Most Jews know about Yom Kippur. A fair number know about Tisha B'Av. But the Jewish calendar has four other fast days — shorter, quieter, less observed, but each carrying a specific story from the wreckage of Jewish history. They're called the "minor fasts" to distinguish them from the 25-hour major ones, but the tragedies they mark are hardly minor.
The prophet Zechariah mentioned all four in one breath, and promised something remarkable: "The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall become occasions of joy and gladness." Four fasts, all with an expiration date. All of them waiting to be transformed.
1. Tzom Gedaliah — The Fast of Gedaliah (3 Tishrei)
This one falls the day after Rosh Hashanah (moved to the 4th when the 3rd is Shabbat), which makes for an unusual transition: festive holiday, festive holiday, fast day. The history behind it is pointed.
After the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple in 586 BCE and exiled most of the population, they appointed a Jewish governor named Gedaliah ben Ahikam to govern the small number of Jews still remaining in the land. Gedaliah was trying to rebuild. He was warned repeatedly that a rival named Ishmael ben Netaniah was plotting to kill him. Gedaliah refused to believe it. He was murdered anyway, and the killing scattered the last Jewish remnant in the land entirely.
The fast mourns Gedaliah, but it also mourns something specific about how he died: Jewish leaders warning each other about internal threats and being ignored. The Talmud draws the lesson that "the death of the righteous is equivalent to the burning of the Temple" — but there's also a sharper message about the costs of refusing to listen when your own people tell you something is wrong.
2. Asara B'Tevet — The Tenth of Tevet (10 Tevet)
The 10th of Tevet is when it began. On this day in 589 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar's army surrounded Jerusalem and began the siege that would end, 30 months later, with the Temple's destruction on Tisha B'Av. The fast marks the beginning of the countdown — the moment when it became clear that catastrophe was coming.
There's a Talmudic ruling that if Asara B'Tevet were to fall on Shabbat, it would be observed on Shabbat itself — the only minor fast that would override the normal rule against fasting on Shabbat. This is because Ezekiel 24:2 describes the day with particular urgency: "Write down the name of this day, this very day." In practice, the calendar is arranged so this never actually happens, but the principle signals the fast's gravity.
In Israel, Asara B'Tevet has also been designated as the general Kaddish day — a time to say memorial prayers for Holocaust victims whose exact date of death is unknown. The ancient fast and the most modern grief share a date.
3. Shiva Asar B'Tammuz — The Seventeenth of Tammuz (17 Tammuz)
The 17th of Tammuz is a fast that opens the Three Weeks — the period of mourning leading to Tisha B'Av. Five distinct calamities are associated with this date:
- Moses broke the first Tablets when he descended Sinai and saw the Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf
- The daily Tamid offering in the First Temple was suspended during the Babylonian siege
- The walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Romans (Second Temple era)
- A Torah scroll was burned by Apostemos, a Roman official
- An idol was placed in the Temple sanctuary
From this day through Tisha B'Av, weddings are prohibited and haircuts are restricted. The restrictions increase during the Nine Days (1–9 Av). The escalating nature of the mourning mirrors how a siege works — the pressure builds over weeks, not in one sudden blow.
4. Ta'anit Esther — The Fast of Esther (13 Adar)
The day before Purim. In the Book of Esther, when Mordechai told Esther that Haman had gotten a death warrant signed for every Jew in the Persian Empire, she didn't immediately run to the king. She fasted. Three days. And she asked the entire Jewish community of Shushan to fast with her before she took action.
What the Purim story models — and what Ta'anit Esther preserves — is the relationship between crisis and prayer. You don't skip directly from hearing bad news to performing heroic acts. There's a step in between. You gather yourself. You ask for help. Then you act.
The fast we observe today is a single dawn-to-nightfall fast, much less severe than Esther's three days. But the structure is the same: you fast before the celebration, not after it. The joy of Purim is preceded by fasting in solidarity with all the Jews who stood on the edge of annihilation in Shushan and waited to see if courage would be enough.
What the Four Fasts Have in Common
Each of the four minor fasts is observed the same way in synagogue: partial Selichot (penitential prayers), a Torah reading from Exodus about Moses interceding for the Israelites after the Golden Calf, and at Mincha a Haftarah from Isaiah calling for return to God. They're shorter than Yom Kippur and Tisha B'Av in duration and simpler in observance, but they follow the same emotional logic: stop, remember, ask forgiveness, look toward the future.
They're also, collectively, a reminder of how history actually unfolds. Not in one dramatic catastrophe but through a series of events: a siege beginning, walls being breached, a Temple service disrupted, a governor assassinated, a scroll burned. Each step matters. The minor fasts insist on remembering the steps, not just the final collapse.
"The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall become occasions of joy and gladness and happy festivals for the House of Judah."
— Zechariah 8:19
The prophet promised these fasts would eventually become festivals. That's a different kind of hope than wishing tragedy hadn't happened — it's the hope that tragedy can be metabolized, that its meaning can transform. Until that day, the four minor fasts hold the memory honest.