The Three Weeks
1,940 years ago, on the 17th of Tammuz (June 29, 2010), the daily offerings at the Temple ceased as the Romans were about to breach the third wall. The Jewish leaders were fighting amongst themselves with what the rabbis called “senseless hatred.” Three parties warred for control: the priests under Ananus, the Zealots under Eleazar ben Simon and John of Giscala, and Simon ben Giora (the would be messiah and leader of a peasant army). These leaders killed each other right up to the bitter end.
The year of Jerusalem’s siege by Rome, 70 CE, was a Sabbatical year. The stores of grain were low already because is was not a year for planting. And the battles between Simon, John, Eleazar, and Ananus depleted resources even before the last Jewish rebels were besieged inside the city walls.
| Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude; she dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting place. -Lamentations 1:3, RSV |
Not long before the end, the party of priests invited Simon and his army of 15,000 inside the city to defeat John and Eleazar. As the Romans quickly captured the first wall and then the second, the Jewish leaders continued with internal fighting. They finally worked together to defend the third wall, but it was too late. By the 17th of Tammuz, there were no men to spare to lead the daily offering, morning and evening. The rebels held out three more weeks until the 9th of Av (Tisha B’Av) when the Romans burned the Temple, destroying it completely.
At the end, suffering was extreme. Poor people deserted the armies of the Jewish leaders near the end and were tortured as examples to discourage other deserters. When the food was nearly gone, others tried to flee the city. The Romans either crucified them in sight of all inside the walls or horribly mutilated them and sent them back inside the city. Josephus records that many Jews died in the fire of the Temple because a false prophet told them to wait in it for deliverance from heaven. Others escaped and continued the battle in the upper city.
Simon bar Giora escaped into underground tunnels and brought stone workers to dig him out secretly. He ran out of food still trapped underground. So he put on garments of a king and dug up to the surface. He was captured on the Temple Mount by the Romans, brought back for a victory procession in Rome, and executed in the Temple of Jupiter.
The three weeks between the 17th of Tammuz (June 29, 2010) and the 9th of Av (July 20, 2010) are a period of mourning in Judaism. No weddings are held in this period. The first nine days of Av, observers refrain from wine, meat, and haircuts. The 9th of Av, the saddest day in Judaism, is a fast, second only to Yom Kippur. The three weeks of mourning are a reminder: Judaism’s happiest day will come when the people are united, when Messiah leads the restoration truly and not as the false leaders of the past, and the voice of the bride and bridegroom is heard year-round in Jerusalem.
