A Midsummer Nightmare
What Judaism Saw at the Summer Solstice
Most religions celebrate the triumph of light.
The summer solstice, the longest day of the year, has inspired awe for millennia. Just this month, archaeologists announced the discovery of a possible ritual gathering site near Stonehenge, where people feasted and celebrated the solstice nearly 5,000 years ago. The site contained evidence of communal meals, pottery, animal bones, and ritual activity—another reminder that the turning points of the solar year have long been invested with religious meaning.
It’s easy to understand why.
At the summer solstice the sun reaches its zenith. The crops are growing. The days are long. Life appears abundant.
But Judaism tells a different story.
This week, as we read the summer parshiot Chukat-Balak and enter the month of Tammuz, I want to suggest that Judaism developed a profoundly counter-cultural response to the summer solstice. While other cultures celebrated the victory of light, Judaism found reason for concern. It discovered darkness within the light.
And yet, in classic Jewish fashion, it also found redemption within that darkness.
Judaism Never Ignored the Sun
We often describe Judaism as having a lunar calendar.
That’s true—but only partially.
The Torah commands:
שָׁמוֹר אֶת־חֹדֶשׁ הָאָבִיב וְעָשִׂיתָ פֶּסַח לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ כִּי בְּחֹדֶשׁ הָאָבִיב הוֹצִיאֲךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ מִמִּצְרַיִם לָיְלָה׃
“Observe the month of Abib and offer a passover sacrifice to the LORD your God, for it was in the month of Abib, at night, that the LORD your God freed you from Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 16:1)
Passover must occur in the spring.
A purely lunar calendar drifts through the seasons. To prevent this, Judaism periodically inserts an extra month. The moon determines the months, but the sun determines the seasons.
The rabbis went even further. In the famous statement of Rabbi Simlai:
שְׁלֹשׁ מֵאוֹת וְשִׁשִּׁים וְחָמֵשׁ מִצְווֹת לֹא תַעֲשֶׂה כְּמִנְיַן יְמוֹת הַחַמָּה
“There are 365 negative commandments corresponding to the days of the solar year.” (Makkot 23b)
The symbolism is remarkable.
Judaism never ignored the solar cycle. It integrated it into its calendar, its rituals, and even its symbolism and conception of the commandments.
Why Calendars Matter
Modern scholars of religion have taught us to take calendars seriously.
The great historian of religion Mircea Eliade wrote:
“With each periodical festival, the participants find the same sacred time—the same that had been manifested in the festival of the previous year or in the festival of a century earlier.”
For Eliade, religious calendars do more than mark time. They create sacred time.
Similarly, Jonathan Z. Smith argued that religions actively construct meaning through sacred calendars and rituals. Sacred time is not merely discovered; it is created and interpreted.
Calendars are cultural maps.
Stonehenge is a calendar.
The Jewish year is a calendar.
The question is not whether Jews noticed the summer solstice.
The question is what story they chose to tell about it.
The Month of Tammuz
The answer begins with a startling fact.
The month in which the summer solstice falls is named Tammuz.
The name is not Hebrew.
It comes from the Mesopotamian deity Tammuz (Dumuzi), associated with death, decline, and mourning.
The prophet Ezekiel famously encounters women participating in a Tammuz ritual:
וַיָּבֵא אֹתִי אֶל־פֶּתַח שַׁעַר בֵּית־יְהוָה אֲשֶׁר אֶל־הַצָּפוֹנָה וְהִנֵּה־שָׁם הַנָּשִׁים יֹשְׁבוֹת מְבַכּוֹת אֶת־הַתַּמּוּז׃
וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלַי הֲרָאִיתָ בֶן־אָדָם עוֹד תָּשׁוּב תִּרְאֶה תּוֹעֵבוֹת גְּדֹלוֹת מֵאֵלֶּה׃
“Then He brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the House of the LORD; and there sat women weeping for Tammuz. And He said to me: Have you seen this, O mortal? You shall yet see greater abominations than these.” (Ezekiel 8:14–15)
Notice what Ezekiel does not say.
He does not deny the reality of mourning.
Instead, he tells us there are greater reasons to mourn.
Like the midrash about the baseless crying of the scouts, Ezekiel is saying “ you are mourning Tammuz… I’ll give you more, much more to mourn in the future….
Foreshadowing the destruction of two Temples and the loss of Jewish sovereignty.
The prophet takes the symbolism of Tammuz and redirects it.
The god disappears.
The mourning remains.
The month retains its name.
The meaning changes.
And what follows?
The Seventeenth of Tammuz.
The breach of Jerusalem’s walls.
The Three Weeks.
Tisha B’Av.
The destruction of the Temple.
Judaism may have inherited the month of Tammuz, but it transformed its significance from a dying god to a dyeing culture, religion and national existence
Adam’s First Solstice
The rabbis themselves were deeply sensitive to the emotional power of the solar cycle.
In one of the most extraordinary passages in the Talmud:
כֵּיוָן שֶׁרָאָה אָדָם הָרִאשׁוֹן שֶׁיּוֹם מִתְמַעֵט וְהוֹלֵךְ... אָמַר אוֹי לִי שֶׁמָּא בִּשְׁבִיל שֶׁסָּרַחְתִּי עוֹלָם חָשׁוּךְ בַּעֲדִי וְחוֹזֵר לְתוֹהוּ וָבוֹהוּ
“When Adam saw that the day was progressively diminishing, he said: Woe is me! Perhaps because I sinned the world is becoming dark around me and returning to chaos and disorder.” (Avodah Zarah 8a)
Adam fasts.
He prays.
He fears creation itself is unraveling.
Only when the winter solstice arrives and the days begin lengthening does he realize:
מִנְהָגוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם הוּא
“This is the order of the world.”
