How eating on Yom Kippur was, and wasn’t, everything I’d ever dreamed it could be

by Sarah C. Rudolph

 

 

I am a terrible faster. If I drink buckets of water the previous day, I might make it through with just a light headache and nagging thoughts of food; if I don’t, I’m a mess with a possible migraine or worse.

 

So, as I confessed to my pediatrician after she’d expressed her concerns about Yom Kippur and my nursing baby, I had kind of been hoping to be told I couldn’t fast. It’s not that I don’t take Yom Kippur seriously; on the contrary, I had fasted on Yom Kippur for four previous pregnancies and the first three nursing babies. But perhaps, I thought, I could actually focus on Yom Kippur type things this year – like repentance, self-improvement, connecting with my Creator, King, and Judge. Rather than lying on the couch all day, reading murder mysteries and trying not to snap at my kids or think about food.

 

I was also kind of excited about the halachic aspects that I would be living. After discussion with my rabbi and pediatrician, we established that I would “do shiurim” – measurements. There is a really cool thing about the Yom Kippur fast: that in a sense, it’s not a fast at all. The word the Torah uses is “affliction” – which the Rabbis, in their infinite capacity for ingenious definitions, point out can technically be achieved if one eats or drinks just a small amount. Of course, in practice, we don’t eat or drink on Yom Kippur at all. But, in cases where it is necessary to do so, if the danger can be averted by having just a small amount every once in a while, then that is preferable to eating normally – because the person will still feel unsatisfied, or “afflicted.” I was looking forward to putting that halachic mechanism into practice, because I love how halacha functions like that.

 

So, I bought myself some one-ounce plastic cups, that being the agreed-upon amount. And I made sure I was stocked on chocolate almond milk (for my dairy-free baby) and juice and various snacks that could fit in a one-ounce cup (trail mix was one of my more inspired choices). And I put my watch on, so I could keep track of the ten-minute intervals and maximize my caloric intake. And I was ready to eat on Yom Kippur.

 

It was, as I expected, a very weird experience for someone who has always lived in communities where every healthy post bar-or-bat-mitzvah-age individual fasts on Yom Kippur as a matter of course. It was also very cool, and also surprisingly sad.

 

I expected to feel like it was cool in a nerdy, halacha-junkie sense. I mean, this is what the Rabbis were talking about! They defined it! I’m doing it! Here I am, eating and drinking on Yom Kippur, and it’s okay! I still feel afflicted! It was, indeed, kind of cool like that.

 

But it was also cool in a very different way, which I began to feel even as I started to think about which foods and drinks I would ration for myself. Generally speaking, I not only require food, but I enjoy it. This Yom Kippur, though, I wasn’t eating to enjoy: it was purely for nutrition, and not even my own. I didn’t eat anything I didn’t like; hence the chocolate almond milk. And as a nursing mother, especially with the challenges this particular baby has had, I do always pay attention to what I eat. But while I might load up on healthy fats for her, I also eat brownies for me. For this one day, though, I wasn’t eating anything for me; it was all about her. Every ten minutes, I made a decision – does she need another ounce of almond milk? An ounce of trail mix? Water this time?

 

I was reminded, this Yom Kippur, of a friend of mine who, for a while, tried to elevate her physical life to the spiritual by proclaiming at each meal “I’m eating this to stay healthy to enhance my service of G-d!” She was kind of right; from a religious perspective, our ultimate goal in this world is to reach for the divine. But many of us believe there is room for enjoying physical pleasure in its own right, too. Not to mention that, to a physical human such as myself, her proclamations felt a little more silly than holy. But this Yom Kippur, I too ate for a higher purpose than my own physicality.  Every bite had purpose – and to my mind, purposefulness is the very definition of holiness.

 

So, eating on Yom Kippur was an exciting opportunity to live halacha a little differently, and to focus on physicality in a purposeful, holy way. But it was also sad.

I didn’t fully realize that part until the end of the day. I stayed home for the most part, so the baby could nap and I could see how I would feel with just one-ouce feedings at ten-minute intervals. But I really love Neilah, the last prayer of the day, and I felt fine, so I packed up my cups and almond milk and several one-ounce portions of food, and we went to shul.

 

And I discovered that fear of being embarrassed if seen eating wasn’t the biggest obstacle to fully experiencing communal prayer this Yom Kippur. The bigger problem was that I felt left out.

 

Neilah is a beautiful prayer – not only because of the words, but because of the feelings. We open the ark and keep it open, standing as much as possible. This can be tricky at hour number twenty-four of a fast day, exhausted from spending most of the day in shul, but many get a second wind just in time. We bury our faces in our siddurim, or look at each other with encouraging smiles, born of camaraderie in the experience of the day. The fast, the prayers, the chance for atonement – it’s almost over.  And whatever emotions overwhelm each individual in those final moments before G-d, they are all the stronger because we are in it together. We call out G-d’s thirteen attributes of mercy, taking liberties with a biblical verse in a way that is permissible only through the power of community. We cry to Him, we proclaim our faith; seven times we yell “Hashem is G-d!” There is a great deal of power in personal prayer, but for me, the power of Neilah in particular comes from community. And I realized this year more than ever that it comes from having been through the day together, fasting however badly or well one fasts, crying out together and mumbling quietly to G-d together. Yom Kippur can be an overwhelming experience, and it is at its most powerful as a shared experience. Especially Neilah.

 

And there I was, with my drinks and my snacks in my little rationing cups. I fulfilled the halachot of Yom Kippur as much as anyone else in that room; of that I have no doubt. But the emotional piece was missing. I didn’t fast; I felt fine. Where was my camaraderie? Where was that faint light-headedness, part hunger and part exhilaration, that gave such power to my Neilah prayers every other year? I saw it on the faces around me, but for the first time, I was an outsider.

 

I had hoped that eating on Yom Kippur would give me the strength to focus on my prayers better. But instead, I found that there is actually something positive about fasting. The Shulchan Aruch, in discussing the Fast of Esther (one of the most lenient of all our fast days) says that while someone who feels even mildly ill can eat, everyone else “should not separate from the community” – meaning, fast like the community fasts. That wording has always intrigued me, and this Yom Kippur I think I understood it on a whole new level. There is something about going through a fast together, and there is something missing for the person who doesn’t fast.

 

I am happy that I ate this Yom Kippur. Not just because it was the right thing for my baby’s health, but because it turned out to be such a learning experience for me. The experience of eating with that much purpose had a particular power that I hope will stay with me. And the experience of feeling left out at Neilah will, I hope, help me appreciate fasting in good health, in the arms of my community, for many years to come.