On Fasting

I didn’t notice how fashionably people in Toronto dress until I spent some time near the small town where my mother, her siblings, and some of my cousins grew up.

It’s not that it didn’t occur to me that particular outfits I saw on the subway on my way to work were trendy or fun. I’ve learned to be interested in things like which ties match which suits, and what type of shoes you can get away with when you wear different styles of trouser leg. But I didn’t see the pattern until I was in cottage country, where the dress code is shorts: T-shirt and shoes optional.

It’s a platitude that we take what surrounds us for granted until faced with its absence, so common it no longer needs to be voiced. But if we don’t notice what’s around us until it’s gone, how can we know what to take away so it suddenly becomes salient?

Sometimes, people ask me why I fast on Yom Kippur.

Heck, sometimes I ask me why I fast on Yom Kippur. I don’t believe in God, at least not in the personal Deity often associated with mainstream Judaism. I don’t think I believe that if I don’t fast, I’ll be in some sort of afterlife see-me-after-class detention, although you know what they say about atheists and foxholes. Besides, lots of people around me who do believe, don’t fast, or at least, not the hardcore way the most Orthodox might advocate.

No eating. No drinking. No sexual or romantic touching. No cleaning oneself for one’s own gratification — wash your hands after going to the bathroom, but don’t brush your teeth because you’re worried you might have bad breath or take a shower so you feel nice and clean. No wearing comfortable leather shoes. No working.

Many religions practice self-denial during certain observances. Several of my Christian friends (and friends of Christian background) restrict their pleasures during Lent. My Muslim colleagues, friends, and students eat only before light and after dark during the holy month of Ramadan; those of the Bahá’í faith observe a similar Nineteen-Day Fast in March. Judaism is rife with fast days, such as Tzom Gedaliah and Tisha B’Av, but the one observed most often is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

On that day, the Torah tells us, taanu eit nafshoteichem: we are instructed to “impoverish our souls” (Vayikra* 16:29). Why? All the Torah says is that we’re to be cleansed of our sins when we make atonement.

As critics have been pointing out since Biblical times, it’s way easier to fast and follow the laws of Yom Kippur than it is to truly turn around and do good where you once did evil. If you’re like me, fasting may make you feel even less like atonement: hangriness shifts my focus from feeling sorry for what I’ve done to feeling grumpy, belligerent, and sorry for myself.

So I don’t fast as the FastPass+ line to repentance. Instead, I do it to help me be a better person in the year to come.

I’m inclined to judge myself pretty favourably. I think I’m a good person who’s learned to be patient, practice active listening, and make time and energy for the people I love. Like everyone else, I tend to judge my own actions through the lens of attribution biases. When I do great things, it’s because I’m awesome. When I do bad things, it’s because I was in a bad situation.

My life is pretty good. I’m generally not in bad situations: I’m housed, clothed, fed, loved, respected, and appreciated. I’m not usually in great pain. Most days, I feel like I’m making a useful contribution to the people around me. I often enjoy the feeling of Getting Stuff Done.

Like Toronto fashion, positive environments where my needs are met surround me to such an extent that it doesn’t even occur to me how they’re not merely the way the world is but contingent on the circumstances into which I was born.

Fasting on Yom Kippur takes away those contingencies one by one. I don’t feel positive when I can’t eat or drink; I don’t project confidence when I feel itchy from not showering.

For me, the hardest thing is not working. I can’t distract myself from the physical discomforts I feel by pouring myself into something mentally engrossing; I can’t turn off my mental conversations with myself by mindlessly scrolling through memes or music. I can’t even make my thoughts whole by refining them in written or typed words. And I have to accept that I can do nothing for a day without drastic consequences on the world around me.

What I am used to thinking of as my personality dissolves when I’m cranky and bored and have nothing in my head but my own thoughts. So many of the things I’m proud of about myself are really things about myself and my environment. Which is okay but humbling.

That’s something that’s easy to know intellectually — that I am very lucky in the circumstances in which I was born, that I might not be as good at the things I do if I weren’t. It’s still not something I know in the marrow of my bones the way I might if I weren’t so incredibly lucky. But even just a day of impoverishment of the spirit touches me on the visceral level I need for belief.

When I get grouchy about the annoying way that stranger on the subway is talking too loud or how frustrating it is when everyone sings my favourite piece of liturgy to a tune I don’t know, I no longer have the illusion that I am universally patient or compassionate. I have to face the idea that my reality is and always will be biased.

And, more importantly, even after the neilah service, when the fast is over, I have to take with me the knowledge that it is only my extreme good fortune that allows me to become myself again. How many of the people I encounter each day have had enough food, water, self-care, and sleep?

Many of the students I teach early in the day probably come to class hungry and sleepy; most of the retail employees or servers whose places of work I frequent probably haven’t had time to take their lunch breaks. How dare I judge them when my circumstances give me the privilege of patience and empathy, and I have no way of knowing what their circumstances are at all?

In the end, it’s simple: this ritual of going without helps me remember that most of the time, I am lucky not to have to. And if the only thing I have truly worth more than that of anyone else is luck, my obligation is compassion.

* Leviticus, for those accustomed to the English names for the books of the Old Testament