We hope you have recovered from the miracle of Chanukah, when you planned to only eat one doughnut or latke and you end up eating eight!
Tevet 10 is observed as a day of fasting, mourning and repentance, in remembrance of the siege of Jerusalem. On this date in the year 3336 from Creation (425 BCE), the armies of the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem. Thirty months later -- on Tammuz 17, 3338 -- the city walls were breached, and on 9 Av of that year, the Holy Temple was destroyed. The Jewish people were exiled to Babylonia for 70 years.
It is the shortest fast of the year. We refrain from food (including doughnuts and latkes) and drink from daybreak (in Houston at 5:55 am) to nightfall (5:56 pm), when we break our fast with the Shabbos Kiddush. We add the Selichot and other special supplements to our prayers. More recently, Tevet 10 was chosen to also serve as a "general kaddish day" for the victims of the Holocaust, many of whose day of martyrdom is unknown.
Although fast days are generally not observed if it is on a Friday or Shabbos, besides Yom Kippur, this fast is the only fast that is not rescheduled and observed even when it falls out on a Friday. (Fun fact: Yom Kippur can only fall on Shabbos, not Friday).
Related: Learn about Tevet 10; Essays and Stories on the Holocaust
Next Week: YJP Houston First Fridays of January and 2021! In 2019 you stayed away from negative people, in 2020 you stayed away from positive people. Now with the vaccine we pray for 20021 when it will, please G-d, be positive to be positive.
A fire ignited within him, an urgent drive that granted neither time nor space to negotiate. He summoned his inner ninja and did the unthinkable: he confronted the prince of Egypt himself and demanded the release of the Jewish boy. There was nothing to discuss—it simply had to happen! more…
SHABBOS PARSHAS VAYIGASH
Friday, Fast of Asara B'Teves - December 25
Fast Begins at 5:55 am
Mincha with Torah Ready and Haftorah at 5 pm
Candle Lighting at 5:11 pm
Kabbalat Shabbat at 5:40 pm
Earliest Shema and Fast Ends at 5:56 pm
Shabbos, Teves 11 - December 26
Latest Morning Shema at 9:47 am
Shacharis at 10:00 am
Mincha at 5:10 pm
Maariv, Havdalla & Shabbos Ends at 6:09 pm
Living Torah
