Q&A: Fast of the Firstborn
Fast of the Firstborn
Question
I once read an article of yours arguing that there are Jewish laws that people do not observe for meta-halakhic reasons, and that instead of giving forced answers you prefer to say out loud: we do not observe this commandment because it is not practical. You gave as an example the prohibition of going to gentile courts.
Do you think that this is also the case with the Fast of the Firstborn? It seems that in the past people really did fast, and there were disputes about whether one could be lenient and eat at a circumcision meal (only at the meal itself, not for the rest of the day afterward as well), and whether this applied only to the father of the baby, the mohel, and the sandak, or to everyone present. But today the custom is that someone makes a “completion” of a tractate of Mishnah Avot with the Kehati commentary, everyone eats rugelach (outside, of course, so as not to dirty the synagogue), and then they are exempt from the fast because they already broke it at a festive meal…
The question is: how did we get to this point? Arukh HaShulchan writes that it is because of the weakness of later generations, but as far as I can judge we are much healthier and stronger than in the past (maybe with a bit less muscle mass, but in general nutrition is richer and more varied, health problems are monitored and treated, etc.), so that reason also seems to have fallen away.
By the way, this is as good a place as any to complain that it is not clear where the assumption comes from that there is a decline of the generations in the intellectual sense; and yet for some reason there is an even more annoying assumption (such that anyone who denies it is treated like someone denying the Torah and Moses our Teacher) that there is also a decline in people’s physical strength.
Answer
By “the prohibition,” do you mean gentile courts? Better to write clearly.
First, you are mistaken about our strength relative to earlier generations. Even if we are healthier and physically stronger, it is obvious that we are more pampered. Any athlete (or Holocaust survivor) will tell you that a person’s power is mainly in spirit and less in the body.
As for the assumptions about decline of the generations or decline in physical strength, ask whoever makes those assumptions.
And finally, your analogy is not correct. I was talking about Jewish laws whose observance is problematic and not really possible—not because of weakness, but because the situation necessitates it, as with gentile courts. You are talking about laws that are not sensible. That is a different discussion, and questions of authority also come in here.
Discussion on Answer
The Fast of the Firstborn [and any fast] has a price: headache, irritability, and entering the holiday in a crazed state; drinking a cup of wine right away at kiddush, and then a long Maggid with explanations and strange little Torah tidbits… and trying to relate to each child in a reasonable way in order to fulfill “and you shall tell your son” and pass on a joyful holiday.
These are tasks that are hard to carry out, and the assumption is that many firstborns will perform them poorly.
So the loss is not worth the gain.
What did they do in earlier generations?
Good question.
Maybe they really did conduct themselves terribly, as one might expect from today’s firstborns [and that is why the Mishnah Berurah accepts the completion as a good excuse to get out of the whole business with dignity], or maybe there really is a decline of the generations in nerves and in the capacity for patience and self-restraint that today’s generations have compared to earlier ones [personally I’d bet the first possibility is the right one].
Either way, every halakhic decisor has to place this fast on one side of the scale, and normal functioning at home on the eve of the holiday and on the Seder night on the other…
When those are weighed against each other, it is understandable why people rush to prefer the solution of a tractate completion or some kind of joining in, or taking a date from the place where the completion was held…
A matter of common sense and reasonable priorities.
And “her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.”
From my Religious Zionist friends I once heard that Rabbi Zvi Yehuda was publicly astonished: why don’t people fast?
But when they told him that this is how the Mishnah Berurah ruled, he was silent. And he said: fine, if that is how a great authority ruled, then those who eat have someone to rely on.
“Let the humble eat and be satisfied.”
In the writings of rabbis of the later generations, it is often mentioned that “in the later generations weakness came into the world.”
Convincing?
Does it help at all?
With the blessing: let the thieves eat and be satisfied.
With God’s help, 12 Adar 5781
The difference between the earlier generations and our own is not in physical strength, but in mental patience. The earlier generations were “humble,” more prepared to nullify their personal will in favor of the general ideal. Therefore their psychological readiness to fast for the sake of an ideal was much greater.
By contrast, the modern generations are less “humble” and much more “grapes”: each individual grape sees itself as the center of the world, like grapes where each one is an independent entity. Modern man also seeks to feel the sweetness of the grape at every stage of life, and therefore fasts do not exactly do his heart good.
The same is true in the realm of repentance: both by the thinkers of Hasidism and by the Vilna Gaon and the masters of ethics, the center of gravity of repentance was shifted from bitterness and self-mortification to the joy of increased good deeds through charity or Torah study. So too with the Fast of the Firstborn: the fast was transformed from “turn from evil” through fasting into “do good” through increased Torah by means of a tractate completion.
And as Rabbi Kook wrote in the article “The Generation,” our generation is less suited to serving God out of fear and much more suited to serving out of love.
With the blessing, “let the grapes eat and be satisfied,” Ami’uz Yaron, may he live long and well
With God’s help, 18 Adar 5781
Rabbi Zvi Yehuda’s astonishment at the custom that firstborns exempt themselves from the fast through a completion is based on what he brought in “Warnings Regarding Passover Matters That My Master and Father, the Rabbi of blessed memory, Would Mention on Shabbat HaGadol,” section 20:
“Firstborns—whoever can, should not rely on the permission of a completion at all; and one who is ill, even if there is no danger, is permitted to eat. Nevertheless, even one who relies on the completion—if possible, it is good for him to make do with something that is not a full established meal” (Passover Haggadah according to Olat Re’iyah, Mossad Harav Kook edition, Jerusalem 2009, p. 74).
It is explained here that Rabbi Kook opposed relying on a completion in order to exempt oneself from the fast, and held that even one who does rely on the completion should preferably refrain from a full meal.
Best regards, Yaron Fishel Ordner
With God’s help, 21 Adar 5781
Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (quoted in Haggadat Gedolei Yisrael, 6th edition, pp. 5–7) gives an additional reason for establishing the Fast of the Firstborn on the eve of Passover. Besides the miracle that God passed over the firstborn during the plague of the firstborn, there is another reason: on the eve of Passover, when there is an abundance of offerings, the firstborn feel especially bitter over having been pushed aside from the Temple service and replaced by the priests. Fasting on this day, so full of offerings, expresses the bitterness of the firstborn over having been displaced from the Temple service because of their sin.
With this reason, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach answers the question of why the fast was not moved earlier to the 13th, since the deliverance of the firstborn did not occur on the 14th but on the 15th; and if one was already moving it earlier, there would have been reason to move it to the 13th so as not to fast on the eve of the holiday. But according to the reason of the firstborns’ bitterness over being displaced from the Temple service, the greater bitterness is specifically on the 14th, when there are many offerings.
Therefore Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach says that the completion of a tractate helps relieve the bitterness of the firstborn over losing the privilege of priesthood, since “Torah is greater than priesthood,” and therefore the joy in Torah study eases the sorrow over the loss of priesthood.
Best regards, Yifa’or
Yes, I meant gentile courts. But I didn’t understand why the law of the Fast of the Firstborn is not sensible. What’s the problem with fasting? True, we’re pampered, but we can also fast. And what you wrote, that this is a question of authority—do we really have the authority to invent that the generations have become weaker and therefore it is permitted to take part in a tractate-completion meal and not fast? And if so, then why participate at all? You could simply say there’s no need to fast because we’re pampered..