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The Three Weeks
The Three Weeks or ''Bein ha-Metzarim'' (, "Between the Straits", cf "dire straits") is a period of mourning commemorating the destruction of the first and second Jewish Temples. The Three Weeks start on the seventeenth day of the Jewish month of Tammuz—the fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz—and end on the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av—the fast of Tisha B'Av, which occurs exactly three weeks later. Both of these fasts commemorate events surrounding the destruction of the Jewish Temples and the subsequent exile of the Jews from the land of Israel. According to conventional chronology, the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II occurred in 586/7 BCE, and the second siege of Jerusalem (70) by the Romans, in 70 CE. Jewish chronology, however, traditionally places the first destruction at about 421 BCE: see Missing years (Jewish calendar) for more information. Observances The mourning observances during the Three Weeks are divided into four levels, increasing in i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strait
A strait is a water body connecting two seas or water basins. The surface water is, for the most part, at the same elevation on both sides and flows through the strait in both directions, even though the topography generally constricts the flow somewhat. In some straits there is a dominant directional current. Most commonly, the strait is a narrowing channel that lies between two land masses. Straits are loci for sediment accumulation, with sand-size deposits usually occurring on the two strait exits, forming subaqueous fans or deltas. Some straits are not navigable because, for example, they are too narrow or too shallow, or because of an unnavigable reef or archipelago. Terminology The terms '' channel'', ''pass'', or ''passage'' can be synonymous and used interchangeably with ''strait'', although each is sometimes differentiated with varying senses. In Scotland, '' firth'' or ''Kyle'' are also sometimes used as synonyms for strait. Many straits are economically impor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minhag
''Minhag'' ( "custom", classical pl. מנהגות, modern pl. מנהגים, ''minhagim'') is an accepted tradition or group of traditions in Judaism. A related concept, '' Nusach'' (נוסח), refers to the traditional order and form of the prayers. Etymology The triliteral () means primarily "to drive" or, by extension, "to conduct (oneself)". The actual word ''minhag'' appears twice in the Hebrew Bible, both times in the same verse and translated as "driving": Homiletically, one could argue that the use of the word minhag in Jewish law reflects its Biblical Hebrew origins as "the (manner of) driving (a chariot)". Whereas halakha "law", from the word for "walking path," means the path or road set for the journey, minhag "custom", from the word for driving, means the manner people have developed themselves to travel down that path more quickly. The present use of minhag for "custom" may have been influenced by the Arabic ''minhaj''; in current Islamic usage, this term is u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Of Lamentations
The Book of Lamentations (, , from its incipit meaning "how") is a collection of poetic laments for the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. In the Hebrew Bible, it appears in the Ketuvim ("Writings") as one of the Five Megillot ("Five Scrolls") alongside the Song of Songs, Book of Ruth, Ecclesiastes, and the Book of Esther. In the Christian Old Testament, it follows the Book of Jeremiah, for the prophet Jeremiah is traditionally understood to have been its author. By the mid-19th century, German scholars doubted Jeremiah's authorship, a view that has since become the prevailing scholarly consensus. Most scholars also agree that the Book of Lamentations was composed shortly after Jerusalem's fall in 586 BCE. Some motifs of a traditional Mesopotamian "city lament" are evident in the book, such as mourning the desertion of the city by God, its destruction, and the ultimate return of the deity; others "parallel the funeral dirge in which the bereaved bewails... and... addres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midrash
''Midrash'' (;"midrash" . ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; or ''midrashot'') is an expansive Judaism, Jewish Bible, Biblical exegesis using a rabbinic mode of interpretation prominent in the Talmud. The word itself means "textual interpretation", "study", or "exegesis", derived from the root verb (), which means "resort to, seek, seek with care, enquire, require". Midrash and rabbinic readings "discern value in texts, words, and letters, as potential revelatory spaces", writes the Hebrew scholar Wilda Gafney. "They reimagine dominant narratival readings while crafting new ones to stand alongside—not replace—former readings. Midrash also asks questions of the text; sometimes it provides answers, sometimes it leaves the reader to answer the questions". Vanessa Lovelace defines midrash as "a Jewish mode of int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lamentations Rabbah
The Midrash on Lamentations () is a midrashic commentary to the Book of Lamentations. It is one of the oldest works of midrash, along with Genesis Rabbah and the '' Pesikta de-Rav Kahana''. Names The midrash is quoted, perhaps for the first time, by Chananel ben Chushiel under the name "Aggadat Eichah." Many passages are quoted by R. Nathan, who invariably calls the work ''Megillat Eichah''. The term ''Eichah Rabbati'', which is general even now, is used to designate the many extracts in ''Yalkut Shimoni'' which have been included with the other Biblical books. In ''Lamentations Rabbah'' itself, the sources are almost always missing. The names ''Midrash Eichah'', ''Midrash Kinot'', ''Megillat Kinot'', are also found in the old authors. In ''Yalkut Shimoni'', there are likewise long extracts from a Midrash on Lamentations published under the name ''Midrash Zutta''. Date According to Galit Hasan-Rokem, ''Lamentations Rabbah'' was composed in Roman Palestine "approximately in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alhambra Decree
The Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Decreto de la Alhambra'', ''Edicto de Granada'') was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, ordering the Expulsion of Jews from Spain, expulsion of practising Jews from the Crowns of Crown of Castile, Castile and Crown of Aragon, Aragon and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year. Its primary purpose was to eliminate the influence of practising Jews on Spain's large formerly-Jewish ''converso'' New Christian population, to ensure the latter and their descendants did not revert to Judaism. Over half of Spain's Jews had converted as a result of the Massacre of 1391, religious persecution and pogroms which occurred in 1391. Due to continuing attacks, around 50,000 more had converted by 1415. A further number of those remaining chose to convert to avoid expulsion. As a result of the Alhambra Decree a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Temple Period
The Second Temple period or post-exilic period in Jewish history denotes the approximately 600 years (516 BCE – 70 CE) during which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and ended with the First Jewish–Roman War and the Roman siege of Jerusalem. In 587/586 BCE, the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the Kingdom of Judah; the Judeans lost their independence upon the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, during which the First Temple was destroyed. After the Babylonians annexed Judah as a province, part of the subjugated populace was exiled to Babylon. This exilic period lasted for nearly five decades, ending after the Neo-Babylonian Empire itself was conquered by the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which annexed Babylonian territorial possessions after the fall of Babylon. Soon after the conquest, Persian king Cyrus the Great issued a proclamation known as the Edict of Cyrus, encoura ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apostomus
Apostomus is a name occurring in Talmudic tradition. The Talmudic account Among five catastrophes said to have overtaken the Jews on the Seventeenth of Tammuz, the ''Mishnah'' includes "the burning of the Torah by Apostomus". Owing to this very vague mention, there is much difference of opinion as to the identity of Apostomus. At first glance he may be associated with one of the following two incidents: * Flavius Josephus relates that about the year 50 a Roman soldier seized a Torah-scroll and, with abusive and mocking language, burned it in public. This incident almost brought on a revolution; but the Roman procurator Cumanus appeased the Jewish populace by beheading the culprit. *The other incident of the burning of the Torah, which took place at the time of the Hadrianic Persecutions, is recounted by the rabbis. Ḥanania ben Teradyon, one of the most distinguished men of the time, was wrapped in a Torah-scroll and burned. In connection with this, a certain "philosopher" i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torah Scroll
A Sephardic Torah scroll rolled to the first paragraph of the Shema An Ashkenazi Torah scroll rolled to the Decalogue file:Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, Interior, Tora Cases.jpg">Torah cases at Knesset Eliyahoo Synagogue, Mumbai, India A Torah scroll (, , lit. "Book of Torah"; plural: ) is a manuscript">handwritten copy of the Torah, meaning the five books of Moses">Torah.html" ;"title="manuscript">handwritten copy of the Torah">manuscript">handwritten copy of the Torah, meaning the five books of Moses (the first books of the Hebrew Bible). The Torah scroll is mainly used in the ritual of Torah reading during Jewish prayers. At other times, it is stored in the holiest spot within a synagogue, the Torah ark, which is usually an ornate curtained-off cabinet or section of the synagogue built along the wall that most closely faces Jerusalem, the direction Jews face when praying. The text of the Torah is also commonly printed and bound in book form for non-ritual fu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Golden Calf
According to the Torah, the Bible, and the Quran, the golden calf () was a cult image made by the Israelites when Moses went up to Mount Sinai (bible), Mount Sinai. In Hebrew, the incident is known as "the sin of the calf" (). It is first mentioned in the Book of Exodus. Sacred bull, Bull worship was common in many cultures. In Ancient Egypt, Egypt, whence according to the Exodus narrative, the Israelites had recently come, the bull-god Apis (deity), Apis was a comparable object of worship, which some believe the Hebrews were reviving in the wilderness. Alternatively, some believe Yahweh, the national god of the Israelites, was associated with or pictured as a sacred bull through the process of religious assimilation and syncretism. Among the Canaan, Canaanites, some of whom would become the Israelites, the bull was widely worshipped as the sacred bull and the creature of El (deity), El. Biblical narrative When Moses went up Mount Sinai (Bible), Mount Sinai to receive the Ten C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moses
In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritanism, and one of the most important prophets in Christianity, Prophets and messengers in Islam, Islam, the Manifestation of God (Baháʼí Faith)#Known messengers, Baháʼí Faith, and Table of prophets of Abrahamic religions, other Abrahamic religions. According to both the Bible and the Quran, God in Abrahamic religions, God dictated the Mosaic Law to Moses, which he Mosaic authorship, wrote down in the five books of the Torah. According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was born in a period when his people, the Israelites, who were an slavery, enslaved minority, were increasing in population; consequently, the Pharaohs in the Bible#In the Book of Exodus, Egyptian Pharaoh was worried that they might ally themselves with New Kingdom of Egypt, Eg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tablets Of Stone
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tablets of the Law (also Tablets of Stone, Stone Tablets, or Tablets of Testimony; Biblical Hebrew: לוּחֹת הַבְּרִית ''lūḥōṯ habbǝrīṯ'' "tablets of the covenant", לֻחֹת הָאֶבֶן ''luḥōṯ hāʾeḇen'' or לֻחֹת אֶבֶן ''luḥōṯ ʾeḇen'' or לֻחֹת אֲבָנִים ''luḥōṯ ʾăḇānīm'' "stone tablets", and לֻחֹת הָעֵדֻת ''luḥōṯ hāʿēḏuṯ'' "tablets of testimony"; Arabic: أَلْوَاحُ مُوسَى ''alwāḥu Mūsā'' "the tablets of Moses") were the two stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments when Moses ascended Mount Sinai as written in the Book of Exodus. According to the biblical narrative, the first set of tablets, inscribed by the finger of God, () were smashed by Moses when he was enraged by the sight of the Children of Israel worshiping a golden calf () and the second were later chiseled out by Moses and rewritten by God (). According to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
