The Meaning of Fasting - Beit Polska Blog

Menachem Mirski

Kol Nidrei Sermon 5784

POLSKĄ WERSJĘ How much control did we have over the world when we were children? Very little. The whole process of growing up, learning and so called socialization is about gaining control over our own behavior and the close environment that surrounds us. Over time we gain more and more control over ourselves and our close environment; this makes us able to create small worlds of our own, like our own family, our own business or any kind of structure, like an organization or a religious community. In this way we change the world and participate in the process of its creation.

And while we may not particularly like the word “control”, we like the word “freedom”. Well, they are connected. The more control we have over our environment the more freedom we are able to exercise, and vice versa – the more freedom we have, the more aspects of our life we are able to control.

The experience of self-denial we practice on Yom Kippur helps us to gain more control, and particularly, more self-control. Why do we need more self-control? Gaining more self-control expands the boundaries of our individual freedom. By giving up control over ourselves, which we sometimes consciously do, we increase the possibility of something dangerous happening to us at a given moment – we invite random events to our lives. While we are never completely free from danger, that belongs to the essence of life, we need to have control to minimize random events that may be harmful to us.

Not every interaction with the world, even if intended, is good for us. There is a whole variety of seemingly innocuous interactions that show their true face when they are overdone – food, for example. That’s, I believe, exactly one of the reasons we fast. It sounds fairly literal, but I’m bringing it because the theological meaning of Yom Kippur, expressed literally in the Torah and rabbinic literature often overshadows these, I would say, mundane, psychological aspects of fasting.

There are interactions with the world that are toxic or even destructive; we know what, and we still get involved in them, voluntarily. There are interactions that are completely meaningless, therefore they are a waste of time; we know that and we still get involved in them! There are things we like a lot and believe they are good for us – abstaining from them gives us an opportunity to reevaluate this relationship. Yom Kippur obligates us to take a complete break with all these interactions, tells us to stop, for one day, the cycle of physical interaction with the external world we know, with olam haze – and in this way Yom kippur is in yet another way analogous to Shabbat, as Shabbat shabbaton, but slightly in different form, on a different metaphysical level, I would say.

Gaining this control is necessary to implement conscious moderation in our life and in this way to be able to avoid various kinds of dangers. This leads us to experience our human life at its fullest. This moderation and this life is the essence of Judaism. Both self-control and moderation are among the recipes for a long and happy life.

We invite God to this venture of individual self-control to cross the boundaries of our “individual selves”. In this way we expand this individual psychological training into the spiritual reality. By self-reflecting and correcting our errors we offer our new-selves to God. We establish a new relationship, as ‘new people’ with the Creator of everything and the Judge of human affairs. By reestablishing this relationship in a new form we minimize the possibility to err and thus we are more effective in coping with everyday life challenges, both spiritual and practical. The Talmud distinguishes between two kinds of sins, those committed against God, for which Yom Kippur atones, and those committed against another human being, for which Yom Kippur atones only if we have already received forgiveness from the injured person. The second kinds of sins are typically moral transgressions. The first kind of sins are mostly ritual transgressions – they have to do with a level of our religious observance. By confessing them, by confessing our faults in this matter we express the desire to improve our life in terms of religiosity and religious observance. If we do it sincerely – and we always should do it sincerely – it will lead us to discover new meanings in the rituals we know and perhaps discover new, meaningful religious practices we don’t know. They enhance and enrich our spiritual life; a rich spiritual life is a source of comfort in times we need this comfort, and gives us, or renews our hope; hope is like air, we can’t live without it but it is indiscernible until we really lack it.

But the fast of Yom Kippur reaches beyond our inner spiritual awakening and discipline into our ethical behavior. In the Haftarah we read on Yom Kippur morning of the prophet Isaiah providing us with the ultimate goal of our fast–to unlock the shackles of injustice, to undo the fetters of bondage, to let the oppressed go free, to share bread with the hungry (Isaiah 58:1-14). Our self denial practices are aimed therefore not only at our spiritual awakening but also ethical ones. The practice of denying ourselves basic goods helps us to control our desires, makes us less dependent on our own needs and turns our attention to the needs of others. Through fasting we are drawn closer to all who live lives of deprivation. It connects us spiritually with those who don’t have what they need to have a normal life or even for their survival. It makes us more aware and more sensitive to the fate of millions of people in the world for whom our everyday life appears like a dream.

In this way fasting touches biological, spiritual but also social aspects of our being. The Torah, through fasting and the rituals of Yom Kippur gives us yet another form of liberation, that makes us better human beings psychologically, spiritually and socially.

The meaning of fasting is therefore: