Asara B'Tevet - Fast Day Tuesday

[OrMenorah Congregation]

Congregation Or Menorah

Halacha Corner

By, Rabbi Doug Zelden 

Asarah B'Tevet Fast - Tuesday, December 30, 2025
(Times are Central Standard Time) 
Fast begins at 5:48am 
……..

Fast ends 5:07pm
The fast begins in Tuesday morning.
If one planned to wake up early to eat before the start of the fast then you may, but stop eating before: 5:47am.

Eating and drinking are forbidden on this minor fast day. Many don’t take hot showers or baths on Asara B’Tevet, though bathing is permitted.
Asara B’Tevet is also one of the four fast days that commemorate dark times in Jewish history. The others are Tisha B'Av (the day of the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem), the 17th of Tammuz (the day of the breaching of the defensive wall of Jerusalem by Titus and the Roman legions in 70 CE), and the third of Tishrei (the day that marks the assassination of the Babylonian-appointed Jewish governor of Judah, Gedaliah ben Achikam. He was actually killed on Rosh Hashanah but the fast day was advanced to the day after Rosh Hashanah because of the holiday).
The Tenth of Tevet, Tuesday’s fast day, marks the onset of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylonia, and the beginning of the battle that ultimately destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon, and sent the Jews into the 70-year Babylonian Exile. The date of the Tenth of Tevet is recorded for us by the prophet Yechezkel, who himself was already in Babylonia as part of the first group of Jews exiled there by Nebuchadnezzar, 11 years earlier than the actual destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem itself.

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