The Miracle of the Fast
For those of you that do not reside in or otherwise hail from New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Toronto, Cleveland, or Chicago, you may not be aware that today marks the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. Having grown up an über secular Jew in a primarily homogeneous (i.e., Jew-free) college town in the Central Valley of Northern California, my earliest awareness of the High Holy Days and their significance was that nearly every year the Davis High School homecoming football game was postponed for some kind of “Jewish Holiday.” I am sure this acknowledgement of the “Holiday” was merely perfunctory, "observed" only for the sake of the handful of Jews who lived quietly and anonymously in my town, and who otherwise kept their weird religious practices to themselves (as was stipulated in 1972 by the city’s Chamber of Commerce).
Being a self-styled MOT, I have adopted the age-old practice of praying and fasting on this day. As you may know, the fasting part is especially difficult for Jews, who are renown for their worship of food (in this case, we make an important exception re: idol-worship) and multi-dimensional cuisine – which for us Ashkenazim, is especially gut-busting.
(Experiment for goyim: stuff yourself on kugel, honey cake, bagels, and smoked fish after 25 hours of fasting and watch what happens!)
One of the most important requirements of the HHDs is that while you are silently enduring your hunger pangs you are also supposed to come to terms with the ways in which you’ve not lived up to your own (assumedly unrealistic) expectations over the last year. This means recognizing your failings and apologizing to everyone you’ve pissed off, unless they pissed you off first. So to all of you who I may have hurt, pissed off, or otherwise wronged in this last [Jewish] year, “sorry.” And to those of you who, nevertheless, plan to persist in your highly disappointing or annoying behavior, "bite me."
We give thanks for the power to live and to act, and for the blessing of love that is stronger than death.
Being a self-styled MOT, I have adopted the age-old practice of praying and fasting on this day. As you may know, the fasting part is especially difficult for Jews, who are renown for their worship of food (in this case, we make an important exception re: idol-worship) and multi-dimensional cuisine – which for us Ashkenazim, is especially gut-busting.
(Experiment for goyim: stuff yourself on kugel, honey cake, bagels, and smoked fish after 25 hours of fasting and watch what happens!)
One of the most important requirements of the HHDs is that while you are silently enduring your hunger pangs you are also supposed to come to terms with the ways in which you’ve not lived up to your own (assumedly unrealistic) expectations over the last year. This means recognizing your failings and apologizing to everyone you’ve pissed off, unless they pissed you off first. So to all of you who I may have hurt, pissed off, or otherwise wronged in this last [Jewish] year, “sorry.” And to those of you who, nevertheless, plan to persist in your highly disappointing or annoying behavior, "bite me."
We give thanks for the power to live and to act, and for the blessing of love that is stronger than death.
posted at 3:12 PM
5 Comments:
What's a MOT, and which authority "styles" those who are not "self-styled"?
Hogg:
Hear: O Israel: The Eternal is our Stylist, The Eternal is One!
Fast all you want, your butt is not changing in size unless there's a variation in the hate level at OPE.
I assume you meant to say
"hurt, pissed off, AND (not or) otherwise wronged"
In which case, you are forgiven. "Have a Happy Hannuk-Yippur!"
Karma- What did I do now (Or, rather, way back in 5756)? If I have unwittingly hurt, pissed off, or otherwise wronged you since last Thursday, you'll just have to wait until next year to receive my apology.
BTW - Chanukah, "the Festival of Lights" is a minor holiday at best - merely hyped up to compete with this country's Christmasization of everything - and should never be confused, conflated, and/or otherwise included with Yom Kippur: the most meaningful and holy of our Jew "special days."
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