The three-week period between Shiva Asar B’Tammuz and Tisha B’Av is kept by Klal Yisrael as a time of mourning. In this article, we will review and explain the halachos that apply during the Three Weeks.
The prophets and the Sages instituted the fasts for healthy people, not for sick people. anyone who is sick is exempt from fasting, even if his condition is not life-threatening.
I know that sometimes when warming something in a not kosher oven or a milchig food in a fleishig oven, he double wraps the food. When is this necessary and why?
When the Beis Hamikdash is rebuilt,
bimheirah beyameinu, the laws of tumah will affect us all, since we will be required
to be tahor in order to enter the Beis Hamikdash, to eat korbanos and maaser sheini,
and in order to separate challah and terumah.
The three weeks that begin on the night of the Seventeenth of Tammuz and continue until the Ninth of Av are days of national woefulness. The sages therefore advise being especially careful during this period, for it is a time designated for calamity.
When the month of Av arrives, rejoicing should be minimized. A Jew must therefore avoid undertaking construction projects from which pleasure will be derived. Also, transactions should be minimized and one must refrain from consuming meat and wine.
Did Jews fast over the destruction of the First Temple when the Second Temple stood? Must pregnant and nursing women abstain from eating and drinking on minor fasts? Rabbi Eliezer Melamed addresses these and other important questions.
There is a tendency, on fast days, for people to concentrate upon the calamities of the past and on the stages that led up to the destruction of the Temple. People reflect on the distant past when they aught - says the Rambam - consider the present.