The topic tonight, the discussion will be on something that is very close to today, and that is Asarah b'Tevet. Asarah b'Tevet, the fast day of the 10th day of Tevet, which will take place in two days. Today is Monday, and this will take place on Wednesday. So, we will discuss Asarah b'Tevet as Asarah b'Tevet as its own day, but also Asarah b'Tevet as being the the יסוד, the foundation of all Ta'anitim, of all fast days. Asarah b'Tevet is the foundation of all the fast days that we have besides Yom Kippur, because Yom Kippur is a different type of fast day, that's from the Torah, that's for a different reason. But all other fast days are there because of certain things that happened to the Beit Hamikdash, Eretz Yisrael. And Asarah b'Tevet is, as I will explain soon, is the foundation, the beginning of it all. And therefore, it is it represents basically all the Ta'anitim, because that's where it all started. So, we will discuss Asarah b'Tevet and what Asarah b'Tevet stands for, plus the connection to all Ta'anitim, all fast days, and also, not only the fast days the way they are now, but also what will happen to these fast days when Mashiach will come in the future. Hopefully, it won't be in the far future, it's going to be in the near future. Now the reason I say Asarah b'Tevet is the beginning of all, and therefore Asarah b'Tevet is considered the fast day, so before I even explain why, we see that in a certain Halacha. The Avudraham, he is one of the big Poskim, writes that we know that any fast day that comes out on Shabbos, we don't fast. It's pushed off. It's called a נדחה. It's pushed off to another day. But Asarah b'Tevet, he writes, if it would have come out on Shabbos, then we would have to fast on Shabbos. It cannot come out on Shabbos as the calendar is set up now. But if it would have been able to be on Shabbos, as it was at the time when they were מקדש על פי הראיה, when they set the calendar every month according to the witnesses that came to testify that they saw the new moon, so then we would have to and it would be able to come out on Shabbos, we would have to fast on Shabbos. The truth is, not everyone agrees to the Avudraham. Rashi, for instance, in one place seems to be to disagree, but the Avudraham does write that way, and his reason is because the Pasuk says, ״בעצם היום הזה סמך מלך בבל אל ירושלים״. On that day, but it says the word ״בעצם היום הזה״, which means in the essence of the day, Nebuchadnezzar, who was the king of Bavel, surrounded, laid siege on Yerushalayim, which happened on Asarah b'Tevet. And since the Pasuk uses the word ״בעצם היום הזה״, in the essence of the day, it's a similar expression as the Torah uses on Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur, it says, the Torah refers to it, ״בעצם היום הזה תענו את נפשותיכם״, in the essence of essence of the day you shall fast, and here it also says the word ״בעצם״. That's the concept of a gezeirah shavah. Gezeirah shavah means when we find two similar words, so it tells you that the din of one place applies to the other, too. And therefore, we would have fasted on Yom Kippur, on I mean Asarah b'Tevet, while other fasts, we don't. Now what is the reason, why is it so strict that we would have fasted on Asarah b'Tevet on Shabbos? It is because Asarah b'Tevet has a certain chumra, something stricter than any other of the ta'anitot. We have, basically, besides Yom Kippur which is not counted, as I said, we have basically four ta'anitot, four days, fast days, and because of a minhag, we have five. And I'll read actually in the Rambam which days they are. And I'll start from the beginning of the Rambam in הלכות תעניות, פרק חמישי, the fifth פרק. The Rambam says, ״יש שם ימים שכל ישראל מתענים בהם מפני הצרות שאירעו בהם, כדי לעורר הלבבות, לפתוח דרכי תשובה, ויהיה זה זכרון למעשינו הרעים ומעשה