Yom Kippur 5770 -- Is this the fast I ask for?

It may be due to my lowered sense of decorum when hungry, but I have an inappropriate reaction every year when I hear one particular line from the Yom Kippur Haftarah. In the portion, God asks the people what I would label as a snarky rhetorical question:

Is a fast like this the one I asked for?

A day for self-affliction, to bend the head like a reed in a marsh,
to sprawl in sackcloth on the ashes?
Is this what you call a fast, a day to seek the favor of God?” (Isaiah 58:5).

This line always makes me laugh because I think to myself, “Well, yeah?!? Isn’t that the fast You asked for?” While this reaction may seem chutzpadik, I actually think it is exactly the intention of the Prophetic writer. This question is meant to challenge the listener. It is meant to be heard as snarky. It is meant to be subversive.

The following verse of the portion delivers the zinger. God asks another, decidedly not snarky, rhetorical question:

Is not this the fast I ask for:
to unlock the shackles of evil,
to loosen the thongs of the yoke,
to send forth crushed souls to freedom,
to tear every yoke into two!
To tear your loaves for the hungry,
to bring the poor wanderer home,
when you see the naked, clothe them,
when you see your own flesh and blood, do not turn aside (Isaiah 58:5-7).

This is nothing short of a radical call for justice. And, it is this message of justice and morality that the rabbis ensured we would hear every Yom Kippur.

Fasting has a limited definition in the Western vocabulary; the Merriam-Webster On-line Collegiate Dictionary writes that “to fast” is “to abstain from food, or to eat sparingly, or abstain from some foods.” Meriam-Webster is clearly not reading its bible! In Biblical times, the term “fasting” had a variety of meanings. Fasting was a form of action; it was understood to be accompanied by a vast range of activities—from sleeping in sackcloth (Psalms 35:13), to going without food or drink (Esther 4:16), to limiting one’s diet (Daniel 10:3). Fasting was a leveler of social classes—an activity for royalty (2 Samuel 1:12) and common people alike (Joel 2:12-18). Fasts could be communal activities (Esther 4:16) or individual expressions (Nehemiah 1:4). And from our Yom Kippur Haftarah portion, we learn that fasting could be a call to justice.

The Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, is full of descriptions of individuals who fast as a form of pro-activity. As explained by Jewish Gates, “There are…numerous private fasts mentioned in the Bible. They served a variety of functions, but their most important purpose was to gain God’s compassion and thus avert a personal or communal crisis.” On Yom Kippur, the purpose of a personal fast is inverted to create a new sort of communal fast. Instead of fasting as an individual for the purpose of getting God’s attention to change one’s own fate, on Yom Kippur we fast as a community (by abstaining from food, water, leather, and worldly pleasures) with the purpose of demanding justice in our world.

This leads me to an important question: WHY? Why do we continue to fast today? I would contend that the answer “we are supposed to, or, we are commanded to” is insufficient. I believe that our Haftarah portion suggests the same. Simply fasting, that is to say going through the motions of not eating, is insufficient. By simply abstaining from food and humbling ourselves before God, the Haftarah radically suggests, we miss the opportunity for holiness. Our fast must include acts of justice.

It is traditional to wish others a “tzom kal” on Yom Kippur, an “easy fast.” This Yom Kippur, I do not wish you a “tzom kal,” but rather a “tzom m’atger,” a challenging fast. I wish each of you a fast imbued with intention and integrity. I wish you a fast that calls you to justice. I wish you a fast that engages you in the ongoing work of creation. “Now this is the fast I ask for.”