Sunday, December 23, 2012

On the 10th of Tevet of the year 3336 from Creation (425 BCE), the armies of the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem. Thirty months later -- on Tammuz 9, 3338 -- the city walls were breached, and on Av 9th of that year, the Holy Temple was destroyed. The Jewish people were exiled to Babylonia for 70 years.

Tevet 10 is observed as a day of fasting, mourning and repentance, in remembrance of the siege of Jerusalem (see "Today in Jewish History"). We refrain from food and drink from daybreak to nightfall, and add the Selichot and other special supplements to our prayers. (More recently, Tevet 10 was chosen to also serve as a "general kaddish day" for the victims of the Holocaust, many of whose day of martyrdom is unknown.)

Link: More on Tevet 10

Depression is not a crime. But it plummets a person into an abyss deeper than any crime could reach.

Depression is a ploy instigated by the self-destructive elements within all of us. Once depressed, a person could do anything.

Fight depression as a blood sworn enemy. Run from it as you would run from death itself.