By Rabbi Judy Schindler
On Monday night, I made an unusual promise not with my words but a click on my computer. I made a commitment to take part in an event called Choose Life: Ramaddan and the Seventeenth of Tammuz. Apparently thousands of other people also thought this commitment would be a powerful one to make.
You see Tuesday represented an interesting intersection between the Islamic calendar and their community’s month-long observance of Ramadan and the Jewish calendar and our observance of the Seventeen of Tammuz. On that day, both communities observed fasts during daylight hours and I chose to join them.
The minor fast days of Judaism do not often speak to me. I have never fasted on the 17th of Tammuz. Traditional Jews observe this day as one of mourning because it is the day on which the walls of Jerusalem were breached in 69 CE. Three weeks later the Second Temple was destroyed.
On Tuesday I fasted because our holy land is once again under attack. To fast with my Jewish brothers and sisters and my Islamic brothers and sisters across the globe seemed appropriate. I support Israel’s right to defend herself yet weep over the death of every innocent soul. In this midst of feeling helpless hearing about rockets being showered upon Israeli and Palestinian soil and feeling that peace seemed like a distant hope, I adapted Isaiah’s words that we read on Yom Kippur.
Is this the fast that God desires —
a day for us to starve our bodies?
Is today a day for bowing our heads like a bulrush
and lying in sackcloth and ashes in mourning?
Do we see this fast day as one that will cause
God to look favorably upon us?
Do we think that our piety in prayer
and our self-affliction through fasting
will enable us to gain merit in God’s eyes?
No, this is the fast God wants:
To unlock the fetters of evil,
to stop the cycle of violence.
A fast inspired by God moves us
to share our bread with the hungry,
and to take the poor into our homes;
When we see the naked, to clothe them,
And not to ignore our own kin.
To cry out against brutality
To do all that is in our power
to stop the rockets and the war
to enable families leave shelters
And to let children run free.
To do all that is in our power
so that the wolf will indeed lie down with lamb
and enjoy the landscape of the holiest land in the world
that teaches powerful lessons of centuries and sages gone by.
May Tuesday’s fast and Tuesday’s collective prayers
of Muslim and Jews across our globe
move the Middle East nearer to peace.
2 Responses
Reblogged this on RABBI SHARON SOBEL and commented:
This week, so much has been written about what has been happening in Israel and Gaza. My friend and colleague, Rabbi Judy Schindler, (Senior Rabbi, Temple Beth El, Charlotte, North Carolina) expresses my sentiments perfectly, so I share her blog post with you:
I hope that you had a good meal before you began your fast and that you had a good meal when you ended it. You are on your feet a lot and you must keep your strength up. An army marches on its stomach. I am not convinced that you accomplished anything, other than to tell our enemies that Jews want peace more than they do. This, after all, is the point— and not a solution.