Non-Traditional Yom Kippur: The Run Down

I wish I could say that everything turned out the way I planned it to.
But then (to wax philosophical) nothing ever really turns out the way people plan, does it?

In any case, for logistical reasons that I won't go into here, the camping part of my Yom Kippur plan didn't happen. The night of Yom Kippur, I stayed home, read a book (nothing particularly earth shattering), and yes, I ate a little bit.

But early on the morning of Yom Kippur, I got in a car, and drove about 2 hours to go hiking in a beautiful mountain/forest area.

The hike itself was incredible, especially because I hadn't been hiking in so long. The leaves were already changing colors and the sky was completely clear and my mind was able to do that contemplative, almost meditative thing that I had anticipated it would.

I kept in mind during the hike that it was Yom Kippur that day and it did alter the experience to feel more like self-growth and to keep my mind somewhat focused on the year behind me and the year ahead of me. I will say that on a personal level, it was much more meaningful than anything I've ever experienced on Yom Kippur in shul (or, more likely, lying on the couch, feeling weak, and counting the hours until I could eat again).

That said, I did find myself feeling guilty at times. Not on the hike itself, but while on the way there (i.e., while driving), in the morning while getting ready to leave, and even a little bit on the way back.

I wish this wouldn't have been the case, but it was. Somewhere in my brain, there was this little voice that kept saying, "But it's Yom Kippur!" At these times, I felt more guilty than I ever had while sneaking snacks at my parents' house on Yom Kippur. Or maybe I really just felt weird about it? I'm not sure...

I think, if I'm completely honest with myself, there's a not-so-small part of me that lives somewhere in my conscience that is still Orthodox, has an Orthodox mentality, and judges myself based on those standards that I once learned. This is the part of me that was not okay with my non-traditional Yom Kippur. It's also the part of me that every once in a while looks at my life despairingly because I haven't kept Shabbos in so long.

But if Yom Kippur is a time of self-realization, then I suppose it's useful to at least acknowledge this part of who I am. How long it will continue to exist, I'm not sure. But I do know that it's as real a part of me as the woman who decided that a non-traditional Yom Kippur was more relevant to her life and experienced that sense of peace while hiking.

A Different Kind of Yom Kippur

This year, for the first time in my non-Orthodox life, I will not be spending Yom Kippur at my parents' house. Every other year, if I decided not to fast, it meant sneaking a little bit of granola here or there, sipping some water when no one was looking, but otherwise going to shul or at least sleeping and reading.

When I thought about what I wanted to do for Yom Kippur, the answer wasn't immediately obvious. I did take off for Rosh Hashana this year and had a semi-traditional celebration of it -- went to (an Orthodox!) shul, heard the shofar, ate apples/challah and honey.

But I love Rosh Hashana and somehow that kind of celebration felt appropriate, like my autumn would feel empty without it.

Yom Kippur, on the other hand, I do not love. In my head, the words "Yom Kippur" conjure up the image of sitting in a sea of white, my stomach growling, flipping through the pages and counting to see how many we had left. It also elicits the image of lying on the couch, nauseous and dizzy, crying, to weak to even stand; and (frequently) actually vomiting.

A (non Jewish) friend of mine invited me to a party - a barbecue! - on Saturday. When I realized that it was Yom Kippur, I struggled for a little bit with whether or not to accept. Why not? I kept thinking, I want to go! It sounds like fun! But something kept holding me back. A party?! A barbecue on Yom Kippur? It felt wrong. I'm still not sure why I'd have a conscience about these things, but apparently I do.

So I said no. Or rather, I said I'd come after the fast was over.

But I still didn't know what I'd do with the day. Sit around and watch videos? Read books? It all sounded so uninteresting.

And then I came up with an idea. It may seem equally as wrong as going to a party to some people. But to me it feels right. I am going to go camping and hiking.

Why these? I thought about what Yom Kippur is supposed to mean, from my understanding of it and I came up with this -- it's a holiday about becoming purified, becoming closer to God, and ultimately, self-growth.

I don't know what God is anymore, whether or not God even exists, but I do know that the closest to "spiritual" I feel is when I am out in nature, stripped of all the excess technologies that have come to signify life these days. This is intrinsically linked to how I see myself at my most pure - in the quiet of nature, away from my everyday life, thinking about what it means to live and what it means to be me.

It will also be a significant step in a direction of literal healing for me, as a few months ago, I was pretty badly injured, and this will be my first hike since then.

And yes, I will certainly be eating and drinking. But the eating and drinking will be a hiking version of eating and drinking, which is to say that it will be functional, not recreational. Somehow to me that's still an important distinction.

I will report back in a week or so on what it felt like.

Mumbling the Words: A Note about Prayer

When I went to my friend's Christian wedding last year, one of the differences between their wedding service and Orthodox wedding services that I liked was the fact that I could understand everything that was going on because it was in English.

