plague, a wild animal on the rampage, the locust species, the black and yellow blights, falling buildings, epidemic, the loss of the community's livelihood, and rain. (2:1)
- The city blows, the neighbors only fast. An afflicted city fasts and sounds the trumpets until the trouble passes, while the surrounding area fasts without trumpets and asks for mercy on its behalf; on the Sabbath there is no crying out and no trumpet, except for loss of livelihood, where the crying out is permitted but the trumpets still are not sounded. (2:2)
- Seeing war is itself distress. An armed force passing through counts even where it has peaceful intentions and is at war with someone else entirely, since the blessing promises that a sword will not pass through your land; neighboring cities fast without trumpets unless they blow to gather help. (2:3, 2:4)
- Consecutive days, and a census that excludes most of the town. Three deaths on three consecutive days in a city of five hundred men is a plague, while the same three on one day or across four days is not; a thousand men need six on three consecutive days, the ratio scales to any size, and women, children and older men who no longer work are left out of the count. (2:5)
- The circle follows the caravans. A plague in the land of Israel obliges the diaspora to fast on behalf of its inhabitants, and where caravans travel regularly between two countries both fast, however distant they are from each other. (2:6)
RememberThe measure is not how many were lost. It is whether the losses fell in a row.
Part 2The beast, the walls, and what does not qualify
- A graded test for a rampaging animal. Seen in a city by day it is on a rampage; in a field by day it must meet two men and not flee; near a swamp it must pursue them; inside the swamp it must kill both and eat only one, and if it ate both it is not on a rampage, for this is its place and it killed out of hunger. (2:7)
- Houses built in the wilderness are judged differently. Where homes stand in deserts or abandoned areas, the natural haunt of wild animals, nothing counts as a rampage short of an animal climbing a roof and taking a baby from a cradle, since the fault lies with people who endangered themselves by settling there. (2:8)
- Crying out without a fast. Swarming snakes, scorpions and injurious birds bring crying out but no fast and no trumpets, and the same for hornets and mosquitoes; chagav brings crying out alone, while a single fleet of locusts anywhere in the land, or the least quantity of govai, obliges a fast with trumpets. (2:9, 2:10)
- Walls that had no reason to fall. Many strong walls beginning to collapse in a city warrant a fast with trumpets, provided they do not stand on a riverbank, and the same applies to earthquakes and to winds strong enough to destroy buildings and kill; blight on even an oven's mouth of grain qualifies at once. (2:11, 2:12)
- Epidemic measured by spread, not by fear. One illness such as a throat infection or polio taking hold of many in a city and killing is communal distress calling for fast and trumpets, and running sores on the majority are treated as boils; a dry itch through the community brings crying out alone. (2:13)
RememberThe animal that killed two men and ate one was sent. The animal that ate both was only hungry, and hunger is not a message.
Part 3Markets, drought, and rain that is not a trouble
- Sixty percent of real value. Where the goods most of a city lives by, linen in Babylon or wine and oil in the land of Israel, must be offered at sixty percent of their worth before a buyer can be found, that is communal distress and it is cried out over even on the Sabbath. (2:14)
- Abundant rain is a trouble only where the houses are mud. Excessive rainfall calls for prayer, there being no greater trouble than homes falling and becoming graves, yet in the land of Israel no such prayer is offered, since it is mountainous and its houses are stone, and one does not fast in order to make a benefit pass. (2:15)
- Rain that stops after the crop has started. When the produce has sprouted and the rains cease until it begins to dry, the people fast and cry out until rain falls or the produce dries out completely. (2:16)
- Seasons that pass without their rain. If the Pesach season arrives, when the trees of the land of Israel flower, without rain fit for trees, they fast and cry out until it falls or the season passes; if Sukkot arrives without enough rain to fill the vats, ditches and caverns, they fast until the vats can be filled. (2:16, 2:17)
- Drinking water overrides the calendar. Where there is no water to drink the people fast for rain at any time at all, even in the summer, and forty days without rain within the rainy season is a drought calling for fasting and crying out until rain descends or the season ends. (2:17, 2:18)
RememberThe one distress cried out over on Shabbat is the market, and even there the trumpets stay silent. The voice is permitted; the alarm is not.