אבותינו שהיה כמעשינו עתה, עד שגרם להם ולנו אותן הצרות, שבזכרון דברים אלו נשוב להיטיב,״ remembering these things we will return to become better, ש... שנאמר, as the pasuk says, והתודו את עונם ואת עון אבותם, you shall, you shall be, be mitvadeh, which means you shall, vidui is confess, you should confess your aveirot and the aveirot of your parents. ואלו הן, now the Rambam lists these days and he goes in the order of the year, not in the way the order of the way the things happened, but in the order of the year. יום שלישי בתשרי, on the third day of תשרי, שבו נהרג גדליה בן אחיקם. We fast on the third day of Tishrei which is Tzom Gedaliah, because Gedaliah ben Achikam was killed, ונכבית גחלת ישראל הנשארת, and that extinguished the last remnants of Yiddishkeit, the spark of Yiddishkeit that was left in Eretz Yisrael after the destruction of the בית המקדש, וסיבב להגלותם גלותם, and that brought all the Yidden back to galut. Then עשירי בטבת, the 10th of טבת, שבו סמך מלך בבל נבוכדנצר הרשע, that's the day that מלך בבל נבוכדנצר, נבוכדנצר הרשע surrounded ירושלים והביאה במצור ובמצוק, he brought it under siege. Then י\"ז בתמוז, we have the 17th day of תמוז, חמשה דברים אירעו בו, five things happened then: נשתברו הלוחות, the לוחות were broken, Moshe Rabbeinu broke the לוחות on שבעה עשר בתמוז; ובטל התמיד בבית ראשון, in the first בית המקדש that was the day that the daily sacrifice, the קרבן תמיד was stopped, this happened before the חורבן they already had to stop bringing the קרבן תמיד, which happened on שבעה עשר בתמוז; והובקעה ירושלים בחורבן שני, and in the second בית המקדש on the 17th of תמוז the walls of ירושלים were broken, in the first בית המקדש it was a different day according to many opinions; ושרף אפוסטמוס הרשע את התורה, and this רשע, Apostomus at one point burned the Torah on שבעה עשר בתמוז; והעמיד צלם בהיכל, and brought an idol into the בית המקדש. Then תשעה באב, חמשה דברים אירעו בו, five things happened on תשעה באב, and he goes through the list: נגזר על ישראל במדבר שלא יכנסו לארץ, in the desert the the Jews it was decreed upon the Jews that they will not enter ארץ ישראל because the spies came back on that day and that's when they cried; חרב הבית בראשונה ובשניה, the בית המקדש was destroyed, the first and the second; ונלכדה עיר גדולה וביתר שמה, also on this day a great big city called ביתר, ביתר, ביתר, was conquered, והיו בה אלפים ורבבות מישראל, they had thousands and tens of thousands of Jews, והיה לה מלך גדול, and they had a great king, and everyone thought he was משיח, and it fell in the hands of the Romans, ונהרגו כולם, they were all killed, והיתה צרה גדולה כמו חורבן בית המקדש, and had a great, this was a great צרה like the חורבן בית המקדש; ובו ביום המוכן לפורענות חרש טורנוסרופוס הרשע את ההיכל וסביבו, and on that day, years later, after the חורבן, Turnus Rufus the Wicked plowed the place of the בית המקדש. וארבעה ימי צומות אלו, these four fast days, הם מפורשים בקבלה, they are clear in the Neviim, in the prophets, and it's called צום הרביעי, צום החמישי, צום השביעי, and צום העשירי: the fast of the fourth, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the 10th. What does that mean? The fast of the fourth is שבעה עשר בתמוז, which is in the fourth month, starting from ניסן: ניסן, אייר, סיון, תמוז. The fast of the fifth is תשעה באב, in the fifth day, fifth month. The fast of the seventh is צום גדליה, which is in תשרי, the seventh month. And the fast of the 10th is in the 10th month, which is עשרה בטבת. And then the Rambam adds that there is one more fast day which is not included in these four, and that's more or less like a minhag, that's תענית אסתר, the day before Purim, that we fast to remember the fast that the Yidden did at the time when there was the decree of Haman, before the day that they had to defend themselves, so they fasted, so we fast too. So these are all the fast days.

