Ta’anit Esther: The Fast of Esther and the Courage to Intercede

Esther’s Fast and “the Matters of the Fastings”

When Mordechai urged Esther to plead with the king for her people, she replied:

Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.

The Megillah never says that this fast was “before Hashem,” and it never records the words of a prayer. In keeping with the book’s restraint, the spiritual meaning is left for the reader to see. But a fast in the Bible is almost always a turning toward God in prayer and repentance (compare 2 Samuel 12:16; Ezra 8:21–23; Jonah 3:5–9), and no ancient reader would have understood it otherwise.

According to the chronology of the book, Haman’s decree was written on the thirteenth of Nisan (Esther 3:12). Esther’s three-day fast would then have fallen on 13–15 Nisan, the days of Pesach. The Talmud draws exactly this conclusion: when the Megillah says that Mordechai “went his way” (vaya’avor, Esther 4:17), it hints that “he made the first day of Pesach pass in fasting.”¹ The fast we keep on 13 Adar, then, is not on the date of Esther’s original fast but is a memorial of it.

At the end of the Megillah, Mordechai and Esther’s second letter confirms the days of Purim:

To confirm these days of Purim in their times appointed, according as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had enjoined them, and as they had decreed for themselves and for their seed, the matters of the fastings and their cry.

“The matters of the fastings and their cry” (divrei hatzomot vezaakatam) became the scriptural anchor for the fast. Maimonides cites exactly this verse when he explains the custom.² Scholars debate whether Esther 9:31 originally referred to an annual fast or simply recalled the fasts and cries of the crisis; the verse is short and ambiguous. The later Jewish practice read it as a pointer to a fast connected with Purim.

Nicanor’s Day: When 13 Adar Was a Festival

The history of 13 Adar holds a surprise. In the Second Temple period this date was not a fast at all. It was a festival.

In 161 BCE Yehudah the Maccabee defeated the Seleucid general Nicanor, who had threatened to burn the Temple. The book of 1 Maccabees records:

Moreover they ordained to keep yearly this day, being the thirteenth of Adar.

2 Maccabees adds that the date was “the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which in the Syrian tongue is called Adar, the day before Mordecai’s day” (2 Maccabees 15:36), the earliest outside reference to Purim. Josephus also tells the story and notes that the Jews celebrate the victory every year.³ Megillat Ta’anit, a first-century Aramaic list of days on which fasting was forbidden because of past deliverances, includes 13 Adar as “the Day of Nicanor,” and the Talmud discusses it.⁴

So for a time, 13 Adar was a day on which fasting was prohibited. After the destruction of the Temple and the failure of the revolts against Rome, the minor festivals of Megillat Ta’anit lapsed; the Talmud records the principle that “Megillat Ta’anit has been annulled,” with the exception of Chanukah and Purim.⁵ Nicanor’s Day faded, and the date was free to take on a new meaning.

How the Fast Developed

The Mishnah and the Talmud never mention a fast on 13 Adar. The fast first appears clearly in the period of the Geonim, the heads of the Babylonian academies after the Talmud.

• The She’iltot of Rav Achai Gaon (eighth century) mentions it in one of its sections on Purim, though some scholars think the Purim sections were added to the work later.⁶
• Tractate Soferim, a post-Talmudic work, describes a custom in the Land of Israel of fasting on several days around Purim, a related but different practice.⁷
• Maimonides gives the classic formulation in the twelfth century:

All Israel are accustomed to fast in these times, and on the thirteenth of Adar, in memory of the fast that they fasted in the days of Haman, as it is said, “the matters of the fastings and their cry.”

Several explanations were given for the choice of 13 Adar. The Talmud says that “the thirteenth is a time of gathering for all,” since on that day the Jews gathered to defend themselves.⁸ Later authorities explain that soldiers in Mordechai’s day fasted and prayed on the day of battle, just as Moshe, according to the midrash, was fasting while he held up his hands during the battle with Amalek.⁹ On this reading Ta’anit Esther remembers not only Esther’s three days in Shushan but the whole people’s prayer on the day their lives hung in the balance.

Because the fast is a custom rather than a fast ordained by the prophets, the halacha treats it more leniently than the four fasts mentioned in Zechariah 8:19 (Tzom Gedaliah, Asara B’Tevet, the Seventeenth of Tammuz and Tisha B’Av).¹⁰ Yet it has been accepted by all Israel for over a thousand years, and it is kept seriously.

The Laws and Customs of the Day

Time. The fast begins at dawn (alot hashachar) and ends at nightfall. One may eat before dawn if one intended to do so before going to sleep.

When 13 Adar falls on Shabbat. One does not fast on Shabbat (except on Yom Kippur). The fast cannot be delayed, since the next day is Purim, so it is moved earlier; and to avoid fasting on Friday, when people prepare for Shabbat, it is kept on Thursday, 11 Adar.¹¹ In a leap year the fast is kept in Adar II, before Purim.

Who is exempt. The Rema notes that this fast is lighter than the others, and that pregnant and nursing women, those who are ill, and others who are suffering need not fast. Those in good health should not separate themselves from the community.¹² Anyone whose health would be endangered must not fast at all; preserving life comes first.

Prayers. In the Amidah, those fasting add Aneinu (“Answer us, Hashem, on the day of our fast”); the prayer leader adds it as a separate blessing in the repetition. In many communities Selichot (penitential prayers) are said in the morning, and Avinu Malkeinu is said.

