Fasting and Belief

Last night, after the Yom Kippur fast, we ate dinner with some friends, one of whom, a man in of seventy, has recently converted to Judaism. He admits that it was an odd thing to do. He married an orthodox Jewish woman, who was there with him. They both said that people ask them, at your age, why did you bother to marry? After all, you're not going to have children. Bill, the convert, usually responds, "Really?" After all, they're both very young looking.

Bill noted that it was the first time in his life that he had fasted, gone without food or water for 25 hours. I was a bit surprised, because I can't count the number of times I've fasted. It's almost normal for me.

The purpose of the fast is to keep the message of Yom Kippur in mind: God judges us between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, when we have ten days to repent and change our ways, and He delivers our sentence on Yom Kippur, when our fate is decided (actually, there's supposed to be a grace period until the end of Sukkot). If we repent for our sins now, we won't die this year. Otherwise, our fate is sealed.

Did any of the six of us around the table last night, all of whom had attended the long Yom Kippur services and fasted, take that message literally? I doubt it. I know that my wife and I don't believe it, because we discussed it.

So why do we bother?

Solidarity, for one. Jews have been fasting on Yom Kippur for a couple of thousand years, and for many otherwise completely unaffiliated Jews, fasting on Yom Kippur is still a sign on their part that they feel an allegiance to the Jewish people. The Marranos in Spain used to fast on Yom Kippur for the same reason. It's the kind of religious observance you can practice without people noticing it.

Okay, but why sit through and participate in the long and repetitive liturgy? Why pound your chest endlessly, confessing to an alphabetical list of sins? Why get to your knees at certain points in the service? Why not just stay home, fast, and listen to music or read a book?

The best answer, for me, is one that a learned friend of mine proposed: "Spiritual Theater." I know that, like an actor, I am speaking with a kind of sincerity when I recite the prayers. But what am I acting out?

First, I'm responding to the terrible uncertainty of life. I looked around the packed synagogue while we were reciting one of the central prayers, "Unetane Tokef" (Let us now relate the power of this day's holiness), and I realized that, without doubt, some of the people present in the room will not be alive next year at this time. Perhaps I myself won't be. Maybe I don't believe specifically that by observing the Sabbath more meticulously, I will avoid that fate. In fact, I don't think that anything I might do will be helpful, except exerting caution, watching my health, and so on. But I know that, as carefully as I drive, a car could veer into my lane and cause my death, just to name one of the many reasons why I might not make it through the year.

Second, I'm responding to the need to repent - maybe not in the orthodox Jewish sense of trying to observe more of the commandments more scrupulously - but certainly in the sense of trying to be a better person. It's easy to avoid examining one's life. The High Holidays push you in that direction.

Third, let's not forget solidarity. After all, publicly observing Yom Kippur as part of a community is much more powerful than privately observing it. Part of my identity is that I am the kind of Jew who attends religious services quite frequently, setting aside the issue of belief.

Fourth, the High Holiday liturgy is very beautiful. Even though it is too long and repetitive, there are some aesthetic high points, some great poetry, some dramatic moments in the service, some beautiful music in the hymns we sing. It has a lot of emotional depth and power. Not only is it "Spiritual Theater," it's good theater, and theater of a unique sort, in which the spectators are also actors.

Last, it's therapeutic. Yom Kippur brought up many deep and disturbing memories in me, memories of people I had disappointed, relationships I hadn't done justice to, personal failures of various kinds. I barely slept at all on the night of Yom Kippur. I felt that my life was shattering. But over the day the pieces fell together again - I hope not in the same way. Because self-improvement is a process of dismantling, sometimes painful and frightening, and reconstruction, often challenging and uncertain, with some of the bad pieces left out and the whole structure different from what it was.