<div>Picked this up off of the Seforim blog, composed by Eliezer Brodt at </div>
<div><a href="http://seforim.blogspot.com/2007/03/eliezer-brodt-review-of-halikhot-shlomo.html">http://seforim.blogspot.com/2007/03/eliezer-brodt-review-of-halikhot-shlomo.html</a> :</div>
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<div>In regard to <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Pesach </span>there is an amazing original piece as to why the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">bechorim </span>(first born) fast on <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Erev Pesach
</span>. R. Shlomo Zalman writes that if it is solely due to the fact that the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">bechorim </span>were saved from death, then all of the descendants of the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">bechorim
</span>should also fast – not just bechorim! (The answer is a bit more complex and includes several other components to this answer, as well.) To this, R. Shlomo Zalman says that the reason for the fast is not for the fact that they were saved but rather it was because the
<span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">bechorim </span>were supposed to do the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">avodah </span>in the Beit Hamikdash, but that they lost it due to the sin of the Golden Calf. So on the fourteenth day of
<span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Nissan </span>when they came to the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Beit Hamikdash </span>and they saw the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">kohanim </span>and <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">
levi'im </span>doing the beautiful <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">avodah </span>they felt very sad so they did not eat. So they decided to make a day to remember this as there was one time they were able to do this – when
<span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Hashem </span>skipped over the houses and to atone for the Golden Calf which caused them to lose this great job (<span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Halikhot Shlomo </span>3:179-180).<br clear="all">
<br>-- <br>Yisrael Medad<br>Shiloh<br>Mobile Post Efraim 44830<br>Israel </div>