Yom Kippur: Not Just A Poorly Conceived Jewish Diet Strategy

Self portrait in Curinanco today (I swear I'm not a hunchback).



What the pristine view would look like without people in the way.

At a different beach on a different day. This has nothing to do with my blog, but, I feel it's important to show you all everything (no pun intended, really). I'm proving to the world that it's not just Europeans who can get away with speedos ("zunga" in spanish)


If you ask a group of adolescent Jewish children about Yom Kippur, they'll probably tell you it's the worst holiday conceived by mankind. For most of my life, I've been inclined to agree, because Yom Kippur inhibits one of the things I most enjoy doing in life (no, it is not making puns): EATING!

Yep, Yom Kippur (to pronounce correctly, say "yom" like it rhymes with "gnome," "key," and "poor,") is the most holy of the Jewish holidays. The "Day of Atonement," it is a day spent fasting and apologizing for the wrongs you've committed in the last year. Or, better put, a day spent complaining about how damn hungry you are.

But, being in Chile for this year's Yom Kippur, I felt I should really support Chile's Jewish population of approximately 4 people. Also, I was ready for such a day...I reached a serious lowpoint last Thursday night. It was a sort of build-up of a couple months' worth of things not completely aired out; the loneliness of traveling and not being with close friends, not being able to fully express yourself, missing home. All the stuff that tends to come up on a long journey.

And interestingly enough, something incredible happened that Thursday night, at my lowest point: I accepted how I felt. I said, "I'm sad, and that's okay." And it's incredible what accepting my feelings and opening up to them did. Like this wave of relief spreading through my body. I started to realize how hard on myself I had been for, well, 20 years, how much I had expected of myself to be happy, be a certain way, have things go the "right" way.

So I've been thinking about that this week, about making amends for being so hard on myself. And Yom Kippur arrived just in time. I decided to dedicate the day to fast and reflection. I bussed an hour away to Curinanco and spent the day hiking, enjoying nature, staring out on the cliffs, meditation, writing. It was quite a day. And here's what I wrote while up on a high cliff surrounded by sea and forest and myself:


Here I am. At the tip of this pen. Sitting cross-legged, shoeless, on a grassy hill far above the ocean. Here I am staring at nothing but ocean and trees and dirttrails. Here I am in relative peace, gentle breeze on my face, doing something (writing) I love to do.

I came here for different reasons. One is that it's Yom Kippur, and I'm joining Jews around the world in fasting. There's a beauty in joining in on the same shared action, on taking a day not to eat and dealing with those hunger pangs that inevitably come. There's a beauty, too, in finally celebrating this day in a spiritual way, in using it to emotionally and physically purify me. As Senora Carmen told me, when you fast for God, there's no hunger.

And I also came here because it's a good time to come here. A conscious shift in my life. To accept and celebrate who I am, what I'm feeling. To embrace with an open heart.

Atonement. That's the theme of the day. "Day of Atonement." I want to rethink this day. I used to think of fasting as a punishment for our sings. We've done bad, caused suffering. We must fast to punish ourselves, and ask forgiveness and try not to do it again.

Yes, I want to rethink this day. What if instead of a day to atone for the bad we've done, it was a day of acknowledgement and set intentions? Acknowledgement that we all have this pain, acknowledgement that at times the world really gets us down, that we snap at those we love for silly reasons, that we're often not who we want to be, where we want to be, how we want to be. Acknowledgement that we've struggling here, some of us more than others.

I'll be the first to acknowledge it--I have struggled. A week ago today I sank into one of the deepest depressions of my life. "I think I'm depressed," I told my friend. "It's okay if you are," she told me. "I know," I said. "But it doesn't feel okay."

And as I sank to my lowest I received inspiration from the highest. How hard have I been on myself my whole life, demanding more, not being okay with being sad, fearing who I am, what others will think? I have held myself to the highest standard in the world. I will become enlightened. I will always live joyously. I will heal myself and the world.

Oh Lord, it was exhausting. It still is, when I get caught up in that mode. If anything I should probably seek forgiveness from myself, for not accepting and loving myself, for hiding shamefully as Adam and Eve hid from God in the Garden of Eden after eating a Fuji apple.

But I'm not going to seek forgiveness. There is nothing to forgive. There is only to accept and love. Everything I've ever done, as misguided and lost as it's been at times, has been an attempt to love, perhaps to return to that original and innocent and beautiful love that children give out so willingly. Desperate, fearful, painful, grasping, aversion, greed, confusion, sadness, gluttony, all of the yuckiness we see in the world, in our friends, and ourselves.

Oh we're so lost at times, so far from our love and joy, so far from who we are. So often we're lost, but always we can come back to Me, to ourselves, to our breath, to our body. And when we return, if only for a few moments, there's nothing to apologize for, no sheepish grin needed. You went away trying to love and remembered that your love is here, that all those things that hurt and that you fear are love too, just forgotten and misguided.

Instead of forgiving, just hug and love and acept and be whole. Return to the source, again and again. That suffering we cause, that this holy day calls on us to fast and atone for, comes when we lose touch, when we forget and reject that which we are.

I lament there is suffering in this world. I lament having caused some of it. But I did. I unconsciously did. We all unconsciously did. There's nothing to forgive, there's just to acknowledge and let go, and to love.

I don't want to cause any more suffering. I know I will, at times, but I consciously set this intention to be whole, and to not cause myself and others needless suffering.

That's what this day is for me, not a guilt-trip hang-up on my past, it's an acknowledgement and embracing and letting go of what was, an intention to move forward with all parts of myself, not just the parts that are easiest to love. I don't want to just love the sun. The rain and storm are also part of this life. And I want to love life.

As the hunger sets in and weakens me I am thankful for this physical reminder, this physical cleansing, that accompanies my emotional and spiritual cleansing. I am thankful for the ability to spend my day bowing down to myself and this vast ocean, to spend it reflecting and learning to love myself and others and this world better.

So I acknowledge myself, I acknowledge you, I acknowledge and embrace the suffering we cause and our loving attempts to end it. This is life, man. The energy is chirping and sparkling, just let it roll over you like this forever undulating ocean in front of me. And do it with all of you, because it's too painful to live anyway but whole.

Love,
Ryan