Every year, Jews are required to engage in a ritualistic fast to beg the Almighty for forgiveness for the previous year’s sin. This oh so joyous occasion where you stand for hours reciting prayers admitting that you are unworthy to be there in the first place is known as Yom Kippur. It’s a 24+ hour test of humility that isn’t for the weak.
It begins the night before on Erev Yom Kippur. Although you are supposed to eat a light meal before starting a fast, no one I’ve ever met actually does that. My family, like most others, goes into pig out mode, because if we have to go the next 24 and change without a bite to eat, much like camels with water in their humps, we want to store enough food in our stomachs to last us through the fast. Of course, this logic never works, and despite waking up late the next day, we are always hungry by 3:00 PM.
The difficult part of Yom Kippur, for me, isn’t foregoing food. Fortunately, I live in a shallow, pop culture driven society that trains women in the art of starvation at a very young age. As a teenager, I would go an entire week on a piece of dry toast in the morning and three ounces of tuna fish on a leaf of lettuce at night for dinner. By the end of that week I could barely walk, but my jeans fit perfectly!
The hardest part of Yom Kippur is refraining from drinking. By drinking I don’t mean hitting the bottle and stumbling to bed, I mean no water. On a particularly warm day, which doesn’t happen much in October in the Seattle area, I could drink an entire lake’s worth of water. My non-alcoholic drink of choice has always been water, and I do a minimum of 60 ounces a day. The moment the fast commences, I’m not running for the lox and bagel table, I’m running for the water fountain. Like I said before, the yearly Yom Kippur fast is not for the weak.
Lest all non-Jews think we are a brutal faith, there are definitely exceptions when it comes to fasting. Pregnant and nursing women are exempt, as are children, the elderly and the sick. Everyone else who chooses not to do the fast sighting some bullshit “hypoglycemic” condition gets zero respect from me as well as a constant referral to them as a whiney little bitch. By the end of the day, we all have headaches and are ready to pass out. Everyone in the room is grumpy, tired, thirsty, and ready to eat the wallpaper, but damn it, that’s the beauty of Yom Kippur. How do you expect to be forgiven for all of the bad shit you’ve done over the year if you aren’t willing to suffer just a little bit first. Considering some of the things I’ve done over the year, starving for a few hours is a decent trade.
Other interesting aspects of Yom Kippur involve the specific prayers where you are commanded to knock yourself in the chest every time you recite one of the transgressions such as lying, stealing, talking crap about someone behind their back, etc. Even if you didn’t do one of the items listed, such as stealing, you still have to ask forgiveness for it. The rabbi explains that you may be responsible for doing something bad even if you weren’t aware of it, so you might as well ask for forgiveness just to cover your own ass, in a spiritual sense.
At the end of the day everyone is swaying, trying to stay on their feet, and counting the number of pages left in the prayer book. The rabbi is going into hyper-speed mode trying to finish, because he knows everyone is looking at their watch with a glint in their eye as if to say, “you go one minute over, and I’ll beat you to death with a smoked whitefish.” Then at the blowing of the shofar, an actual ram’s horn that makes a weird, high-pitched noise, it’s over.
Last night, the other ladies and I went to get everything set up, while the guys finished praying. I made sure to start my bagel sandwich before the men were let out of services, because much like a horde of wild boars, they charged the food table pillaging the lox (delicious smoked salmon).
The best part about this yearly ritual is that deep down, I know I don’t have to do it. I’m there starving and beating my chest, because I choose to be. I’ve often heard people who are very atheist or anti-G-d claim that religion is only for the weak. Maybe they are right, but not when it comes to my faith. Jews are the most murdered people throughout history, yet we still persist. For the ten Jews who are standing in a synagogue or gathering place beating their chests on Yom Kippur, there is one who isn’t.
I fast on Yom Kippur and observe traditional services, because I’m one of the ones who is able to, by choice, utilize this method of understanding to try to figure out how to live my life. I may not understand why things happen the way they do, but the clarity I do have is partially credited to my identity, which is a Jewish one. For the rest of the year, I can sit back, relax, and enjoy food, until Yom Kippur rolls around again, when I’ll get to, once again, enjoy the pleasures of light-headedness as I stand in place, praying, starving, beating my chest and begging for forgiveness. Like I said, forgiveness for a year’s worth of bad shit doesn’t come easy.
No comments:
Post a Comment