Finding the Yom Kippur loophole in fasting

Originally published on Arjewtino.com.

Fasting on Yom Kippur should never be this confusing.

For years, the rules of what you are NOT supposed to do on the Day
of Atonement just made sense, like a list of bullets you follow to the
letter:

• No eating or drinking
• No bathing
• No applying oils or lotions to the skin (including deodorant)
• No sex
• No wearing leather

But this year, for some reason, I started questioning whether the “no drinking” edict was one I even had to follow.

What Yom Kippur really feels likeIt started over the weekend at the home of a Conservative Jewish
couple I know when the subject of fasting strategy came up during a BBQ.

I told them how I like to have one last big meal at sundown, do
nothing all night, sleep in as late as possible the next day, and just
hang the day after as my stomach eats itself and my crankiness reaches
epic proportions.

But then I said what I felt was a fairly innocuous comment:

“It’s not the lack of eating that hurts; it’s the lack of drinking that can get you.”

My Conservative hosts looked at me strangely. With the wave of a
hand and a scoff at what they perceived was too severe a sacrifice,
they said, “Oh, we drink water.”

What. The. Fuck.

I’m Reformed and I don’t drink during Yom Kippur, I thought. You’re Conservative and you drink water? You mean to tell me I’ve been doing it wrong all these years? God damn…whoops, sorry… Elohim damn it!

Even many of my friends were incredulous at this rule.

“How can you not drink water?” my friend INPY asked me yesterday. “I don’t think that’s right.”

Of course it’s right, you non-fasting Catholic. I thought
this was understood. I’ve been fasting for 15 years, I’m pretty sure I
know how to get into the Book of Life before it closes.

For Jews, fasting is serious business. I wrote about my fasting strategy two years ago in a 5-step guide to surviving Yom Kippur. And DCist’s Josh Novikoff yesterday wrote a really great guide to “where to feast before the fast”.

So with Yom Kippur starting tonight at sundown, I had to know what the rule was. I even Googled “Can I drink water during Yom Kippur” and found several web sites that sort of addressed it in a passive manner. But there was no definitive answer.

Stupid sexy internet.

In the end, I decided to go to THE final source on Jewish law.

My rabbi.

To be fair, he’s not MY rabbi. He’s A rabbi. But he’s the rabbi of
the synagogue I’ll be going to tomorrow for services, so he’s kind of
MY rabbi.

I called Temple Shalom in Takoma Park, MD. After navigating a
voicemail system so convoluted it nearly made me convert to Jews for
Jesus, I reached an operator.

“Hi,” I said, “I had a question about the rules of fasting. Can I talk to someone?”

I expected the operator would try to answer the question herself or refer me to some web site. Instead, she said:

“I’ll transfer you to the rabbi. Please hold on.”

THE rabbi? The man in charge? The head honcho? The main Jew? Sweet.

The phone rang once and Rabbi Michael Feshbach picked up on the other end.

I felt like a Catholic meeting the Pope, impressed that I got this far up the chain of command.

I explained to Rabbi Feshbach that I was fasting but that I had a
question about my Conservative friends putting the kibosh on not
drinking water.

“They’re wrong,” Feshbach said succinctly, “you’re right.”

Yes! Finally, an authority telling me I’m right! You all know how much I need to be right.

Rabbi Feshbach and I discussed Yom Kippur’s prohibitions and he
reinforced what I had already been led to believe over the years.

He mentioned no food or water, no sex or leather (because sometimes
those things just go together). And he mentioned no bathing…but with a
twist:

“I violate that one every year,” he confessed. “But I don’t enjoy it.”

If I could have LOL’d over the phone, I would have.

I mentioned the story of a friend who never brushed her teeth during
Yom Kippur because some water might trickle down her throat.

“That’s crazy, right?” I asked him. “I mean, I’m not brushing my teeth to get sustenance out of it.”

“Whatever,” the radical rabbi said, “I brush my teeth four times a day! [during Yom Kippur]“

We talked some more about Yom Kippur and I mentioned I would be
going to his temple’s free services Thursday afternoon. He invited me
to the more exclusive morning services, saying, “I’ll have two tickets waiting for you.”

I love getting free shit. Eat that, Conservatives!