In 1684, a group of Spanish and Portuguese Jews who fled the Inquisition (see "Today in Jewish History" for Tevet 22) held a Rosh Hashanah service in New Amsterdam, thereby founding congregation Shearith Israel ("Remnant of Israel"). On this 17th of Tevet in 1728, the congregation purchased a lot in Lower Manhattan to erect the first synagogue in New York.
Rabbi Aaron Zelig ben Joel Feivush of Ostrog, Russia, author of Toldot Aaron, passed away on Tevet 17 of the year in 5515 from creation (1754).
Tevet 17 is also the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Yaakov Wolf Krantz (1740-1804), the Maggid (preacher) of Dubna, particularly known for the parables (meshalim) he employed in his sermons and writings.
People have the wrong idea about restrictions: They imagine that if you restrict what you eat and what you do not, when you work and when you meditate and pray, what you wear, where you go—all these restrictions will suffocate any sense of inspiration.
The truth is, without any restrictions your inspiration will quickly dissipate. Focus your light like a laser into an intense, powerful beam, and it will last.