Tishrei 3rd is a fast day mourning the assassination of the Jewish royal Gedaliah ben Achikam, governor of the Land of Israel for a short period following the destruction of the First Temple. Gedaliah's killing spelled the end of the small remnant of a Jewish community that remained in the Holy Land after the destruction. They soon fled to Egypt. (According to many opinions, the assassination of Gedaliah actually occurred on Rosh Hashanah, but the commemoration of the event is postponed to the day after the festival).
Link: About Gedaliah
Rebbetzin Devorah Leah, daughter of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi and mother of Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch (the "Tzemach Tzedek"), passed away on this date just three days after her young son's third birthday. Click here to read more about this.
Mourning the killing of Gedaliah (see "Today in Jewish History"), we abstain from food and drink from dawn to nightfall; selichot prayers are included in the morning prayer.
The 10-day period beginning on Rosh Hashanah and ending on Yom Kippur is known as the "Ten Days of Repentance"; this is the period, say the sages, of which the prophet speaks when he proclaims (Isaiah 55:6) "Seek G-d when He is to be found; call on Him when He is near." Psalm 130, Avinu Malkeinu and other special inserts and additions are included in our daily prayers during these days.
The Baal Shem Tov instituted the custom of reciting three additional chapters of Psalms each day, from the 1st of Elul until Yom Kippur (on Yom Kippur the remaining 36 chapters are recited, thereby completing the entire book of Psalms). Click below for today's three Psalms.
Chapter 94</ br> Chapter 95 </ br> Chapter 96
Links: About the Ten Days of teshuvah; Voicemail; more on teshuvah
Rabbi Alexandri said, “Master of the Universe! It’s obvious to You that we want to do what You want done. So what is holding us back? The yeast in the dough!” (Talmud, Berachot 17a)
What is so terrible about chametz, that once a year, for the Festival of Freedom, we must search, burn and destroy any trace of it in our possession?
Because yeast makes a little dough into a big loaf of hot air. And that pretty much describes the fundamental gameplay of all that imprisons you.
It's like the yeast that takes your healthy need to earn an honest living and blows it up into a desperate need for recognition and yet more recognition.
Or like the yeast that mixes in when you are about to do a beautiful mitzvah out of the sincerity of your heart, saying, “Yes! Do it! People will say you are such a tzadik!”
Or the yeast that appears when you are studying the wisdom of Torah and it whispers, “Soon you will be wiser than anyone else!”
It’s that yeast that ties every thought, every word, every deed you do to your ego, as though your existence is somehow invalidated if you do not occupy more and more space every day—with nothing but hot air.
You are its prisoner. It is your taskmaster. It has stolen your life from you, rendering you just another subject of an oppressive world you must satisfy and please.
On Passover, you are empowered to break your chains of bondage. To do a mitzvah only because it connects you to your G-d. To learn Torah wisdom only to become one with divine wisdom. To be yourself. To escape bondage to anything in this world. To be free.
And you begin by ritually eradicating a physical manifestation of that ego from our world. By selling and burning our chametz, we are empowered to set ourselves free.