The Hebrew month of Tammuz usually arrives in June, and sometimes in early July. Sunny days — at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, which was the “world” for most of Jewish history — are here again. In short, it’s summertime!
Just contemplating summertime brings a smile to my face. Alas, our tradition’s relationship with the summer is, shall we say, complicated. The modern Hebrew term for summer, kayitz, comes from biblical sources where it refers to summer fruit and the fig harvest. The thought of eating freshly gathered figs also brings a smile to my face. But already in the Hebrew Bible, that simple pleasure was invoked in ominous tones. In a vision of the prophet Amos (8:1–2), a basket of summer fruit, kelub kayitz, triggers the pun-fueled divine declaration ba ha-ketz, “the end has come.” The northern kingdom of Israel would fall to Assyria within a generation.
Classical rabbinic literature, for its part, typically refers to summer as tekufat Tammuz, the period that begins with the month of Tammuz. It is one of four seasons that correspond to the turning points of the sun, the solstices and equinoxes. Tammuz, of course, is associated with the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.
For the rabbis, as for the Hebrew Bible, summer likewise brought few smiles. If Amos’ pun hinted at the prospect of disaster, Tammuz, both as a month and as a period of the year, became disaster’s home address, especially when paired with the consecutive month of Av. Mishnah Taanit 4:6 enumerates no fewer than five tragedies that struck the Jewish people on the 17th of Tammuz. Five more took place on the 9th of Av, including the destruction of both Temples. So much for “have a good summer!”
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Against our Beach Boys-backed belief in the joys of summer, the rabbis came to regard this time of year as ominous. The rabbis believed that misfortune was practically baked into Tammuz and, ironically, came to regard this period of extended daylight as dark. The irony is captured by the Zohar in a description of the night preceding the Exodus, during which the plague of the firstborn decimated the Egyptians:
Night shone as a fierce day in Tammuz, and the whole people witnessed the judgments of the blessed Holy One, as it is written: “Night shines as day; darkness and light are the same” (Psalms 139:12).
Zohar 2:38a
Based on the translation by Daniel Matt.
Here and elsewhere, the Zohar does not stray significantly from its rabbinic precursors: There is something dangerous and dark about Tammuz. For the Zohar, the qualities that make this time of year particularly unfortunate are part of the very structure of the divine realm:
“And she hid him three months” (Exodus 2:2) — three months during which harsh Judgment prevails in the world. And which are they? Tammuz, Av and Tevet. What does this indicate? That before Moses descended to the world, he existed above, so Shekhinah coupled with him from the day he was born. Based on this, Rabbi Shimon said: Spirits of the righteous exist above before descending to the world.
Zohar 2:12a
Based on the translation by Daniel Matt.
Explore this passage in context on Sefaria.
The Zohar’s midrashic freedom is on full display in this passage. Exodus 2 relates how Moses’ mother gave birth in secret and hid him for three months. For the Zohar, this becomes a story of the unfolding of divinity itself. The “man” (Moses’ father) of the first verse is YHVH (associated with the sefira of Tiferet); the daughter, Miriam, is the sefira Binah; Moses’ mother is Shekhinah. The drama of Moses’ birth reflects larger dynamics in the divine realm that set the stage for his arrival. His soul comes into the world having already been cared for by the Shekhinah — the heavenly mother who took care that he would not be born to his earthly mother in an inauspicious month. Moses was already Moses, including his “coupling” with the Shekhinah, before he was even born! Rabbi Shimon says this is true of all the righteous — they are formed by divine forces even before birth.
For our purposes, note that the Zohar here assumes Tammuz (along with Av and Tevet) is an irretrievably dangerous month. Later kabbalists pushed this further, embedding summer’s “darkness” into the very structure of divinity. In the sefirotic tree, the light of Ein Sof flows through 12 diagonal conduits, corresponding to the 12 months of the year. The months, therefore, are not merely markers on a human calendar; they are woven into the fabric of the divine world. Moses Cordovero, the great 16th-century kabbalist, observed that Tammuz, Av and Tevet fall on conduits of din and gevurah — judgment and might — positions structurally exposed to seizure by the adversarial forces prowling the periphery of the divine tree (Or HaHamah on Zohar 2:12a). Yehuda Ashlag’s commentary renders all of this in starker shorthand: These three are Esau’s months. Jacob, our ancestor, holds the spring. Esau, the ancestor of our enemies, holds the summer (Sulam on Zohar 2:78b).
The kabbalists, then, made their peace with summer as a time of misfortune and a reflection of the cosmic darkness built into divinity itself. But my teacher, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, saw it differently. He once said in my presence that the rabbis who instituted the Three Weeks of mourning that begin in Tammuz and culminate in the 9th of Av never imagined these cheerless weeks would still be observed thousands of years later. He did not think our people were meant to mourn away every summer indefinitely. I agree with both Shlomo and the Beach Boys, and so I say: Enjoy the sunshine and have a great summer!
This piece was originally published as part of A Year of Zohar: Kabbalah for Everyone, an original series produced by My Jewish Learning and Sefaria. Sign up for the entire series here.
