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FAITHHACKER
To Fast or Not To Fast |
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 by AmyGuth, September 17, 2007 |
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This afternoon, I got a phone call from a friend of mine and we ended up in a discussion about a feminist Yom Kippur service she's attending this week in a start-up minyan living-room sort of setting. I asked her what elements were going to be changed, implemented or excluded to qualify the service as feminist and she pointed out some resources I'll be sharing with all of you a bit later this week, of course. She mentioned something which I found terribly interesting, and that the women leading this service made a point to let the attending women know that it was a "body-positive, fast-optional" minyan, feeling all too often food, eating, not-eating, and being female is so very loaded.
Yom Kippur: No laughing matter.
This idea started, my friend explained, when one of the service leaders, years ago, overhead women talking about the Yom Kippur diet and felt that seeing the fast as a trick to outsmart the metabolism to be quite a shonda, if not just missing the spiritual point, so they decided on their mindful approach.
Personally, this is a subject of great interest to me, mainly because I write a great deal about the social-cultural issues surrounding women and eating and so often about media literary versus body image and the like. This article from Jewish Family offers a breakdown of physical effects of temporary fasting, with a mindfulness towards eating disorders and here a few rabbis and physician talk it over in a broad sense. Here Richard Israel offers some tips and a decent explanation (for some of our friends-of-the-Jewcy readers) about why we fast, in personal and spiritual terms, while here a rabbi and health officials at the Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders urges people to consider not fasting at all.
This essay by Janie Lieberman details her struggle with eating disorders, why, with the day and its rituals too loaded for her, she did not chose to fast any longer, which ends with this paragraph:
"With Yom Kippur 'fast' approaching, we atone for our sins of the body and spirit. Forgetting all that, many will end their daylong fast by gorging at sundown. Indeed, the Jewish holidays are as rich in traditions as they are in rich food. I, however, do not fast. I did enough of that, and it was only a set up to binge. Judaism teaches us that the body is a soul's house. I respect that philosophy and don't abuse food or my body."
Fasting: Some can, some cannot. No shame, either way.
The Talmud declares that one must maintain a healthy body in order to have a healthy soul, and with such discussion in Judaism devoted to saving a single life being like saving the whole world, and with even the most observant person not only being rabbinically permitted but required to violate other halachic terms to spare someone death.
But, in my humble opinion, there is physically saving a life, and there is emotionally saving a life. Sometimes the lines blur, sometimes they do not, but both are of great sacredness and importance. This year on Yom Kippur, I wish everyone a meaningful, mindful and safe experience, however it manifests, and however we thoughtfully choose.
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Amy Guth is the author of Three Fallen Women, which she is perpetually schlepping around to pimp out. Between travels, she's hard at work on her next novels and is the woman with the pink-stripey hair usually starting up the horah at |
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katie
I did not know there was so much discussion about fasting or so many points of view on the matter. This is a great piece, Amy. You've given me much to think about. I am looking forward to reading the additional resources you provided.
orieyenta
Like Katie, I had no idea there was so much discussion about fasting. Years ago I left residential treatment at Renfrew in Coconut Creek, FL right before the high holidays and I can vouch for the danger of fasting when you have or are recovering from an eating disorder. The fast that year set me right back into my eating disorder and I ended up right back in treatment. If I would have consulted my Rabbi I am certain he would have said I was too ill to fast that year.
Adam Shprintzen
maybe there is an opportunity for the rabbinate to remind congregations of the halakhic imperatives to avoid dangerous practices no matter what they may be. To kindly remind people that the fast is not intended to cause harm (whether it is for someone in recovery from an eating disorder, or the elderly, etc...) and should be avoided if the potential is there. Yet, I don't think I have ever once heard this publically proclaimed in a shul?
Tamar Fox
I think this is an awesome and important point, but it's a fairly new one as well. When the fasts were set up the concept of starving yourself on purpose would presumably have been laughable. Food was a commodity, and I doubt that most people had many problems fasting simply because they weren't used to having that much food to begin with. That said, while I think Amy's point is important and interesting. I really think fasting is a vital component of YK. Certainly rabbinically it's equally if not more important than the davening. If you can either stay in bed all day and fast or go to shul for all of services but eat, you're supposed to stay in bed. Obviously not eating is not meant to lead to serious emotional and physical trauma, but it is supposed to be difficult, and psychologically intense. I don't know. It's a tough call, but I don't think fasting should be considered optional unless there's a real demonstrated problem and immediate risk.
Faith
The thought that "when the concept of fasting was first started starving "on purpose" was presumably laughable" is incredibly common and yet, untrue.
First off, women with anorexia/bulimia are not "starving themselves on purpose" They have a mental illness, one I have been struggling with for 18 or so years. I am in my late 30's. I am a professional. I own a home. I am married. The stereotype that eating disorders is a trend among petulant teenagers is dated.
At Yom Kippur, fasting brings us closer to spiritual and physical purity.
This is a dangerous road for those of us with an eating disorder because we believe this is true with every fiber of our being.
Therefore, if I feel "dirty", "bad" or "impure", the long tradition that Judaism has between purifying the soul and denying the body food, drink or any pleasure feeds the eating disordered brain.
I don't fast anymore. I don't do a lot of things anymore. I am desperately trying to learn how not to punish my body for my so-called sins and how not to see food/fasting as punishment, reward, purity and spiritual superiority.
AmyGuth
Lovely comment, Faith. That you for going there.
I came back here to this post tonight because I found this and wanted to offer it up if anyone wanted it:
http://www.ritualwell.org/holidays/primaryobject.2005-09-09.3234598034
Anonymous
Orieyenta is full of crap. Years ago, when she had her eating disorder, she was not Jewish, and celebrated the holidays with a Christmas tree. She could not have spoken to her Rabbi, because she did not have one at the time. She was also pretty heavily into sadism and masochism at or near that time. Don't believe me? Just ask her. She can deny it, but I have proof.
jewishattydaddy
Anonymous is right on target. For more, i.e. to learn the real truth about the REAL Orieyenta, including porno photos, cutting her wrists, and other horrifying truths, go to www.jewattydaddy.blogspot.com. Go to the June 28, 2007 entry called "Is It Ever Really Right to Leave Your Best Friend When He or She Is Undergoing Horrible Treatment For Cancer" (Orieyenta did this to me) and the June 29, 2007 entry called "The Mystery of the Missing Mezuzah - Do You Think Orieyenta Stole It?" LEARN THE TRUTH! The truth shall set You Free.