Summertime, and the living is … hot! And muggy, and rainy, somewhat sluggish.

I find that my appetite is somewhat reduced during the hottest weeks of summer, perhaps because I’m moving more slowly! It makes me think, paradoxically, about fasting, and about how we approach this religious commandment.

There are numerous fast days in the Jewish year cycle. Four are related to the destruction of the Temple, including the full fast day of Tisha B’Av, or the ninth day of the month of Av, which just occurred in August. The other three are not yontifs*, that is, they do not require a work-free day, just abstaining from food and drink during the daylight hours, much like the requirement of the daily fast during the Muslim month of Ramadan.

Ever hear of this one? The day before Purim is a fast day, Ta’anit Esther, in remembrance of the fast Esther requested of the Jews of Persia! Since the observance of the fast is not mentioned elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible as a practice, its observance, like the minor fasts above, have fallen away, outside of traditional communities.

Another more particular fast day is Ta’anit Bekhorim, the fast of the first born. It falls on the day before Passover, as a reminder of the first born who were spared during the plague in Egypt. Michael Strassfeld explains, in his excellent book, The Jewish Holidays: A Guide and Commentary: “Ta’anit Bekhorim is one of the minor fast days, no longer as widely observed as it once was. Many people who still observe [it] use the halakhic** principle regarding the importance of Torah study to override and cut short the fast … Some people who are not firstborn choose to fast in order to heighten the taste of matzah at the seder...” ***

What is of interest to me is the varied approaches the tradition offers regarding the act of fasting, and the opportunities available to us to invest the practice with meaning. Many Reform congregations, I have learned, do not observe Tisha B’av at all on their liturgical calendars. One commentator, in the Talmud-like columns that line Strassfeld’s book, notes: “There is a practical reason for phasing out certain of the minor fasts, aside from the loss of significance they once had. Now that we have added observances to the calendar –Yom Hashoah [Holocaust Remembrance Day], Yom Ha’Atzma’ut [Israel Independence Day], and more – we need to drop those that mean little to us, lest we fill the calendar up with holidays. If too many days are special, what’s special about special days?”

We do, and did, observe Tisha B’av in our Reconstructionist setting, noting among other things that this year, as it often happens, the date coincided with the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

I am inspired by how much room there is for us to invest these ancient traditions with relevance, meaning and motivation. I re-interpret the commandments to observe these mitzvot with the more literal sense of the word, and in to look and see, to peer, to delve deeply into the layers of possibility that this legacy has bequeathed to us.

As the High Holy Days, and Yom Kippur, approach this year, the three-letter shorthand WMD has become so commonplace in news articles and reports; we are becoming inured to the shocking possibility of the massive destructive powers of nuclear and other weapons. Taking ourselves out of the world, into a sanctuary of prayer, depriving ourselves of the consumption of life-giving food, taking ourselves out of the marketplace for 4, or 12, or 25 hours, is our yearly glimpse into the potentially transformative power of the fast, and the impact that we as individuals joined in religious community, can have on the world.

Before the fast of Yom Kippur, I was taught as a child that one must eat heartily beforehand, to heighten the experience of the fast. Whatever your ritual choices, or liturgical comfort level, I invite you to delve as deeply as you can, in the preparatory month of Elul, through the festival-filled month of Tishri.