Looking into all these fast days, in the order of things, which one came first? In the order of the year, we have said before, the first one is צום גדליה. But in the order, the sequence of events, עשרה בטבת was the first. עשרה בטבת was the first of the four troubles, that was when Nevuchadnetzar surrounded Yerushalayim, and took two and a half years till he broke through the wall of Yerushalayim, then it took not long till he burned the Beit HaMikdash, and then a while later happened the story of צום גדליה, of Gedaliah, and they killed Gedaliah and צום גדליה. Because עשרה בטבת is the beginning, it's the first thing that happened, that's why עשרה בטבת is the strictest. Basically עשרה בטבת is the source of all the troubles. Even though when we look at the actual trouble that took place on עשרה בטבת, it was the least. The actual trouble was the least. When Nevuchadnetzar laid siege on Yerushalayim, Technically, nothing bad happened in the city of Yerushalayim then besides the fact that it was closed in. It says when there is a matzor, when there is a when the enemy lays siege in the city, the expression of the pasuk is אין יוצא ואין בא. No one could come in, no one could come out. They don't let anything in, anything out, so everything is on a standstill. True, but it takes a while till you start feeling it, till you feel you're missing food, till you feel you can't go out, people can't come in, they can't do things. But on the day when they lay siege, there is nothing actually that happens. So as far as the trouble that took place on that day itself, on עשרה בטבת, they didn't really feel much. Later on, when they broke through the walls of Yerushalayim, that's the trouble. When they destroyed the Beit HaMikdash, that's trouble, and when Gedaliah was killed, that's trouble. So if you look at it just at what happened on that day, עשרה בטבת is the least of the troubles. On the other hand, because everything started with which happened on עשרה בטבת, that's why this is the strictest. Because if not for עשרה בטבת, if not for Nevuchadnetzar laying siege on Yerushalayim that day, then we would not have a שבעה עשר בתמוז. We would not have a תשעה באב. We would not have a צום גדליה. So it comes out that the difference, the the the things that happened on later, שבעה עשר בתמוז, or תשעה באב, or and and and and Tzom Gedaliah, these are different stages that took place compared to the previous stage. It went from bad to worse. But on Asara B'Tevet, it didn't go from bad to worse. It went from good to bad. In other words, the the the essential difference between the time before and after, that's was Asara B'Tevet. Between Asara B'Tevet and Shivah Asar B'Tammuz, even though the trouble was much greater, but it was only a follow-up. It was a continuation. It much It worsened situation with a continuation of what happened before. And Tisha B'Av was a continuation of what happened before, and Tzom Gedaliah is a continuation of what happened before. So there was no real major change in the essential concept. But on Asara B'Tevet, that day was the change from before to after, from being free from the enemy, not having them fighting us and and know putting us in danger, and here it started with all the troubles. And that's why Asara B'Tevet is considered the foundation, the source of all the fast days, of all the ta'anitim, and Asara B'Tevet is the strictest of them. So therefore, when we talk about Asara B'Tevet, we can talk about it from two angles: about the day itself, what Asara B'Tevet in itself stands for, and also since this is the source of all the fast days, generally speaking, what is the concept of fast days? Now, the general concept of fast days we understand. If we look at the Rambam that I mentioned before, I'll read it again, the Rambam says there are days that we fast, and he gives the reason. Because of the tzarot, the troubles that happened on those days. But the purpose is כדי לעורר הלבבות, to awaken the hearts, לפתוח דרכי תשובה, to open the ways of teshuvah. In other words, this is supposed to bring us to teshuvah. And he says this will be as a זכרון, this will be a reminder of the evil ways that we are going in and that our forefathers did the same and that's why they brought the troubles upon themselves, and שבזכרון דברים אלו, by remembering these things, נשוב להיטיב, we will do teshuvah to better our ways. So the whole purpose of the ta'anitim is to do teshuvah. It's not the idea of just fasting, not eating. Because not eating doesn't really mean much. It's not easy, I mean. But there are some people that don't eat because they're on a diet. And there's one day they want to not eat, so they'll lose weight. I mean, not eating is not one thing is not the main thing. The main thing is that these days of fast these fast days should bring a person to teshuvah. Those days, sometimes when people would fast for certain troubles, they would also tear their clothes. And the pasuk says, קרעו לבבכם, tear your heart. Don't tear your clothes. Tearing the clothes is not the important part. Tearing the heart. And in Tanach we find in Isaiah that when Hashem is complaining that I don't need your fast days, he says is the way you're fasting, do you call that a יום רצון, an auspicious day, a special day? Because if you fast and you don't understand what the fast means, that it means it's supposed to bring the person to realize the problems and realize that he's not doing the right thing and to do teshuvah, if you don't realize that, then there is no purpose of fasting. There used to be an expression, I'm told, by chasidim, they used to say there are two things, s'iz do fastn un s'iz to be thin. There is making yourself thin, and there is fasting. Not eating, if it doesn't accomplish its purpose, then it's done, like going on a diet. You didn't eat. Fasting is in order to do teshuvah. So, that's the general concept of why we fast. But every specific fast day makes us do teshuvah on the specific concept that is connected to that day. So, on Tisha B'Av, we have to do teshuvah specifically in connection to the burning of the Beit HaMikdash, and what that means to us. On Shivah Asar B'Tammuz, on the breaking of the walls, Tzom Gedaliah, on Tzom Gedaliah. Asara B'Tevet, we have to do teshuvah along the lines of what Asara B'Tevet stands for. So, I would like to first discuss a little bit of what Asara B'Tevet will teach us, and what it means for us, and therefore, the teshuvah that we're going to have to do on Asarah b'Tevet is along these lines.

One of the things, not one, the thing of Asarah b'Tevet is, as I said before, that's the beginning of everything, even though on that day itself not much happened. The trouble wasn't that great. It was trouble, obviously, when you know that your enemy is around the city. I mean, you can imagine how you feel, there is trouble, but it's not the major trouble, because there is really no change felt yet. But that led up to all the troubles that we had later, all the way to the end, till the חורבן בית המקדש, etc. So, this has a very strong meaning to us. And the meaning is that we have to realize that the way all the troubles start, it starts from one small thing. But the moment you allow that one small thing to surround you, then what's going to happen further, you're going to go further and further, and end up with the חורבן בית המקדש, which I I mean to say is it says in sefarim this peshat that we know it says עיר קטנה זו הגוף, the city, the small city that refers to the body. And we have an enemy, and the enemy is the yetzer hara. And the yetzer hara could lead us to do the worst things, bring us to the worst troubles. But he doesn't start by destroying the בית המקדש that we have inside ourselves. We'll never allow that to happen. Imagine if the yetzer hara would come and tell us to do something which we realize is a destruction of our בית המקדש, because we know everyone has a בית המקדש in his heart. We'll never allow him to do it. He's smarter than we think. What he does is, first he lays siege on the city. And he does something which seems to be a small trouble, only a small difference. And by just getting us to give in to the yetzer hara in something small, and he's there already with us, then we should know this will lead that eventually it'll get further. The walls will get broken, the walls that surround and protect the בית המקדש in us will get broken, and then it'll destroy the בית המקדש. This is basically what the Gemara says that כך הוא דרכו של יצר הרע. This is the way of the yetzer hara. היום אומר לו כך, today he tells him do this. מחר אומר לו כך, tomorrow he says do this. Today he says do a small aveirah, tomorrow he says a worse one and a worse one, till the end is he tells you, \"לך עבוד עבודה זרה, go do עבודה זרה.\" The yetzer hara is smarter than coming to tell a person worship idols, which is the real breakdown of the system that we have, the Jewish system, the בית המקדש that we have in us. He will never come and tell us that, because he knows it ain't going to work. He we ain't going to listen. So, he comes and tells us a little bit. Or as the Gemara says in a different place, first the yetzer hara comes and he seems to be an ore'ach, a guest. But the moment you let the guest into your house, this guest, who's a bad guest, and you let him in, first he's a guest. No, first he says he's a passerby. Oh, over. First he's a over, he just, like someone that passes by just stops over for a second, just passes by. After he passes by, he becomes an ore'ach, a guest. And then he becomes a toshav. Then he becomes a settler, he settles in. That's what happens. And this is the type of teshuvah that we have to do on this inyan that we take from Asarah b'Tevet to realize that this is exactly what happened there. That they surrounded Yerushalayim, which was not major, because at that time nothing was really felt, but that was the way they got through to שבעה עשר בתמוז and the breaking of the walls and then to the to the חורבן בית המקדש. This is one point that we have in Asarah b'Tevet.

Then there's another point that we have in Asarah b'Tevet, which is also something that will teach us what kind of teshuvah we have to do when we deal with Asarah b'Tevet. We know that usually Usually, the Gemara says usually, הקדוש ברוך הוא מקדים רפואה למכה. HaKadosh Baruch Hu brings the cure before the the makah, before the problem, before the plague, before the disease. Hashem creates the cure before the disease. And the same thing happened here also. Asarah b'Tevet, which is the beginning of, as we would call, the disease, the beginning of the problem, built in to the beginning of the problem, we have the cure. And that's what we have to focus on on Asarah b'Tevet. Now, I'll explain what I mean. What was the problem that led up to all this? Why did the חורבן בית המקדש come? Which means why did the the wall the why was the wall broken, why was there a siege on Jerusalem, why did all this happen? What brought it about? Now, we know that מפני חטאינו גלינו מארצנו, it's because of our sins that this all happened. What sins specifically? So, by the second בית המקדש, the Gemara says, you know what the sin is? שנאת חנם. The fact that there was hatred amongst the Jews. That's one. There was no achdus, there was no unity. In the first בית המקדש, the Gemara says something else. It came because of the three famous aveirot: עבודה זרה, גילוי עריות, שפיכות דמים—idol worship, adultery, and murder, these three aveirot. But obviously, even in the first בית המקדש, there was no achdus. Because had there been unity amongst the Yidden in the first בית המקדש, as bad as the Yidden were, the churban would have never come. Because the Midrash tells us that as bad as Yidden are, the punishment could only come if they don't have achdus. If they have achdus between themselves, that is a protection against all their problems, even if they deserve