It is customary not to eat meat or drink wine during this week [that is, the week during which Tisha B’Av falls]… Some add [the days] from Rosh Hodesh [Av], and some add [still more], from 17 Tammuz.
(Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim 551.9)
Introduction
There is no doubt that these prohibitions were not observed in the time of the Tanna’im or the Amora’im: In the long passage at the end of tractate Ta’anit in both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud, the prohibition of eating meat or drinking wine is limited to the last meal before the fast of Tisha B’Av, according to R. Meir, whereas the sages merely require that consumption of these foods be limited, not prohibited—and only during that last meal. Hence, according to the majority opinion in the Talmud, one is permitted to eat meat and drink wine even immediately before Tisha B’Av.
Today it is generally customary for Ashkenazim not to eat meat or drink wine from Rosh Hodesh Av until Tisha B’Av, although there are some Ashkenazi individuals and groups, particularly among the Hasidim, who abstain from meat and wine from 17 Tammuz on. Sephardim start the restrictions from the Saturday night before Tisha B’Av.
The question arises: Where do these customs mentioned in the Shulhan Arukh—and still observed today—come from? Interestingly, their origin is connected to errors in the transmission of texts, and one of these errors involves the recorded practices of women. Tracing this origin gives us an understanding of the process by which customs sometimes develop.
The Prohibition During the Nine Days
The first source of the customs seems to be a quotation from the Jerusalem Talmud that is cited by several medieval authorities. In the twelfth-century Sefer ha-Manhig (ed. Rafael, Jerusalem, 1978, p. 297), we read the following:
R. Hai Gaon (tenth century) wrote: “Even though it is said in Yerushalmi Ta’anit [1.6], and Pesahim [4.1], R. Zeira said: Women who are accustomed not to drink wine and not to eat meat (trac kfhnk tks trnj t,ank tks) from [the time] that Av arrives until the end of the fast, [it is] a [valid] custom, for then the even shetiya [that is, the Foundation Stone, upon which the world was created, and which was located in the Temple] ceased.
The same source with some slight variations is cited by the Mahzor Vitry, written by a contemporary of Rashi in the eleventh century (sect. 263, p. 225):
Our women who do not drink wine from 17 Tammuz until 9 Av—it is a valid custom. And most Ge’onim were accustomed not to eat meat or drink wine from the beginning of Av till [after] 9 Av…, and some begin earlier—from 17 Tammuz to 9 Av.
Now these testimonies are most odd for two reasons. First, they contradict the talmudic sources referred to earlier. Second, why should this custom have been limited at first to women? Were they such tipplers in antiquity?
In fact, the answer to these questions stems from a recognition of an error in transmission of the Jerusalem Talmud. We know that, in his version of the Talmud, Rav Nissim Gaon in the eleventh century did not have the reading חמר–wine, but rather עמרא–wool and למשתי does not mean to drink, but rather to spin. Further, the Venice edition of the Jerusalem Talmud contains the following text in both Pesahim and Ta’anit: “Women who are accustomed not to spin, למשתייא(le-mishtaya), from when Av arrives—it is a custom, for then the shetiya stone ceased. What is the reason? ‘For the foundations are destroyed’ (Psalms 11:3), meaning when the Temple, that was built on the even ha-Shetiya (the Foundation Stone), was destroyed.”
Professor Saul Lieberman wrote that the printed version above “is, without doubt, the correct one and its interpretation is indeed as Rav Nissim Gaon suggested: למשתיmeaning to spin or to weave. All the other versions of the Yerushalmi are additions and interpretations” (S. Lieberman, Ha-Yerushalmi ki-fishuto, 430–31). Indeed, we know that it was customary for women to spin wool, and the Foundation Stone is that from which, according to tradition, the world was founded and from which it was metaphorically spun. The linguistic connection between the even haShetiya—standing for the Temple—and the women’s spinning explains why there was initially a custom for women to refrain from spinning to mark the period before the destruction of the Temple as a sign of mourning. Additionally, it seems that in many cultures women refrain from weaving and spinning in times of trouble.
