Q. Since the month’s name Tamuz is the name of an avoda zara, why is it permitted? Is it not forbidden to mention their names?
A. The name Tamuz is indeed the epithet of an idolatry, as it says in Yechezkel: (8: 1) And He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the house of Hashem that is to the north, and behold there the women were sitting, making the Tamuz weep. Rashi (ibid) explains: There was an image that they would heat up from the inside, and its eyes, which were of lead, would melt from the heat of the fire, It is also true that we are enjoined from using names of idolatry as the Torah ordains: (Shemos 23: 13) The name of the gods of others you shall not mention; it shall not be heard through your mouth. (See Sanhedrin 63: 2).
However, as the Talmud above points out, the names of the avoda zaras recorded in the Torah can be used. Yet, it seems hard to understand why such a title should have been chosen?
Although the month of Tamuz belongs to the group of three months (Tamuz, Av and Teveth,) on which the quality of severe judgment (dino kashio) rests on the world (Zohar on “She hid him for three months” (Shemos 2: 2), and the Mishna, (Taanis 4: 6) teaches that five severe occurrences happened on the seventeen of Tamuz, so did other favorable and beneficial events take place on this month.
It was the month when the Yona was sent by Noach from the Teiva. It was also the month when: The Sun, stood still upon Gibeon, and the Moon in the valley of Ayalon. (Yehoshua 10: 12).On the sixth of Tamuz (1792) the Jews of Ostroha established this day as Purim Ostroha, to commemorate their community being saved during the Russian-Polish war. On that same day (1976) the Raid at Entebbe took place, saving 265 Jews from Palestinian and Ugandan terrorists, On the eight of Tamuz (1834) the Inquisition was abolished. On the eleventh (1927) an earthquake stroke Yerushalayim. The Kaf Hachaim notes (576:26) that although many Arabs died, miraculously not a single Jew was injured, and so on. The month of Tamuz in it’s very name teaches us that even an avoda zara can, with our teshuva and Hashem’s will and help into salvation and benefit.
Horav Shlomo Miller’s Shlit’a opinion is that Tamuz was the name for heat or fire (as Rashi ibid. also explains). It was used by the idolaters to describe and name their their idol, but the word itself reflected
the forces of nature only.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit”a
Important Numbers