all these punishments. So therefore, even though it doesn't say that the aveirot that happened at the time of the first בית המקדש, the cause was the שנאת חנם, was the hatred, but obviously, that was there. Had that not been there, the other sins wouldn't have caused the חורבן בית המקדש. So basically, the whole basis of all the tzaros, all the problems was שנאת חנם. In order to fix that, we have to have Ahavat Yisrael, love of one to another, achdus, unity. When the problem started as a result of שנאת חנם, in the beginning of the problem, Hashem built in the possibility and gave a special power of having achdus, which would have stopped the churban. Now, I'll say what I mean. When he surrounded Jerusalem, he laid siege on Jerusalem, you know what that caused? When a city is under siege, it brings achdus between the people. Since אין יוצא ואין בא, no one could come in, no one could go out. So any stranger that doesn't belong here stays out. The people who are there, who are beginning to feel the problem, they all become united. And we know that! When you're in tzaros, you become united. Even here we know with the hurricanes. Every time with a hurricane, it brought people together, helping each other. When the when the siege started, it brought Yidden together. And together in a good way, together in Jerusalem. Now, Jerusalem is a holy city. So when the Yidden were together in the city of Jerusalem, that means there was achdus amongst the Yidden. There was a chance here for real achdut. You know what Yerushalayim stands for? Yerushalayim was a place of kedushah, of Shechinah. But the word Yerushalayim, the Gemara says, is made up of two words: of יראה, שלם. יראה means fear. שלם means complete. It means complete yirat shamayim. The city of Yerushalayim represented complete fear of God. Now, imagine when the Yidden were together, at least there was a chance here for them to be together in Yerushalayim, the achdut, they would be united in the concept of yirat shamayim. That would have been the greatest thing. And when Hashem sent Nebuchadnezzar, because He sent him, he didn't come by himself obviously, everything comes from Hashem, Hashem had in mind that by Me telling, allowing Nebuchadnezzar to lay siege on Yerushalayim, because the Yidden are not by achdut, so this is the beginning of the punishment. But at the same time, this gave the Yidden a chance to utilize the achdut to turn into into having achdut and being close together. And there's an interesting, as I mentioned before, the expression the pasuk uses is very interesting. The pasuk says when it says that that Nebuchadnezzar surrounded Yerushalayim, it uses a very strange expression. It says בעצם היום הזה סמך נבוכדנצר מלך בבל אל ירושלים. סמך, on that day, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Bavel סמך, what does סמך on Yerushalayim? Now, it means he surrounded, but that's not the regular word of he should have used the word מצור, which means a siege, or around, סביב or something. You know what the word סמך in Hebrew really means? סמך means סמך, סמוך means close, סמך means to lean. When you have, we say in davenen: סומך נופלים, he holds up those that fall. נבוכדנצר סמך מלך בבל את ירושלים, he made Yerushalayim lean. Instead of making Yerushalayim fall, he was somech hanofelim. What he did could have made Yerushalayim lean and not fall. And the truth is Hashem allowed this siege to take place for two and a half years, I think something like that about. And the Midrash says why did Hashem allow it to have, and imagine how the Yidden felt for two and a half years, why did it take so long? Hashem wanted they should do teshuvah. He gave him a chance. He said let it take long. The longer it takes, the more they will feel the problems, and they might do teshuvah. That's what the Midrash says. But here we see in which aspect would they have done, could have done teshuvah? And Hashem gave them the refuah, he did something for them to do teshuvah, and that was to have achdut. But Hashem doesn't take away free choice. He didn't force them. He gave them the opportunity. He made a situation that it should be easier for them, but they didn't take advantage of the situation, and they did not have the achdut as you're supposed to, and therefore the end was that he did break through the walls, and he did destroy the Beit haMikdash. But the day itself represents not only the beginning of all the tzarot, but if we want to look at it in a more positive way, the day of Asarah b'Tevet represents the beginning of the cure for the disease, the day that gives us the koach to think about achdut, because that's what happened on the day of Asarah b'Tevet, that the Aibershter, Hashem, made that the Yidden should be able to have achdut. So this is another aspect of Asarah b'Tevet that we're supposed to look into, because as I said, the whole purpose of all the ta'aniyot is to do teshuvah, and every fast day the teshuvah is supposed to be in accordance to what the fast day represents. So on Asarah b'Tevet, which is the day that Hashem brought achdut, at least the possibility of achdut among the Yidden, is the teshuvah that we have to do and the thoughts that we have to think about, and as the Rambam says, this is a zikaron to make us remember that נשוב להיטיב, we should return to do better. In which aspect? The concept of achdut. This is what Asarah b'Tevet is.

