The Myths of Judaism: Torah Has Fallen

Torah Scroll - And this is the case with tefilin which have passages from the Torah, but the Prophets or the Writings don't require it. And because it is written here "burned" excludes a case where one sees [the Torah] fall from one's hand.

[Rabbi Shmuel ben Moshe Kalai (Greece, c. 1500-1585;] Sefer Mishpatei Shmuel [12] wrote a little similarly that the world has a custom to fast when tefillin falls from one's hand on the ground, and this is also the case when a Torah scroll falls. This is in a situation when the [tefillin] is not in its bag, but for a Torah scroll even in its bag [you should fast].

The world has a custom to fast when tefillin falls from one's hand on the ground when it is not in its bag, and this is the case when a Torah falls even in its bag. And see in Eliyahu Rabbah where he wrote that even with tefillin in its case, one gives a little bit of tzedakah.

They asked: Who will take him [Rav Huna] in to Rabbi Ḥiyya’s burial cave, as few are fit to enter it? Rav Ḥagga said to them: I will take him into the cave, for I presented my studies before him when I was just eighteen, never having experienced a seminal emission. And so too I attended to him and knew his great deeds. For example, one day one of the straps of his phylacteries turned around, the unpainted side being turned outward, and he observed forty fasts for this, as he had acted negligently, allowing the black side to face inward.

One day one of the straps of his phylacteries turned around - See Rashi's commentary and the addition in Sefer Yochasin [Rabbi Avraham Zacuto (1452-1515)] that one needs to make sure the letters of Shadai are seen from the outside in the knot of the tefillin. And the reason for 40 days of fasting is because the tefillin are the crown of Torah and the Torah was given for 40 days.

There is one who says that fasting for two days and two nights consecutively is equal to forty non-consecutive fasts. Rem"a: There are those who say that for a weak person, two consecutive consecutive days if sufficient, but for a healthy person, three is necessary (Mahar"i Brynn's notes on customs). It seems to me that all of this applies only to somebody who must fast for forty non-consecutive days for repentance in order to cause himself pain. In those cases, we equate this pain to that pain, and that is why the later authorities discuss this. However, somebody who vows to fast forty days must fulfill his vow, because it isn't any weaker than saying "this day," where he cannot borrow and repay. Even those who hold that when he says "this day," he can borrow and repay, would concede here that he must fulfill his vow. This applies even more to the forty days before Yom Kippur when people fast in remembrance of Moses's ascent of the Mountain [Sinai]. One who has accepted these cannot repay them with two or three consecutive days.

But it is forbidden to desecrate Shabbat in order to save (money), and if one sinned and desecrated, he must fast forty days on Monday and Thursday, and he may not drink wine or eat meat, and he should give eighteen pshitim to charity in the place of a sin-ofering. If he wants to avoid the fast, he must give twelve pshitim to charity for each day (Piskei Mahara"i Chapter 60) and see the Tur Yoreh Deah from the Laws of Niddah Chapter 185.