# tzom (צוֹם)

pronounced: tsom


**A fast — on Yom Kippur, about twenty-five hours without food or water**

## In Scripture

> Is such the fast that I have chosen? the day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a rush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to Yahweh? “Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to release the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?
> — Isaiah 58:5-6 (Read on Yom Kippur morning: the fast God chooses loosens yokes rather than bowing heads.)

> “Yet even now,” says Yahweh, “turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.”
> — Joel 2:12 (Fasting as part of a whole-hearted turning — the day's tzom belongs to teshuvah.)


## How to read this entry

The definition comes from the IsraelForYou lexicon. Scripture quotations and their translation are named below; later tradition or modern usage is identified when it appears.


https://israelforyou.com/hebrew/tzom/