I fasted yesterday for Tisha B’Av. And it kicked my ass.
I’ve had problems with hypoglycemia since I was a teenager, so I allowed myself some juice and tea during the fast, but I was still feeling dangerously spacey as the day wore on. Amazingly, I managed to cook dinner for Mike — a non-Jew who was definitely not fasting — even though I still had a few hours to go. The only real difficulty there was that I couldn’t taste the meal as I was preparing it, so had no idea if I’d gotten the spices right until Mike dug into it. (He says it was perfect.)
As I sat at the table with Mike, watching him eat, he asked again why I was fasting. I’d explained to him earlier about the significance of the day, commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem and other unfortunate and horrific events that have occurred since that time, but last night I talked to him instead about how the discomfort of fasting underscores the fact that we are not our bodies.
Particularly in the image-conscious West, we have a tendency to identify with our bodies. The media celebrates youth and extreme fitness and thinness. I grew up feeling good about myself for being skinny and would sink into self-blame and bitterness if my weight crept up. I’ve always dressed more for comfort than for fashion and am learning to age gracefully, but I still find myself focused on new gray hairs and checking to see if a particular pair of trousers make my butt look big.
Fasting is an opportunity to step outside that kind of vanity. You’d think that going without food would draw focus away from the spiritual/philosophical/metaphysical, with all our attention directed instead at growling stomachs, but my experience has been the opposite. Spiritual hunger and physical hunger are two different things. Being hungry is a hardship and a reminder of mortality, which to me begs the very basic questions, Who am I? Is there more to the universe than what we can see and touch and hear? What happens when this mortal coil at last gives out?
You know, that sort of thing.
Yesterday, however, I found that fasting placed an emphasis on mourning. As one lady at Monday night services pointed out just before we said kaddish, “We’re all mourners on Tisha B’Av.” I didn’t rend my clothing, nor was I sitting on low stools. I even wore leather shoes yesterday. But I did fast, and this was a very present reminder of the “saddest day in the Hebrew calendar” and the many reasons for grief. I don’t think taking a day out of the year for mourning is such a bad idea.
As I ran errands to the library with this gnawing in my stomach, interacting with people who weren’t fasting, I was conscious of how so many of us walk through life keeping our personal pain and troubles hidden from view, pretending everything is fine when our worlds are instead crumbling. As I had increased difficulty concentrating as the day wore on, and as I grew more unsteady on my feet and started getting shaky, I knew there was no way I would have survived the death camps of the Holocaust.
And as I cooked dinner for Mike, I became aware of what it must be like for people who are truly hungry and starving in urban environments, where they are surrounded by abundance but don’t have access to basics like healthy food.
I’d last eaten a light meal/snack at 6:30 p.m. Monday evening, well before sunset. The Tisha B’Av fast lasts 25 hours — typically from sunset to an hour past the next sunset — though many people still abstain from food or water until mid-day the day after Tisha B’Av, because the temple had burned into the following afternoon.
Sunset was at 8:41 p.m. last night. I knew there was no healthy way I was going to make it to an hour past sunset, and definitely not until noon today. So I broke my fast at 8 p.m. last night, technically more than 25 hours after I’d started.
When I fasted for Yom Kippur in 2008 (last year I was recovering from H1N1, which I’d picked up during Rosh Hashanah services, if you can believe it), I ordered delivery from China Panda to precisely coincide with my break-fast. I found myself kind of wishing I’d done that again.
Instead I had a light meal of salad and corn chips, followed by kiddush levana on the front porch — it was just Mike and myself, but it was still lovely. (I’m always a fan of groovy rituals involving the moon.) A few hours later I was still pretty loopy, though, and I snacked on apples and peanut butter before going to bed.
This morning, I feel as though I never broke my fast at all. I am still lightheaded and shaky and can’t seem to focus — hence the rambling nature of this post. It’s going to be an interesting challenge trying to be productive and active today. Fasting may be a requirement under Jewish law, but it’s still a choice. Someone like me easily gets a pass, but I find it’s important to me to participate.
