Is this the fast I desire?

Yom Kippur starts this evening, and I am still trying to wrap my mind about recognizing that fact. Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish year and entails a 25 hour fast, with neither food nor water. The day is traditionally spent in the synagogue in prayer, contemplation, learning and the occasional nap.

I have observed Yom Kippur in Orthodox, Conservadox, Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform communities. The message at all of them has been the same. If the fast will be detrimental to one’s health, it is a mitzvah not to fast. However, one is not discouraged from recognizing the fast in other ways. This is where my head has been the last few days.

I contemplated limiting myself to my formula and electrolytes and not eating anything solid. Arguably that would still be detrimental to my health. Granted, 4 saltines with jam may not add up to much calorie-wise, but how can I, someone scraping by on less than my body needs for basic metabolic function, give up even those meager calories? Clearly, putting any limitations on my eating is a no-go this year.

But that still leaves me without a way to feel Yom Kippur this year. Especially since it will all be over Zoom for me. Quick call out to SAJ, the congregation that has welcomed up to NYC with open arms, for holding Covid-safe High Holiday services, requiring proof of vaccination and N95 masks to attend in person. As one of those in need of a little extra protection, I am incredibly appreciative to their commitment to making their space one that is safe for everyone, not just spiritually and emotionally, but physically too.

I joined SAJ over Zoom for Rosh Hashanah, and they did an excellent service that worked well as a hybrid model. This is high praise, as a former synagogue ZoomMaster, I am acutely aware that that is way easier said than done. Trust me.

I expect no less from their Yom Kippur services. But there is something about not being in community for Yom Kippur that just feels wrong to me. The liturgy on Yom Kippur is all about taking collective responsibility for wrongs, slights and oversights that we, as a community, committed over the previous year. My cats may be able to list my many failures as a human, but as deities in their own minds, they are certainly not going to join me in the Ashamnu, the confession that is recited multiple times on Yom Kippur.

SAJ has a tradition of everyone wearing white for Yom Kippur, which is my custom too. I even allocated some of our very limited closet space in our apartment to my Yom Kippur clothes, knowing full well that they would only be worn during a single 25 hour period. But is my sartorial choice enough to make me feel that it is the holiest day of the year? Probably not.

One of the recurrent themes of the High Holidays is our lack of control over our lives. And if Gastroparesis has taught me anything, it is that I can plan all I want, but the timing of my bad days and good days are only very marginally within my control. This year, Yom Kippur may just have to fall short of expectations. My kavanah or focus, this year is going to be on accepting that which is out of my control. Definitely not a strength of mine, but working on it sounds like a good way to spend Yom Kippur.