Now, if we do teshuvah on Asarah b'Tevet, in connection to Asarah b'Tevet, and also on the other ta'aniyot, what will it end up to? That these ta'aniyot, which came because of the tzarot, will stop, because if we do teshuvah properly, Hashem promised, as the Rambam says in a different place, Hashem promised that when we do teshuvah, then right away Mashiach will come. And if Mashiach will come, then these ta'aniyot will be completely different. What will be with the ta'aniyot, with these fast days when Mashiach will come? So let me read in the Rambam again, and let's learn a certain halachah, the last halachah in Hilchot Ta'aniyot in the Rambam, and from there we'll understand exactly what will happen. The last halachah is like this: כל הצומות האלו עתידים ליבטל לימות המשיח. All these fast days will be בטל, will not exist anymore in the time of Mashiach. ולא עוד, not only that, אלא שהם עתידים להיות ימים טובים, they in the future are going to be holidays, וימי ששון ושמחה, days of happiness and joy. שנאמר, and he quotes the pasuk where it says: כה אמר ה׳ צבאות, this is what השם says: צום הרביעי, the fast day of the fourth, which as we said before the fast day of the fourth is שבעה עשר בתמוז, וצום החמישי, the fast day of the fifth month, which is תשעה באב, וצום השביעי, the fast day of the seventh month, which is צום גדליה, וצום העשירי, and the fast day of the tenth month, which is עשרה בטבת, יהיה לבית יהודה לששון ולשמחה, will come for the family of יהודה will be ששון ושמחה, happiness and joy, ולמועדים טובים, and to good holidays. And then the פסוק finishes off, והאמת והשלום אהבו, that truth and peace they will love. Which by the way, here we see that when Mashiach will come and we will not have these fast days anymore, it's connection to the fact that there will be shalom and ahavah, the fact that we will get rid of the cause of the churban and the problems that we fast for, and that is the opposite of אחדות, and we will have אחדות. But that's by the way. So here the Rambam tells us that this is what's going to happen when Mashiach will come, that all these fast days, he says, will become בטל, and not only that, but they will be ימים טובים. And he quotes this pasuk, as we just said. Now let's learn a little bit the halachot in this Rambam, the words of the Rambam. First of all, let's understand why does the Rambam put it into two sections? Why does he say first that all these fast days will become batel, will not exist anymore, and not only that, they will be ימים טובים and happy days? If he would just write that these fast days are going to be in the future happy days, obviously these fast days will not be fast days anymore. So why does he have to say they will be batel, and not only will they be batel, but they will also be happy days? Why does he put it into two categories? And also, why does the Rambam bring this pasuk as a proof? He brings a pasuk where it says, \"This is what Hashem said, that the fast of the fourth, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, והפכתי אבלם לששון,\" which means, \"I will turn around their aveilut, their mourning, into ששון, into joy.\" That's much clearer, that the aveilut will turn into joy. Why doesn't the Rambam bring this pasuk? So, not to get into too much details, but the point is, as we said before, what will bring that these fast days shall be changed and not be fast days anymore? Teshuvah, obviously. Because if we do teshuvah, Mashiach will come, and then we won't have any reason to fast anymore. When it comes to teshuvah, there are three things that happen when you do teshuvah. The three things are, number one, the aveirot don't exist anymore. When you do teshuvah, Hashem erases the aveirot. So the aveirot, the sins, don't exist anymore. Number two, not only don't the sins exist anymore, but in place of the sins, in the place of the sins, you add more mitzvot. And we know that. A person who does teshuvah, who first did aveirot and then he does teshuvah, what it brings him is now he will try to do more mitzvot. And there's a mashal to this. Imagine a person who's in a place that there is no desert there is no water, and he's thirsty. So when he finds water, he drinks much more than he would he would drink normally. He drinks it with much more pleasure. So the same thing here, when a person did aveirot and was in a place where he was missing water Torah, mitzvot are compared to water now that he does teshuvah, he does more mitzvot. So, number one, the aveirot are erased, no more aveirot. Number two, he replaces the aveirot with new mitzvot, and even more mitzvot than he does now. But then there's a third thing, that the aveirot themselves turn into mitzvot. See, the second thing was that besides that there are no more aveirot, he brings different mitzvot, he brings mitzvot in the place of the aveirot. But now we're saying something else: the actual aveirot that the person did turn into mitzvot. זדונות נעשו לו כזכיות, the aveirot themselves turn into mitzvot. Since we have these three things by teshuvah, and teshuvah is going to bring the nullification of the fast days, concerning the fast days we also have these three things, because these are the results of the teshuvah. What's going to happen when Mashiach will come, because we do teshuvah in these three ways, three things are going to happen: Number