The Fast of Tammuz: Patience and Tablets
The Fast of Tammuz: Patience and Tablets

At the very end of  Mel Brooks’ comedy film ‘History of the World Part I’, in the segment about The French Revolution, Brooks’ character Jacques is mistaken for the king and is taken by the rebellious peasants  to the guillotine for crimes committed by the crown. When asked if he would like a blindfold or any last words, Jacques declines. However, when they test the guillotine, Jacques make a final request for Novocain. The executioner declares "there is no such thing known to medical science", to which Jacques replies: "I'll wait".

This Tuesday is the 17th of Tammuz, a dawn to dusk fast day commemorating the breach of the walls of Jerusalem before the destruction of the Second Temple, and marks the beginning of the three-week mourning period leading up to Tisha B'Av.

But the day also commemorates the destruction of the twin tablets of the Ten Commandments. The 17th of Tammuz occurs forty days following the holiday of Shavuot. Moses ascended Mount Sinai and remained up there for forty days. The Children of Israel built the Golden Calf on the afternoon of the sixteenth of Tammuz, when it seemed that Moses was not coming down when promised. Moses descended the next day (forty days by his count), saw that the Israelites were violating many of the laws he had received, and smashed the tablets.

I often wonder about those broken tablets. In spite of the terrible events that transpired - the Golden Calf, the smashing of the tablets and the aftermath - in the end Moses went back up Mount Sinai and brought back another set (cut by Moses this time). Both the first shattered set of tablets and the second unbroken set were stored in the Ark of the Covenant as an eternal reminder of what transpired.

Surely, there is a lesson in those broken tablets, and I keep going back to the story I was told in Hebrew school. The people had waited for forty days for Moses to return and were growing very impatient. They went frantically to Aaron, Moses' brother, urging him to do something. Aaron tried a stall tactic, telling the people to bring him their gold, but it backfired and produced the Golden Calf instead.

I keep thinking that this whole terrible episode could have been averted if the people had just been a little more patient. Had the Israelites waited just one more day, Moses would have returned with God's tablets (the original ones) and the story would have ended quite happily right there and then.

But is our generation any better? We used to be happy with just fast food and fast cars, but now we must have fast internet too. Why is it that we get so upset when our internet connection or our cellular phone is working just a little bit slower than normal? Why must everything happen so quickly? I believe that the high rate of accidents and fatalities on roads in Israel is because people are not patient drivers. The Israeli driver will overtake another vehicle even when it’s not safe to do so simply because we have no patience for anyone we perceive to be slowing us up.

We all talk about sovlanut ("tolerance"), but before we can get there we need to have some savlanut, a little patience. It doesn't matter if you are waiting for your leader to descend from a mountain or if you are waiting for a red light to turn green at a traffic light (when the driver behinds you honks their horn incessantly if you show even the slightest hesitation). A little bit of patience followed by a little bit of tolerance can really ease tensions.

It's worth thinking about that on this long (seemingly endless) day, the 17th of Tammuz. And if you feel you are short on patience and tolerance, well, just take two tablets - after the fast - and wait some more.

It’s like the great line Jim Carrey told his partner in his breakout comedy film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective: “If I'm not back in five minutes... just wait longer.”


The writer has an MA in Creative Writing from Bar-Ilan University.