ֿAlthough “spinning” was the original reading, corruptions developed in this text that led to the introduction of restrictions connected to eating meat and drinking wine. The original text in the Jerusalem Talmud was “Women who are accustomed to spin,” and the word “wool” was added to explain the reference more clearly. However, at some point, the Western Aramaic word for “wool”-עמר, was changed to חמר(Palestinian Aramaic) or חמרא (Babylonian Aramaic), and these words were subsequently misinterpreted as “wine” instead of “wool.”
The discussion of these textual changes from עמר to חמר and חמרא is clarified by the words of the Babylonian Talmud in Eruvin 53b: “The inhabitants of Judah were precise in their language.., [but] the inhabitants of the Galilee were not precise.” This verse is followed by a story about a Galilean who went around asking, “אמר למאן אמר למאן–who has amar?” They did not understand what he was asking for and said to him: “Foolish Galilean! חמר [a donkey] on which to ride or חמר [wine] to drink? עמר [wool to wear] or אימר [a sheep = a fleece] with which to cover oneself?” From this story we learn that the Galileans did not distinguish between the words for “wine” and “donkey,” or between “wool” and “sheep,” precisely because they could not differentiate between the pronunciation of the het and the ayin.
Thus, it is not surprising that חמר and עמר should be interchanged, and over the course of time, the Eretz Israel forms חמר and חמרא were understood as “wine” under the influence of those familiar with the Aramaic of the Babylonian Talmud. Once “wool” was converted to “wine,” the addition of “meat” by scribes was almost inevitable. Therefore, because of the erroneous transmission of the Jerusalem Talmud’s text and the traditional association of wine and meat with celebration, extending the prohibition that was initially limited in the Talmud to immediately before Tisha B’Av became the accepted way to observe the ruling in Mishna Ta’anit—“From the beginning of Av, happiness is decreased.”
I therefore conclude that the pronunciation of the early Eretz Israel spelling of חמר-עמר and the lack of understanding of this word by later scribes in Babylonia in the time of the Ge’onim created our custom of refraining from eating meat and drinking wine from the beginning of Av onward. Although later authorities attributed this custom to the fact that the sacrifices and libations of the Temple ceased in this period, the source of the custom is the corruption of the text that stated that women refrained from spinning at the beginning of Av.
The Prohibition During the Three Weeks
However, this textual corruption does not explain the other tradition noted in the Shulhan Arukh, namely, to refrain from eating meat and drinking wine from 17 Tammuz. For this tradition, there is yet another source: Daniel 10: 2–3. Daniel reports that “in those days, I, Daniel, mourned three full weeks. I ate no tasty bread, and neither meat nor wine came to my mouth; I did not anoint myself at all until three weeks were complete.” These verses in Daniel served as a sort of source for this custom, as the Tur explains in Orah Hayyim 551:
There are pious people who fast from 17 Tammuz onward. Others refrain from meat and wine. And we learn in the Yerushalmi: How long is it between 17 Tammuz and 9 Av? Twenty-one days, from the time that the city was broken into until the Temple was destroyed. Others say: [This] corresponds to the three weeks which Daniel fasted. [But] the custom of Ashkenaz is for individuals to refrain from meat and wine from 17 Tammuz onward.
In the Beit Yosef, his commentary to the Tur, R. Joseph Caro, the author of the Shulhan Arukh, says on this section: “Others say: ‘[This] corresponds to the three weeks which Daniel fasted’—this is in the name of Rabbenu Saadiah.” In pursuing Caro’s source for this statement, I found this attribution in a medieval work called Tanya Rabbati (p. 126):
I found in the name of R. Saadiah Gaon k’’z that from 17 Tammuz till 9 Av are the days mentioned in Daniel during which Daniel fasted three weeks. Some are careful not to eat meat and drink wine, as is written, “and neither meat nor wine came to my mouth.” Others say that this refers to the month of Nisan.
