Was it good for me?

A colleague at work asked me if I had a “good” fast yesterday. Yesterday was the 9th of Av, the commemoration of a variety of ills that have befallen the Jewish people, including the destructions of the two temples in Jerusalem. We mark the day with prayer, self-denial and fasting. So he asked if I had a good fast. He probably meant whether I was able to complete the fast without gnawing at my own foot. I happen to have had what we like to call an “easy” fast. By the end I was a little hungry but not so much so. Whether or not that is a good thing (if the goal is to feel hunger pangs and I don’t have I evaded some required spiritual burden and lost the sense of the day?) is a separate question. That colleague then altered the wording of his query – he asked “did you have a successful day?”

Now that’s a question.

I answered “it depends on what the point of the day is, I guess.” That got me thinking and I have come to the conclusion that I can only hope that my day yesterday was successful, but I see that many of my practices and celebrations within my Jewish faith have been failures, at least so far.

Holidays and rituals in Judaism are often thought of in terms of what changes in the status of the day/week/moment that requires that I accommodate them. What do I have to do and what can’t I do because this night is different from all others? I have to buy this ritual object. I have to attend this service and change my sleeping schedule. I have to eat outside; I can’t eat this food or that; I have to change my liturgy; I can’t touch this (chorus). The success of the day is often measured in my ability to conform to these demands (yes, I bought a great Etrog, yes, I sold my leaven, no, I didn’t turn the lights on). The day is different and I highlight all those differences so that I can get through it. Success!

Insidious lies.

I realized that the point of the day isn’t to be different, but to make us different, and not just for the duration of the holiday. The goal of any religious observance is to affect me. A day is successful if I leave it qualitatively different from how I started it. Do I go back to being the same person, or was the event transformative. Are the words just words? Did the day change me?

Did I fast and cry for Jerusalem so I can ignore it now? Did I focus on the power of prayer so I could speed through it the next morning? Was I nicer to people, asking forgiveness, just to resume being a jerk then next moment? Did I refrain from plowing my field but then, the next day, ignore God’s hand in the agricultural process? Sure, this means looking at many of the literal practices and extracting the symbolic value that would apply to the self, but shouldn’t I be doing that instead of limiting my understanding of the practice to the superficial rituals and empty behaviors?

So was the fast day successful? I don’t know yet, but the chance to make it a success stays with me until I declare it a complete failure and stop trying to change, and I’m not ready to do that yet.