Yesh Matsav

It’s about 5 pm in Jerusalem, an hour before the fast officially ends. But I chose to end my fast early this year. I have taken a cup of Nescafe and a few honey cookies to the garden across the street from where Uzi and Esti live and where Kevin and I have been staying. When I arrive one man draped in a talit is sitting on a bench and he watches me take my coffee to another bench, book in hand. He leaves minutes later and I am alone in the small neighborhood park with a sandbox and a few benches. The light is on it’s way out and there seem to be an endless number of birds hovering above. The city is quiet, but for these birds. I listen and watch them fly overhead. Usually the break fast feels incredibly anticlimactic. You have waited more than 24 hours to finally put something in your mouth, but by the time you do, the desire is gone, the routine has already been broken, and there is no way of gaining what you have lost.

My morning coffee is more than just a caffeine fix, it structures my day. It is the hour where I come together, and without it I feel lost. It is this hour which I dread losing each year before Yom Kippur. It is my routine, my way into making the day meaningful that I dread being without. After much deliberation each year I decide to fast because I feel that being without this ritual is good for me. It is good to know what it is not to have, I tell myself. It is this voice that wins out over the other voices which tempt me not to fast. But each year it is a struggle. And in Israel I found my secular self pushing hard against the part of me that still holds on to the ritual. Here the ritual of fasting and going to synagogue belong only to the religious; the secular have found their own. For them Yom Kippur is a time to ride bikes and take advantage of a city free of cars. I was tempted to ditch my family and find a bike to mount as I had done as a 12 year old kid. Instead I headed to synagogue dressed in white and feeling like an impostor. At night in bed Kevin and I asked each other for forgiveness and fell asleep.
In the morning I woke in tears, full of dread. I was tempted to treat the day like any other, to embrace my secularism. And yet again I found myself fasting. This was clearly becoming part of my ritual, this yearly dialogue. Each year I had to convince myself anew to observe a ritual my family and our circle of secular Jews had long abandoned.

Breaking the fast an hour early I hoped I could fight against the usual anticlimax. I drank my coffee when it still mattered, when I hadn’t yet made it past that point of no longer caring. I caught the last few minutes of light in this quiet Jerusalem neighborhood. There I sat and for the first time in this 24 hour period, sipping on my coffee, reflecting on how I wanted to be different this year. I sat and listened to the birds and then Kevin came down to join me (though he was holding out till 5:50). Together we tried to throw my crumpled napkin into a garbage can a few feet away. We each took several turns, but missed each time. And when the light finally faded, we crossed the street and went home.