Customs
As a minor fast day, fasting lasts from dawn to shortly after dusk. Although it is customary among Ashkenazi Jews to refrain from listening to music, public entertainment, and haircuts on this day, this is only because it is part of The Three Weeks (see below, Bein haMetzarim); other deprivations applicable to the major fasts (i.e. Yom Kippur and Tisha B'Av) do not apply.
A Torah reading, a special prayer in the Amidah (Aneinu), and (in many congregations) Avinu Malkenu are added at the morning Shacharit and afternoon Mincha services. Ashkenazi congregations also read a haftarah (from the Book of Isaiah) at Mincha. Congregations also recite during Shacharit a series of Selichot (special penitential prayers) reflecting the themes of the day.
Read more about this topic: Seventeenth Of Tammuz
Famous quotes containing the word customs:
“O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear Kate, you
and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country’s
fashion. We are the makers of manners, Kate.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“We set up a certain aim, and put ourselves of our own will into the power of a certain current. Once having done that, we find ourselves committed to usages and customs which we had not before fully known, but from which we cannot depart without giving up the end which we have chosen. But we have no right, therefore, to claim that we are under the yoke of necessity. We might as well say that the man whom we see struggling vainly in the current of Niagara could not have helped jumping in.”
—Anna C. Brackett (1836–1911)
“Neighboring farmers and visitors at White Sulphur drove out occasionally to watch ‘those funny Scotchmen’ with amused superiority; when one member imported clubs from Scotland, they were held for three weeks by customs officials who could not believe that any game could be played with ‘such elongated blackjacks or implements of murder.’”
—For the State of West Virginia, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)