It's this way with almost all Christian services in contemporary times - they're conducted in the language that the majority of congregants speak. There's a great advantage to that - when congregants understand what they're saying, it opens the door for a greater reverance and meaning on their part. They feel like they're actually praying.

Contrary to what you might think, I'm not about to go onto a rant about how Judaism should follow suit. Oddly enough, I kind of like the fact that prayers are in Hebrew. When I've been to (non-Orthodox) Jewish services where parts of the prayers were said in English, it felt inauthentic and cheesy to me.

That said, when I was in (my parents') shul for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur davening, I couldn't help but get the feeling that 95% of the people in the room didn't understand what they were saying and were, in effect, just mumbling some words that they felt obligated to say. It didn't feel like there was a whole lot of feeling behind the prayer in the room.

Sure, every few minutes the congregation would burst out into song, but even that seemed more about the beauty of the tune than the words they were saying. After davening, in fact, an Israeli friend pointed out that the chazzan had picked a really upbeat, happy tune for a particularly ominous and depressing passage. Often, it feels like people are just as (or more?) enthused to sing the "nay nay nay"s after the words of the prayer are finished as they are the actual prayer.

I'm not sure I really see the point in this type of prayer. I suppose there's a certain amount of desire to be a good Jew involved in just being there (especially on Yom Kippur), but when the prayers themselves have little meaning for those who are praying, what exactly is being accomplished?

I don't know that I really have an answer to this. Maybe if prayers were shortened -- only the most powerful prayers chosen instead of 120+ pages of what seems like all the piyyutim written in the last 2,000 years? Maybe there needs to be more activity involved in the prayers -- people seem to get a lot more out of the "ashamnu, bagadnu," the Rosh Hashanah Aleinu where everyone bows down on the floor, or even Birkat Kohanim. Maybe day schools just need to put more effort into understanding Hebrew and the prayers themselves?

I'm not sure. All I know is that these prayers -- supposed to be the crux and most meaningful part of the holidays -- seem to have lost their resonance with the people saying them.

Case in point: I see way too many people in these minyanim who, like myself, flip to the end of the machzor to see how many pages are left (over and over again).

Yom Kippur: Setting Precedents for Myself

For the first time, I made the conscious decision not to fast (in the Orthodox definition of the word) on Yom Kippur. I've broken the fast in previous years when I got so sick (i.e., hypoglycemia) that I had little choice. But this year, in the vein of my recent Tisha B'Av experience, I decided to stick with my definition of fasting. It was harder because I was at my parents' house, and I didn't want them to know -- I ended up just sneaking a granola bar, water, and one roll while no one was looking. It was a lot less torturous.

That said, it was also a lot less meaningful than Tisha B'Av -- really because, as an agnostic, I just don't see as much meaning in Yom Kippur (as a holiday between man & a god I'm not sure exists) as I do in Tisha B'Av (as a commemoration of all the Jewish suffering that's occurred during the ages). Still, I'd feel strange not marking Yom Kippur at all...

I do have to say that, as of now, I plan on keeping both major fast days in this way for the foreseeable future. It's the only way it's really manageable for me, and the only way it could possibly have any meaning beyond a 25-hour obsession with my stomach.

Also, since the last blog entry, I attended a Christian wedding (in a church) for the first time ever. I will blog about this within the next week or so.

Being Decisive: Tisha B'av

Even in my least religious moments, I've always seen a justification for fasting on Tisha B'av.

Unlike Yom Kippur, it doesn't necessarily (at least the way I understand it) have to do with a belief in God. Well, I suppose the idea really is that in the end God's going to bring moshiach... But what I mean is - you needn't believe in God for Tisha B'av to have meaning.

The fast day is all about remembering and mourning all the tragedies in our nation's history - more specifically, about morning the tragedies of our ancestors. I've always understood it that way. And so it always made sense to me to follow it.

But here's the thing: fasting makes me sick. More than anybody else I know. While no doctor has ever told me not to fast (I've never asked!), I have a tendency to become hypoglycemic, and fasting means that I literally cannot move from the couch for at least the last 10 hours. It also means a good 10 hour recovery time post-fast.

Last year, I had a particularly bad attack of hypoglycemia, broke my fast on orange juice, and then continued to fast afterward.

But this year, I'm making the decision before the fast even begins that I will not fast. I won't go out, party, and order myself a chocolate cheese cake either, but I won't fast.

I'm going to commemorate the day in my own way - keep things serious, eat only as much as necessary. But I don't see the point anymore of following the tradition as is, simply because it's tradition, if the said tradition renders me completely and utterly unable to move.

And I think, just maybe, this is the way the rest of my outlook on Judaism/tradition/what-the- hell-I'm-going-to-do-with-my-life-religiously is starting to shape up. We shall see.