What Does It Mean To Fast?

Tel Aviv: Empty streets on Yom Kippur

There are a lot of Jewish traditions I love partaking in, fasting NOT being one of them, for reasons I’m sure most people would understand. But this ritual is fairly ordinary, so I participate when necessary, including this past Saturday for Yom Kippur. I’ve accepted that fasting is one of my duties as a Jewish adult, and I feel fulfilled and connected to my religion when I participate in its traditions. But despite this, I still wonder why the practice of fasting is so significant and how it applies to practicing Judaism in modern times.

Last year while in services, my mom was reading a page in the siddur added by the prayer book’s publishers. It was entitled “Notes on Fasting”. I wondered what kind of notes one could find on fasting; after all, fasting comes with a simple set of instructions: don’t eat. But these weren’t instructional notes. They gave some insight as to the purpose of fasting on this “Day of Atonement”. According to that page, fasting brings people closer to God. By not having food to eat, people cleanse not just their bodies, but also their minds, and therefore leave their brains with the capacity to think of only God all day. Maybe some very strong-stomached souls are capable of this, but I’d bet that all hungry people think about is food. The page also said that fasting helps those that are fortunate to understand those without food. This relates directly to another Jewish tradition: tzedakah, or charity. But it is one thing to experience, and another thing to understand. Being hungry on Yom Kippur is no different for me than being hungry during my 11 o’clock lecture; I know that I can grab lunch afterwards. Similarly, I knew that there was a bountiful breakfast awaiting me come 8 o’ clock on Saturday night. The people that the siddur encourages us to “understand” do not have food waiting for them. To truly understand them is to live a life of constant economization; saved change, the dollar menu, a paycheck that always seems too little, and more than enough uncertainty.

The tradition of fasting is valuable because it is rooted deep in Jewish tradition, but I’m not sure that this siddur quite nailed the point of fasting, or the best way to understand the needy. The point of Yom Kippur is to atone for sins, not to help the needy, but maybe helping out can be an added bonus. Let’s take the intentions of the siddur to heart, but instead of merely fasting, actually do something to help the people the siddur wants us to understand. Tzedakah, the other Jewish tradition I mentioned above, is probably a better way to address the problem of the needy than to make futile attempts to understand them through fasting.  Volunteering at a soup kitchen, helping with a canned food drive—those are ways in which we can help while feeling productive, not tired and hungry from fasting.

(Image via Wikipedia under a Creative Commons license)