“Hashem spoke to me … in the tenth month on the tenth of the month saying: Son of man write for yourself the name of the day this very day; the king of Bavel approached Yerushalayim on this very day” (Yechezkel 24:1–2).

This pasuk introduces the fast day for which the month of Teves is primarily known — the Tenth of Teves which is named for the date on which it occurs similar to the Seventeenth of Tammuz and the Ninth of Av (but unlike Yom Kippur Tzom Gedaliah and Taanis Esther whose names are derived from the reason for the fast). Actually Chazal list three fast days that occur during this month: the 8th of Teves when the Torah was translated into Greek; the 9th of the month when Ezra HaSofer passed away; and the fast of the Tenth of Teves the subject of this article. Of these however only the Tenth of Teves continues to be observed.

There are also two fast days during Teves that are observed by specific communities: the 23rd of Teves the date of the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal and the 25th of Teves which saw the burning of the Jewish community of Frankfurt.[i] Not for naught do we recite in the Selichos for Asarah B’Teves “The month of Teves — I was severely afflicted during it and its path was changed upon me.”

Yet while the existence of a fast in Teves is explicitly referenced in a pasuk the great Tannaim Rabi Akiva and Rabi Shimon bar Yochai differ on whether the fast is observed on the tenth or the fifth of the month.