The rabbis understood that the shortening and lengthening of days affects us psychologically and spiritually.
Nature matters.
The heavens matter.
The calendar matters.
[Notice contrast between Adam’s ִתְמַעֵט וְהוֹלֵךְ and Hillels מוֹסִיף וְהוֹלֵךְ and notice the Rabbis implicit critique of Adam’s fasting and prayer ִמִנְהָגוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם הוּא … that’s just the way it is.]
Ezekiel’s Vision in Tammuz
There is another remarkable detail.
Ezekiel’s inaugural vision of the Divine Chariot—the Merkavah—occurs in Tammuz:
בַּחֹדֶשׁ הָרְבִיעִי בַּחֲמִשָּׁה לַחֹדֶשׁ
“In the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month...” (Ezekiel 1:1)
The fourth month is Tammuz.
The prophet who condemns the worshippers of Tammuz receives his greatest revelation in the month of Tammuz.
And his vision begins not with sunlight but with:
רוּחַ סְעָרָה... עָנָן גָּדוֹל וְאֵשׁ מִתְלַקַּחַת
“A storm wind... a great cloud and flashing fire.” (Ezekiel 1:4)
Revelation emerges not from unmitigated light but from cloud, storm, and mystery.
Redemption Is Born
The rabbis take this theme even further.
In Eikhah Rabbah, immediately after learning that the Temple has been destroyed, a Jew is told:
אַסּוֹר שׁוֹרְךָ וְהַתֵּר מַחֲרֵשָׁתְךָ... שֶׁנּוֹלַד מוֹשִׁיעָן שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל
“Harness your ox and tie your plow, for the redeemer of Israel has been born.”
The Temple falls.
The redemption is born.
The catastrophe and the redemption occur simultaneously.
The rabbis transformed mourning itself into a source of hope.
Tammuz and the Anxiety of the Present
It is impossible to enter the month of Tammuz this year without thinking about the headlines.
As I write these words, Israel once again finds itself confronting uncertainty regarding Iran, its nuclear ambitions, and the role of the great powers. Once again, Israel’s fate is being considered and Israel does not have a seat at the table.
There will undoubtedly be theologians and commentators who connect the tensions of this summer to the Three Weeks and to the long Jewish tradition of seeing national vulnerability through the lens of Tammuz and Tisha B’Av.
Whether or not one accepts such connections, the Jewish calendar invites us to reflect on something deeper.
The lesson of Tammuz is not merely that bad things happen.
The lesson is that moments of apparent strength can conceal profound vulnerability.
The summer solstice marks the sun at its greatest power, yet it is also the moment when the days begin to shorten.
The walls of Jerusalem appeared strong—until they were not.
The Temple appeared permanent—until it was destroyed.
Ancient civilizations trusted their gods, their armies, and their monuments. Modern societies place their faith in technology, intelligence, military power, diplomacy, and deterrence.
Judaism does not reject any of these. But it warns against confusing them with ultimate security.
The danger is not strength.
The danger is triumphalism.
The danger is believing that because the sun stands high in the sky today, it will never set.
The Jewish calendar asks us to live in the tension between confidence and humility, between vigilance and hope.
And perhaps that is why Tammuz remains such a relevant month.
It teaches us to recognize the shadows that accompany even the brightest light—without ever surrendering our faith that redemption can emerge from those shadows.
Finding the Darkness in the Light
We spend a great deal of time discussing the “December Dilemma.”
Hanukkah has become the Jewish response to darkness.
We celebrate the shortest days of the year by adding light.
But perhaps we spend too little time discussing Judaism’s equally radical response to the summer solstice.
What does Judaism see when the light is strongest?
Not triumph.
Not invincibility.
Not the end of history.
Instead, it notices that tomorrow the days begin to shorten.
It notices vulnerability at the moment of strength.
It notices mortality at the moment of abundance.
It notices shadows where others see only sunlight.
Judaism teaches that even light casts a shadow.
This is not pessimism.
It is an antidote to triumphalism.
It is a warning against the belief that power alone can save us.
It is a reminder that every empire, every nation, every institution, and every individual reaches moments when success obscures fragility.
But Judaism never stops there.
Because hidden within that shadow is another truth.
Redemption is born on Tisha B’Av.
The shadows contains redemption.
The lesson of the summer solstice is not that light conquers darkness.
It is that light contains darkness—and even that darkness contains hope.
Some of the Things I’ll Be Thinking About This Week...
If the Jewish calendar is fundamentally lunar, why did the rabbis go out of their way to connect the 365 negative commandments to the solar year?
Did Judaism simply reject the ancient pagan associations of Tammuz, or did it transform them into something uniquely Jewish?
What should we make of the fact that Ezekiel condemns those who “weep for Tammuz” and yet receives his own great prophetic vision in the month of Tammuz?
Why do we spend so much time reflecting on Judaism’s response to the darkness of winter and so little time considering its response to the overwhelming light of summer?
Is one of Judaism’s most enduring insights that even light casts a shadow?
In our own age, surrounded by technological, military, political, and economic power, what would it mean to remember that the day after the longest day is already a little shorter?
Does the Jewish suspicion of triumphalism have anything to teach us as we think about Israel, Iran, diplomacy, deterrence, and the perennial temptation to place our faith entirely in power, technology, political arrangements or even magical thinking?
And finally, if the rabbis were right that redemption is born on Tisha B’Av itself, what would it mean to train ourselves not only to find light in darkness, but to discover hope hidden within the shadows cast by the brightest light?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. What does Judaism’s relationship with the summer solstice teach us about how to live through moments of success, strength, uncertainty, and hope?
Sefaria source sheet: https://voices.sefaria.org/sheets/736189
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