To the best of my knowledge, Yom Kippur is the only holiday where the Torah tells us to fast. Any other holiday where Jews are fasting is from a rabbinical tradition. It’s the only religious fast I’ve ever observed. I’ve fasted most of the last 12 Yom Kippurs.
Not that I need to justify myself, but I’ve not fasted on a few different Yom Kippurs. Once was because I was ill, and for several years, I allowed myself just water because I was singing in the High Holy Days Choir. Those of you who sing know that dry vocal chords don’t make pretty sounds. Otherwise, I’m pretty diligent. Many reform Jews do not fast and many do. I think that fasting is about your personal practice and so I really don’t bother asking people if they’re fasting or not.
Over the years, I’ve come to noticed that people approach fasting in two fundamentally different ways. I find it really interesting, and don’t believe that there is a right or wrong way to fast, but I find it fascinating nonetheless.
To me, fasters can be broken up into floggers and embracers.
The Fasting Flogger
The fasting flogger is the person who sees fasting as a kind of punishment for their transgressions over the last year. They spend the day leading up to Kol Nidre steeling themselves for a 25 hour personal flogging. With each growl of their stomach, they are reminded of their transgressions and feel that this punishment of foodlessness is due process. They are meant to suffer. They are meant to ache. The true wretchedness of the distance from God that occurs when we sin is so wholly painful. It is a badge of pride and honor to give up these comforts in the name of bringing themselves closer to God. It is expected that you fast and it is a right of passage on the path towards inscription.
All of this suffering is in the name of cleansing oneself in order to be inscribed in the Book of Life. I also think that these are the people who view the “closing of the gates” as a threatening prospect. For those of you who aren’t familiar, the closing of the gates is a motif throughout the entire day of Yom Kippur, but is specifically referring to the Neilah service, the final service of Yom Kippur. Neilah is sort of the last ditch effort to get in good with God and seal yourself for another year.
I feel like I’ve expressed this a little already, but I really hate the idea of groveling and shaming in relationship to faith. It doesn’t work for me. I understand it is really effective for some people, but I feel like God is a compassionate force. Beating myself up and begging for mercy is just less productive for me. Which is why I fall into the second category of fasters: the Embracers
The Fast Embracers
I wont lie and say that fasting is pleasurable for me. I definitely go through the hangry stage (hungry-angry) around 3 or 4pm. But in choosing to fast, I am grateful for my ability to fast. Judaism forbids the fasting of children (under B’nei Mitzvah age), women who have recently delivered babies, and the critically ill. How lucky am I to have this strong body that can run for 25 hours without food or water? What a luxury to make a choice to go hungry as opposed to having it forced upon me by poverty. It is a gift. I begin my fast with gratefulness and peace as opposed to fear and determination.
As I am fasting, I am acutely aware of the sensations of hunger and thirst. Rather than quenching my thirst with water, I drink up the prayers and the gentle hum of meditation. Instead of eating, I sate my hunger with the decadence that is the Yom Kippur service. It is a dramatic, all-encompassing service. When I tremble with awe before God, I recognize that it may be my blood sugar dropping, but that trembling is a foreign sensation, and it helps to set apart this day from every other day in my life.
I relax into my fast. By the end of Neilah (his incredibly desperate and groping service) I can’t even read the english texts correctly. Do you know what I do? I laugh. I am full of giggles by the end of Neilah. When it is time to break the fast, I have relaxed into it so deeply, that I am full of unexplainable joy.
That joy is relief. Relief that my body can handle 25 hours without food or drink. Relief that I have another year ahead of me. Relief that I just went through 10 days of deep introspection, and hopefully came out with some new ideas or needed reminders for how to live my life on a more divine path. It’s true, I bust out of services as quick as anyone else and head to a restaurant and have a big meal, but I while I am fasting, I try to find the good stuff.
Are there more than two ways to fast? Why do you fast or not fast? Is there a “right” way to go about it? Do you see the closing of the gates as a threat or as something else?
And You Shall Love 