However, the Rav Saadiah Gaon mentioned here is not the tenth-century philosopher and commentator who moved from Egypt to Babylonia, but rather a French rabbi called Saadiah who lived at the time of Rashi, more than a century and a half later. When the words of this other Saadiah were incorporated into a famous text of the Roke’ach, the word “Gaon” was mistakenly added, based on the assumption that the attribution was to Saadiah Gaon, which had the effect of giving it much more authority. This mis-attribution continued in later texts.
Ironically, we now have access to the words of Rav Saadiah Gaon himself referring to the three weeks mentioned in the book of Daniel and their connection with the custom of observing the Three Weeks before Tisha B’Av. In his commentary to the book of Daniel, Saadiah Gaon says categorically that Daniel could not have been referring to the three weeks between 17 Tammuz and Tisha B’Av:
Some have thought that these three weeks are from 17 Tammuz till 9 Av, and this is a blatant error for several reasons: First, the dates of 17 Tammuz and 9 Av are dates relating to the destruction of the Second Temple only, [and Daniel was mourning the destruction of the First Temple]. The corresponding dates for the First Temple’s destruction are 9 Tammuz and 10 Av, for the city was broken into on the ninth of Tammuz. “In the fifth month, on the tenth of the month…. The Temple of God was burnt” (Jeremiah 52:4–12).
Here, then, is a case where we find an attribution to Rav Saadiah Gaon of something that he expressly contradicted. Yet, his rejection of the interpretation of Daniel’s words actually provides evidence of the existence of the custom of not eating meat or drinking wine from 17 Tammuz to 9 Av—the period we call Bein Ha-Metzarim (between the straits)—as far back as the tenth century.
Hence, both traditions in the Shulhan Arukh—the one of not eating meat and drinking wine in the Nine Days and its extension of abstaining from meat and wine for the Three Weeks—appear to be based on a conflation of errors. Oddly enough, the correct understanding of the text in the Jerusalem Talmud is found in the adjacent clause in the Shulhan Arukh (Orah Hayyim 551:8), which reads, “Women whose custom it is not to spin wool (למשתי עמרא) from the beginning of Av, this is a [legitimate] custom.” Incidentally, this statement is actually the source of the restrictions on sewing, buying, and wearing new clothes during the Nine Days that are still practiced today.
Implications for Practice
Does the fact that these customs of not eating meat or drinking wine originated in errors mean that they should be rejected? Here we enter into the whole issue of the validity of customs and our obligations to maintain them. From our sources, we know of other customs that developed from erroneous suppositions: some were subsequently rejected by the rabbis as a “minhag ra–a bad custom,” obviously based on an erroneous premise. However, generally speaking, the rabbis urged us to preserve customs, provided they did not conflict with other laws or impose excessive hardships. And certainly, if customs have some positive religious and educational value, even when based on error, they should be adhered to. This indeed is the view of the thirteenth-century authority from Provence, the Meiri, who stated in Magen Avot, Inyan 20 (ed. R.Y. Cohen, Jerusalem, 1989, p. 215):
A custom without origin or reason is no custom, halakhically speaking, unless there is [involved therein] some semblance of a mitzva, or moral teaching, or gemilut hesed or some concern for [the avoidance] of some prohibition or [the prevention of some] unethical act or moral or religious failing. [In these cases, the custom, even if it has no valid origin, should be maintained.] In any case, any ancient custom should be retained and maintained, even a leniency, so long as there is no issur.
Because this custom of abstaining from meat and wine does make us more fully aware of the sad nature of the Nine Days and the Three Weeks, it surely plays a positive role in our remembering the tragedies with which the period is associated. Hence, it should be viewed in a positive light regardless of the fact that the customs originated in errors of transmission or misunderstandings.
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On a personal note, I have been a vegetarian for close to sixty years and am also a teetotaler. So, in effect, I abstain from meat and wine the entire year. For me, then, the element of mourning during the period expresses itself primarily in the fact that I do not listen to music— which I find very difficult—and do not make new purchases. In this way, I feel I am preserving the spirit of the custom aimed at giving this period a special somber atmosphere and a time for contemplation.