As Jew Like It

For some reason, the twenty-five hour no-food or water Yom Kippur fast seems to get easier with each year that passes.

For those of you not of the Jewish persuasion, Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement where you’re supposed to fast and feel like shit and demonstrate your repentance for the year’s sins. It is basically identical to the Sabbath, only a lot scarier because if you’re so inclined, Yom Kippur is also the day of judgment where God either inks your name in the Book of Life or the Book of Death. Religiously chilling mind fuck anyone?

Now, I want to be a good Jew and I want to be a good person, but I don’t think I really have twenty-five hours worth of sins to repent for and even if I did, I don’t think I’d be able to meditate on them for that long without contemplating suicide. If you can imagine, the hardcore Orthodox Jews spend all day in synagogue. Since I’m nowhere near that level of commitment and have some serious issues concerning organized religion, I pick and choose and tell myself that religion comes from within and not from public displays.

After fifteen years of fasting experience, my religiously incorrect method of getting through Yom Kippur is simply targeted at killing the boredom; fairly similar to the “About A Boy” way of breaking the day into units of time. My rules are pretty simple too: no phones, no e-mails, no IMs and no music. I would give up television, but DVDs are an integral necessity in the art of time killing.

For example, last night, I killed two hours with America’s Next Top Model and Veronica Mars. Then this morning I contemplated my sins for a bit and then spent most of the remaining hours of the depressing day with an equally depressing book that my mom asked me to pick up for her a few weeks ago but never read.

(Side note: I have nothing against the book itself, but I keep reminding myself that it is an Oprah Book Club book and I worry about reading anything that is associated with such because I know it’s a slippery slope and that I’m never more than a stone’s throw away from “Tuesdays With Morrie.” It’s also no surprise that the first thing I did before even cracking open the book is peeled off the Oprah sticker. Thus, in a preemptive strike against Mitch Albom’s opus, I gave Nick full authorization to freely shoot me in the head if he ever saw me so much as near a copy of said book.)

Eventually, six rolled around and I lightheadedly threw on some clothes, tried to make myself as presentable as anyone who’s just spent an entire day in a small room reading about drug addiction and rehab and started the slow half mile schlep to temple.

Personally, I find that a large part of religion is about testing out the weak spots and discovering loopholes. The ingenuity this year was that my mom and I strategically parked her car down the street from the synagogue yesterday afternoon. Thus, after the shofar was blown and the fast officially ended tonight, we were able to briskly walk to the car and drive our tired and lightheaded asses home to eat, drink and be food-comatose. Hence, we did nothing wrong and stayed well within the confines of the religious rules.

I think if I can find the cup of coffee escape clause for next year, I’ll be all set.