one, we won't have to fast anymore, parallel to the concept of the aveirot are not there anymore, so there is no more fast. Number two, not only is there no more fast, but they will be replaced by happiness, and that's a natural thing. If a person has a day which used to be a day of trouble, and then that trouble left him, whenever that day comes around, that that itself makes you feel good, makes you happy. There is a new happiness that comes into that day. But besides that, there is this third thing, just like by teshuvah we said the third level is that the aveirot, the sins themselves turn into mitzvot, here also, the fast itself, not only the day that you used to fast will now be a day that you will be happy in, the fast itself will turn into happiness, which means that the tzarot themselves, when we will look back at the problems that we had, and which is the reason why we fasted, we will see that these troubles were not really troubles. Now we feel the troubles, but when Mashiach will come, we will look back and we will see, not only we will replace the days with happiness. The troubles themselves will be seen as good. There's a pasuk that says that when Mashiach will come, we are going to say to השם, אודך השם כי אנפת בי. I thank you Hashem for making me trouble. Why would you thank Hashem? What we really should have said is that even though you made us trouble, we still thank you, we still like you. But not because you made us, we're thanking you for the trouble. But the pasuk does not say that. The pasuk says אודך השם כי אנפת בי, because you made these troubles for me, that's why I thank you. Why? Because we will look back and we will see that the troubles were really good. Whatever Hashem does for the good, we don't see it now. I'm not going to go into the details why, I once explained it when we spoke about Tishah B'Av. But the whole idea is that we will look back and see that all the things Hashem did, the חורבן בית המקדש and עשרה בטבת, שבעה עשר בתמוז, everything that happened was only for our favor. It was good for us, and it's the best thing that happened. Just if you want to spend maybe just a second on it, just like by a child, when a child misbehaves and the father or the mother walks over to the child and gives the child a patsh, and the child is upset. But it happens many times that because of that, the child changes. And for a long time, the child always when he thinks back of the day when he got that patsh thinks, oh, how terrible it was, but eventually when he grows up, he realizes that the best day of his life was that day he got that patsh. Because that was the greatest expression of love that his father could have shown him, to teach him the right way and lead him on the right direction. And that's the best, even though it seemed till now as a patsh. It's an expression of love, that's all it is. And it's a greater expression of love than when a father gives a kiss his child when the child behaves. Because when a father kisses his child when he behaves or gives him a present, it's an expression of the nature of the person. It's natural for a father to love his child and to want to kiss the child and to want to give the child a present. For a father to want to give a patsh his child, that's against the nature. And the love of the father to his child is so great that he breaks his nature in order to give him that patsh because of his love. That's love that breaks barriers. The love that you give because you like the child and he does good and you give him a kiss, that doesn't break barriers. That's an expression of love within the nature, within the barriers, the boundaries of nature, of your nature. This goes beyond the boundaries of your nature. So the love that you show shows how it breaks through all kinds of barriers. So when you look back, that's the greatest day. So when Mashiach will come, we will look back and we will see that these days not only will they be replaced by simchah—first of all, they won't fast anymore, second of all, you'll be replaced by simchah, but it's more than that. The days themselves, the problems themselves, the fast itself, which is a representation of the problem, will be turned into good. When the worse the problems are, the greater the simchah is later. Just like by aveirot, when you say aveirot turn into mitzvot, the greater the aveirot are, the worse the aveirot are, when you do teshuvah, the greater the mitzvah is. The same thing here. The greater the problems that we have in galut, and later we look back and we see how good it is, the greater the simchah is. In the galut itself, we know that the galut is divided into two parts of yidden. The יידן had two sections: the ten שבטים, and Yehuda and Binyamin, which was Yehuda, and then you had עשרת השבטים, ten שבטים. When the time of galut came, the ten שבטים were sent into exile, it says in the Midrashim, behind the Sambatyon. There is this river called the Sambatyon. They they're they're in exile, but they don't have trouble. Yehuda and Binyamin, the other part, they are the ones, which we are, who went through all the troubles throughout galut. So who will really have the great simcha when Mashiach will come in these days? It'll be בני יהודה. Because we are all brothers, so the simcha we have will also overflow to them, but mainly is by us. And this