The Pragmatician

NOTHING TO EAT


For those who fasted yesterday, kol hakavod and hope you caught up by the time you’re reading this.



If there was one, just one rule I could scrape out of the Shulchan Aruch, it would be the fast days, no doubt.
I’m perfectly aware of the fact that there are more difficult Halachos to follow and certainly more recurrent ones.
Still I stubbornly won’t budge in my choice.
I await fast days with fear and trepidation, unfortunately not for the right reasons.
Indeed I often question the use of fasting at all as my feelings are mostly of hunger and want, instead of sadness and regret about past happenings.
Yom Kippur may be the exception to the rule.
Not that fasting feels better then, but the purpose is clearer in my mind, thus more bearable.
Whenever I meet (doesn’t happen often) a candidate convert, I scream to him “the fasts think of the fasts!!!”
Ironically I have to hear from them about how it’s good spiritually, physically and metaphysically.

When sharing my anxiety about fasting with others, it hits me at how I seem to be exaggerating.
Some people barely feel a difference; others just get through the day without complaining, and many people don’t find it to be such a big deal at all.

Why is this so hard for me, why does a fast day elicit such apprehension from me?
I guess the answer lies in the approach to such a day.
This year I told myself to handle this pragmatically.
Ok it’s a fast day, but panicking, hyperventilating and stuffing myself to build up storage won’t do any good.
So I came up with a brilliant plan that I found out later everybody had come up with already light-years ago.

Thankfully Chassidic schtieblers have minyanims till it’s almost time for Minchah.
That helped to accomplish the first part of my ingenious plan:), staying in bed for as long as possible.
Somehow the sticky, somewhat muggy taste in my moth only starts irritating when standing rather then when waking up.
I prepared enough reading material in advance and planned to make those long overdue calls to all my friends abroad.
Preparing all this, gathering the required phone numbers, going to the library and eating, kept me occupied enough not to ponder too much about the upcoming fast.
The fast itself wasn’t exactly my day of the month, but it was less bad than last time.
I was prepared and banished food as much as possible from my thoughts.
In three weeks, there is another one coming up.
I’m still calm for now, but this one will be harder. It’s a very intense day, much longer and overall depressing.
Any tips for to make it easier will be highly appreciated.