[Avodah] Fasts That Fall On Friday Are Observed On Friday

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 06/01/17 09:40, Jay F. Shachter via Avodah wrote:
>> We never push off a fast because it's on a Friday (except Yom
>> Kippur).
>>
> This may be a pedantic distinction, but no, we do not push off Yom
> Kippur when it falls on Friday.  We fiddled with the calendar so that
> the 10th of Tishrey would not fall on Friday, but if the 10th of
> Tishrey ever did fall on Friday, we would surely have fasted on that
> day.  This is not the same thing as pushing off a fast, which means
> observing it on a different day, e.g., fasting on the 10th of Av
> instead of the 9th of Av.  A pedantic distinction, perhaps, but in my
> opinion an important one; fasting on the 10th of Tishrey is serious
> business.

"Fiddled with the calendar" implies some kind of clever formula that has 
the amazing and useful result that the 10th of Tishri never happens 
falls on a Friday. But no, it's nothing as clever as that.  What we in 
fact do when the 10th of Tishri is going to fall on a Friday is simply 
push  it to the next day.  We don't move Yom Kippur to the 11th, because 
we can't, so instead we keep it on the 10th and move the 10th.  And of 
course moving the 10th means the rest of the month has to come with it. 
We move the whole month over a day, so that the 10th will be on the 
Shabbos instead of the Friday.  Sorry, to me such a crude method is 
"pushing off".

-- 
Zev Sero                May 2017, with its *nine* days of Chanukah,
zev at sero.name           be a brilliant year for us all