The Fast of Esther תענית אסתר
The fast of the thirteenth of Adar, on the eve of Purim: not mourning, but a memory that rescue was asked for with fasting and prayer before the sword was taken up.
Esther said to Mordecai: "Go, gather all the Jews… and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days." That fast was in the spring, in the days of Passover, and lasted three days; the present one is a single day before Purim.
There is no direct commandment about it in the Megillah, and the Talmud does not name it. It first appears as an established custom in the time of the Geonim, and the midrash gives the reason: on the thirteenth of Adar the Jews gathered to defend themselves and fasted that day, as their fathers had fasted before battle.
Hence its particular character: it is a light fast—the pregnant, nursing mothers and the sick are exempt—and it is the only one that stands not after a disaster but before a deliverance.
On the timeline
Sources
Tanakh
- Esther 4:16 — «fast for me three days»
- Esther 9:1–2 — the thirteenth of Adar — the day of defence
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Megillah 2a — the days of Purim and their reckoning
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 686:2 — the fast is a light one
Basis: Talmud and midrash.