MĒGHILLATH TA'ĀNĪTH (“scroll of fasts”). — List of 35 days of the year on which it was forbidden to fast and to deliver funeral speeches, because they were days of joyful national memories, of deliverance from persecutions, and thus intended to encourage and gladden the people.
The text of M. T. was composed in Aramaic in its definitive form under Hadrian (117–38 A.D.); it concerns events ranging from the Maccabean period, through the war of A.D. 70, up to the revolt under Hadrian. The explanations concerning the origin and the events to which the memorable days refer date from a post-Talmudic period (9th century) and are written in Hebrew. Glosses from a later period are also present.
BIBL.: H. L. Strack, Einleitung in Talmud und Midraf, 5th ed., Munich 1921, p. 12; L. A. Rosenthal, s. V. in Jüd. Lex., IV, col. 50. Eugenio Zolli