17th of Tammuz and the 3 Weeks

(6) The mishna discusses the five major communal fast days. Five calamitous matters occurred to our forefathers on the seventeenth of Tammuz, and five other disasters happened on the Ninth of Av. On the seventeenth of Tammuz the tablets were broken by Moses when he saw that the Jews had made the golden calf; the daily offering was nullified by the Roman authorities and was never sacrificed again; the city walls of Jerusalem were breached; the general Apostemos publicly burned a Torah scroll; and Manasseh placed an idol in the Sanctuary. On the Ninth of Av it was decreed upon our ancestors that they would all die in the wilderness and not enter Eretz Yisrael; and the Temple was destroyed the first time, in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, and the second time, by the Romans; and Beitar was captured; and the city of Jerusalem was plowed, as a sign that it would never be rebuilt. Not only does one fast on the Ninth of Av, but from when the month of Av begins, one decreases acts of rejoicing.

(1) "The continual offering ceased." When they laid siege to Jerusalem and it was destroyed, because on that day there were no more lambs for the daily offering. It appears to me that the this passage is referring to the days of Hyrkanus and Aristobulous (the last of the Hasmonean kings), when they laid siege to one another (during their civil war.) So it also seems from Baba Kama 82b. However, if the passage refers to the time of the destruction of the Temple then it means the destruction of the 1st Temple when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem for three years. It could not be referring to the Second Temple because then the siege only lasted from Nisan to Av, and if so when they broke into the city it is obvious that everything ceased, the continual offering included.

The mishna further taught that on the seventeenth of Tammuz the city walls of Jerusalem were breached. The Gemara asks: Was this tragedy something that occurred on the seventeenth of Tammuz? But isn’t it written: “In the fourth month, on the ninth of the month, the famine was severe in the city” (Jeremiah 52:6), and it is written immediately afterward: “Then a breach was made in the city” (Jeremiah 52:7), which clearly indicates that the city was breached on the ninth. Rava said: This is not difficult, as here the verse is referring to the First Temple, whereas there, in the mishna, it describes the destruction of the Second Temple, as it is taught in a baraita: Upon the destruction of the First Temple, the city walls were breached on the ninth of Tammuz; and at the destruction of the Second Temple they were breached on the seventeenth of Tammuz.

(1) "The Torah." It appears to me that this is referring to the scroll of the Torah written by Ezra the Scribe which was kept in the Temple courts and from which all other scrolls were checked and corrected, as it says in tractate Soferim (see mishna Moed Katan 3:4). Or it appears that this means they burned every Torah scroll they could find and the reason that the mishna says 'the Torah' in the singular is that the intent of that wicked one was to completely erase the Torah from among Israel.

“All her pursuers have overtaken her within the straits,” in days of distress, between the seventeenth of Tamuz and the ninth of Av, during which destructive force is prevalent...

As it is taught: From the New Moon of Av and until the fast on the ninth, the public reduces its activities, refraining from business transactions, from building and planting, and from betrothing and marrying. During the week in which the Ninth of Av occurs, it is prohibited to cut hair and to launder clothes, and it is prohibited to be betrothed. And some say: It is prohibited for the entire month...