The Ancient Judean Holiday: Yom Nicanor - 13th of Adar

For more on this text and the commentaries that accompany it, see Vered Noam, "Megillat Ta’anit and its Scholion (Commentary)," TheTorah (2015). For a scholarly edition of Megillat Ta’anit, including the traditional commentaries (scholia) on the work and full scholarly discussion and apparatus, see: Vered Noam, Megillat Ta’anit: Versions, Interpretation, History (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2003 [Hebrew]). For an English overview of her findings, see her chapter, “The Scroll of Fasting.”

For a description of the Talmudic discussion on this question, see my, "The Cancellation of Megillat Ta’anit," TheTorah (2014).

Ironically, by bringing a head and arm into the Temple precinct, is Judah not defiling the Temple (or at least the courtyard) himself? It is possible that he assumes a gentile’s body does not defile, or that this was a special case or emergency. Alternatively, it is possible that the author, Jason of Cyrene, is embellishing a little here.

According to a lost version of Yerushalmi Yoma, quoted by Shlomo Sir-Leon (referenced by Shlomo Adni in his Malechet Shlomo on m. Shekalim 6:3), the “Nicanor’s Gate” received its name from this incident, but this is a legend. Nicanor’s Gate takes its name from a wealthy person who paid for the gate. This is the explanation found in the Tosefta (Yoma 2:4) and the Talmud (b. Yoma 38a, j. Yoma 3:8), and is supported by the archaeological discovery of Nicanor’s tomb and the inscription therein, which describes him as the one “who made the gates.”

The editor, most probably, added the description of the Chanukah story into the main text in chapter 10. The paragraph looks as if it has been added since it actually interrupts Antiochus Epiphanes’ death scene. In fact, the editor’s introduction offers a completely different scenario for how Antiochus dies than the book itself. This is a classic example of “biblical editing” where the editor adds an alternative version but does not edit out the original with which he was working.

Megillat Esther mentions Esther calling all Jews of Shushan to observe a three day fast before she went to speak to the king, and a number of different Jewish fasting customs developed around commemorating these fasts. Some fasted for three days towards the end of Adar, some three days in Nissan (as it says in the Megillah). By the early second millennium C.E., the Babylonian custom of fasting on the day before Purim eventually became the dominant one. See Daniel Sperber, מנהגי ישראל [Jewish Customs] (Mossad HaRav Kook, 1989), 1.196-198, 4.250-252; Mitchell First, "The Fast of Esther’s 8th Cent. C.E. Origins," TheTorah (2023).

The success of the Six Day War is celebrated on Yom Yerushalayim (the 28^th of Iyyar).

For a modern Hebrew version, with scholarly notes, see Daniel R. Schwartz, 2 Maccabees: Introduction, Translation, Commentary (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Tzvi Press, 2005). For a modern English version, also with scholarly notes, see Daniel R. Schwartz, 2 Maccabees, (Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature [CEJL] Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008). For just a modern English translation, see Joachim Schaper’s translation in the New English Translation of the Septuagint [NETS], available here. There is no updated Hebrew text online, but the 1885 translation of Yitzhak Fraenkel is available on the Da’at website here.