Fasting on Yom Kippur

My husband was hoping he could fast on Yom Kippur. But he doesn't really know how to switch into low gear, which is what you need to do when you fast. Maybe he would choose that day to clean all the screens in the house or something like that. Last year he babysat and fasted. NOT A GOOD DECISION.

This year I was hoping he'd babysit again, there's something I've been invited to do which I don't want to miss. When we talk about it, he says, well, I guess I don' t have to fast. He points out that usually when people fast they hang out at the temple all day. Contemplate. Not something you can do with three kids to tire out. I ask him if maybe there's another way to purify.

He says that according to Rabbi Andy Bachman of Temple Beth Elohim, the fasting is not about purification. As he understands it, you give up your daily comforts to make room in yourself to be comforted by God alone. You let yourself go naked before God. Sounds like an act of faith and trust. You hand the remote control to God and see what programs he has for you. No ad men make money off that.

I just found this in my email, from Jennifer, who runs an A Course in Miracles meetup group. Sorry for the religion mish-mash, but I like what it adds to the train of thought above.

Although in truth the term sacrifice is altogether meaningless, it does have meaning in the world. Like all things in the world, its meaning is temporary and will ultimately fade into the nothingness from which it came when there is no more use for it. Now its real meaning is a lesson. Like all lessons it is an illusion, for in reality there is nothing to learn. Yet this illusion must be replaced by a corrective device; another illusion that replaces the first, so both can finally disappear. The first illusion, which must be displaced before another thought system can take hold, is that it is a sacrifice to give up the things of this world. What could this be but an illusion, since this world itself is nothing more than that?

It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give. What can the sacrifice of nothing mean? It cannot mean that you have less because of it. There is no sacrifice in the world's terms that does not involve the body. Think a while about what the world calls sacrifice. Power, fame, money, physical pleasure; who is the "hero" to whom all these things belong? Could they mean anything except to a body? Yet a body cannot evaluate. By seeking after such things the mind associates itself with the body, obscuring its Identity and losing sight of what it really is.

Once this confusion has occurred, it becomes impossible for the mind to understand that all the "pleasures" of the world are nothing. But what a sacrifice,--and it is sacrifice indeed!--all this entails. Now has the mind condemned itself to seek without finding; to be forever dissatisfied and discontented; to know not what it really wants to find. Who can escape this self-condemnation? Only through God's Word could this be possible. For self-condemnation is a decision about identity, and no one doubts what he believes he is. He can doubt all things, but never this.

From Section 13: "What is the Real Meaning of Sacrifice" in Manual for Teacher from A Course in Miracles.