is why the Rambam brings this pasuk where it says יהיה בית יהודה to show that these days will be days of happiness, and he quotes this pasuk, not the other pasuk where it just says Hashem will change the aveilut, the mourning, to simcha, because here it shows even more that it's for בית יהודה, for the people who had the greatest trouble, and they will have the simcha then. Now I want to mention, and this will answer the other question, Why the Rambam divides it into two parts. First of all, he says that days, the fast days will be batel, we won't fast anymore, and not only that, but we will have the great simcha. The reason is like this: we know that when Mashiach will come, there will be two periods according to the Rambam. It means like this: the Rambam writes that when Mashiach will come, there still will be no change in the nature of the world. The nature will continue as it was as it is now. The only thing is we will not be under the goyim, we won't have any of these problems, but the nature will not change. There's a second tekufah, a second period where the nature will change. And that's the period where there will be תחיית המתים, which is not a natural thing, there will be the resurrection of the dead, that's a second period. To say that the fast days themselves will turn into good, that's against nature. The fact that the fast days will not be fast days anymore, that's not against nature. That could be, when the problems stop, there will be no more reason to fast. So according to the Rambam, what's going to happen is in the first period we will not have to fast anymore. But it still will not be a level where you will look back and say, well, these bad things are really good, because that's something that's against nature. That's going to happen in the second tekufah, the second period. And that's why the Rambam divides it into two. The Rambam writes all these fast days in the future, in time of Mashiach, will become batel. And not only that, but they will be ימים טובים and days of happiness. And the question we asked, why didn't he just write one thing, they will be days of happiness, automatically we know they will not exist anymore as fast days? Because the Rambam wants to tell us that there are two stages. First of all, and that's right when Mashiach will come, when the world will still remain with his old nature as it is now, but we will not have any trouble so we won't have a reason to fast, that's the first thing. So the fast days will be battel, will not exist, we will not fast. ולא עוד, not only that, there will come a time later when what will happen is that the days the fast itself the days will be full of simcha, and the fast itself will be turned around, and it will be that the the reasons why we fast will turn into simcha, we will look back and we'll see this simcha. So this is going to happen later. That's why the Rambam makes of it as a separate separate second part, because this is going to happen in a separate period, in the time later, which is the second תקופה of the time of Mashiach. Now all it tells us is that Mashiach will come soon and we will have the great simcha, but it all depends on us. Because what will make Mashiach come and what will make that these fast days will be battel? The fact that we do teshuvah. So comes these fast days, now we're coming to עשרה בטבת, it's a day that reminds us that we have to do teshuvah, teshuvah in the inyanim of עשרה בטבת specifically, teshuvah in the inyanim of what the fast days represent in general. And if we do teshuvah, as the Rambam says, Hashem promises that Yidden will do teshuvah and Mashiach will come right away. About having more achdut? Yeah. Like anything, how do you do teshuvah on any aveirah? Any aveirah, the real meaning of teshuvah, the essence of it, not all the side trimmings, the essence of teshuvah is to really, really, really, really make up one's mind never, ever to do that aveirah again. That's the essence of teshuvah. And then behave that way. That's what teshuvah is. Now we have to also confess, and we have to have we have to regret the past. Those are the trimmings of teshuvah. The essence of teshuvah is, it's called קבלה על הבא, accepting in the future, or it's called עזיבת החטא, letting go of the aveirah. No more aveirah! This aveirah I'm not going to have hold of anymore. And that's concerning achdut the same: make up one's mind to have achdut, not to to be nice to another Yid, not to be angry at another Yid, to be mochel if anything, not to get upset, not to have a temper, not to this, and to help another Yid. It's both, the positive and the negative: to help whoever we can, and not to do anything negative, not to be angry at somebody, not to hurt somebody, whatever it is, everyone in his way. That's teshuvah. So besides its goodness for the future that you behave in a good way, if you make one makes up his mind for that for the future, that is teshuvah for the past, and it wipes out the aveirah of the past. One thing is clear: easier said than done. Hm? Difficult. That's something else. If it comes back later, you got to do teshuvah again, but at the moment you do teshuvah, you have to really mean it. And that's what teshuvah is. Yeah, yeah. Got to work harder. Yeah. Yeah. You've got to work harder. You've got to bring yourself to that, to the recognition.