Torah readings. At both Shacharit and Minchah, the Torah reading is Exodus 32:11–14 and 34:1–10, called Vayechal after its first word. It tells of Moshe pleading for Israel after the golden calf and of Hashem’s revelation of His thirteen attributes of mercy: “Hashem, Hashem God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth” (Exodus 34:6). When the reader reaches those words, the congregation recites them aloud. At Minchah in Ashkenazi congregations, the haftarah is Isaiah 55:6–56:8, beginning Dirshu (“Seek ye Hashem while he may be found”); most Sephardi communities do not read a haftarah at Minchah on this fast.¹³ See the readings for the fast days.

The half-shekel. The Rema records the custom of giving, before Purim, half of the local unit of currency in memory of the half-shekel that was given to the Temple in the month of Adar.¹⁴ In many communities this machatzit hashekel is collected at Minchah on the Fast of Esther, and the money is given to the poor. See Shabbat Shekalim.

At nightfall the fast ends, and Purim begins with the reading of the Megillah. Many hear the Megillah first and then break the fast, so that the transition from fasting to joy is felt in the body as well as the soul.

Fasting in the Brit Hadashah

Yeshua and his disciples lived in a Jewish world where fasting was normal. The prophetess Anna “served God with fastings and prayers night and day” in the Temple (Luke 2:37); the Pharisee in Yeshua’s parable fasted “twice in the week” (Luke 18:12), a practice also recorded in later Jewish sources for Mondays and Thursdays. Yeshua himself fasted forty days in the wilderness (Matthew 4:2), like Moshe on the mountain (Exodus 34:28) and Eliyahu on the way to Horeb (1 Kings 19:8).

Yeshua did not abolish fasting. He assumed it and taught how to do it:

Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance… But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret.

His words are “when ye fast,” not “if.” His warning is against display, not against the practice. The prophets had already said the same: “rend your heart, and not your garments” (Joel 2:13).

When the disciples of Yochanan the Immerser (John the Baptist) asked why Yeshua’s disciples did not fast, he answered: “Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast” (Matthew 9:15). The early community did exactly that. In Antioch, as the prophets and teachers “ministered … and fasted,” the Ruach HaKodesh set apart Barnabas and Saul for their mission, and “when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away” (Acts 13:2–3; compare 14:23).

The parallel with Esther is instructive. In Acts, as in Shushan, fasting comes before a dangerous mission. Barnabas and Paul were going out into a world that would often be hostile; Esther was going in to a king who might kill her. In both cases the community fasted with the ones who were sent. Ta’anit Esther invites believers to do the same: to stand with those who must speak for others, whether before rulers, in courts, in hospitals or in their own families, and to support them with fasting and prayer.

There is also a deeper echo. Esther’s fast was the preparation for her intercession, and many Messianic teachers see in her a picture, by way of typology rather than prophecy, of the Messiah who intercedes for his people (Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25). Yeshua prepared for his ministry with fasting, and he prayed for his disciples on the night before he gave his life (John 17). On Ta’anit Esther we remember that the joy of deliverance was bought with the willingness of one person to say, “if I perish, I perish.”

The Fast That Hashem Chooses

The prophets never allowed Israel to think that fasting by itself pleases God. The haftarah of the day’s afternoon begins with an invitation, “Seek ye Hashem while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way” (Isaiah 55:6–7), and it ends with a promise to the foreigners and outcasts who join themselves to Hashem: “for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people” (Isaiah 56:7). Even on a fast day, the horizon is the gathering of Israel and the nations to Hashem’s house.

Isaiah 58, which Yom Kippur makes famous, applies with equal force to every fast:

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

A fast that ends in generosity is the fast Hashem desires. This is one reason the half-shekel and the gifts to the poor belong so naturally to Ta’anit Esther and Purim.

The prophet Joel calls the whole people to a fast in a time of crisis:

Therefore also now, saith Hashem, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto Hashem your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness.

Joel’s words echo the thirteen attributes read in the Torah portion of the day (Exodus 34:6). He goes on to promise that Hashem will restore what was lost and “pour out my spirit upon all flesh” (Joel 2:28), a promise Peter declared had begun to be fulfilled at Shavuot (Acts 2:16–21).

Zechariah adds the final word on the fasts of Israel: one day they will become “joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts” (Zechariah 8:19). Ta’anit Esther is a small foretaste of that promise. Every year, the fast ends at nightfall and becomes Purim. Sorrow turns to joy in a single evening. So it will be in the redemption, when the Mashiach returns, the dead are raised, and Hashem “will wipe away tears from off all faces” (Isaiah 25:8).

Keeping Ta’anit Esther

In general terms:

• Check the date. The fast is on 13 Adar (in a leap year, Adar II), or on Thursday 11 Adar when 13 Adar falls on Shabbat. See our calendar for this year’s date.
• Fast from dawn to nightfall if you are healthy. If you are ill, pregnant, nursing, elderly or otherwise vulnerable, do not fast; ask a rabbi or your doctor if you are unsure.
• Pray. Add Aneinu in the Amidah if you are fasting. Join the community for the readings: Moshe’s intercession and the thirteen attributes of mercy in the Torah, and Isaiah’s “Seek ye Hashem” at Minchah.
• Remember Esther’s courage. Read Esther 4 and pray for someone who must speak up, take a risk or stand alone for others.
• Give. Give the half-shekel or another gift to the poor, letting the fast end in generosity, as Isaiah 58 asks.
• Break the fast with joy. As night falls, the fast becomes Purim. Go to hear the Megillah, and let the day’s prayers flow into the evening’s gladness.

Seek ye Hashem while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near.