From Moses on Jews always loved fasting and "torturing their souls". The prophets like Isaias chastised the Jews because they publicized their fasting, to better impress their suffering on the public. Even Jesus echoes this sentiment, for example in Matthew 6:16 "When ye fast, be not, as the Pharisees, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward." Now verily Dr Rasputin ordered me to tell no one that I am fasting, not because the danger of displeasing God with my vanity, but because people will offer me food and try to force me to eat. Fasting, apparently has no trascendental meaning in our godless days, the inexistent god cares not if you eat or stuff yourself. It is a hygienic practice. I am into day 22 and no one yet tempted me to turn stones into bread. Pity.
6 comments:
When do Jews fast publicly? The fast days I can think of are spent in private or synagogue.
I was quoting the Bible. In our days, fasting went out of fashion. Today, the interpetation that it is forbidden to torture the body and harm one's health is the dominant rabbinical attitude.
Health always had priority under Jewish law (unlike Islamic law which requires that you carry out the commandment of the Koran even if to do so would cause your death).
I don't understand Rashkov's distinction between "publicly" and "in synagogue" - the synagogue is a public place. How you could fast more "publicly" than in shul?
What Isaiah (and later Jesus) were objecting to (and which exists to this very day) are people who on the one hand make a big public show of their religious observance (not only by fasting but by putting on the most conspicuous costumes with the biggest possible beard, longest possible payas, etc.) and yet are ganefs .
K
By public I meant in front of non-Jews, but I may have read that into the quote.
In Isaiah's day there would have been no non-Jews to fast in front of. Fasting is hard to do conspicuously since most of the time we are not eating anyway. Unless you join someone at the table but refuse to eat they won't know you are fasting. And of course on fast days all Jews would have fasted so it would be hard to stand out. Come to think of it, I'm not sure what Jesus is talking about (if he said this at all - by the time the Gospels are written down it is clear that they are trying to score points against the "Pharisees" (who we would call just plain Jews).
K
Pharisees may be a code word for competing radical movements (within Jesus's time Judaism). In Hebrew, the are פרושים which means factionalists. I have the impression they were ideological extremists rivalling Jesus's collectivist group.
About fasting in public, I have read about people who sat on the top of a column for weeks to show their fasting, and others who sat on ashes (like indian gurus) and sack cloth to show their abstinance. Probably they sat in the market or in front of the synagogue, to show off. I am just imagining what Isaias was talking about.
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