Nowadays no individual who is Jewish can really fast. Every individual is on some kind of medication whether they care to admit it or not. Every time you place a pill in your mouth with water, no body can say they are fasting anymore. Fasting is not putting anything in your mouth at all.
The answer to the Yom Kippur dilemma of not being able to fast is, How can any individual who is Jewish erase their sins from the previous year? I would like to ask that question to anybody who has a good answer. I simply do not know the answer myself which is why I am writing this post. A Rabbi may be the simply man to ask this question to even though he doesn’t even have the answer since we do not have a temple where the high priests who know the answer can tell us. A Rabbi is basically a teacher. He is someone who studies Jewish faith so intensely and who tries to interpret the Torah for us. Everybody should read and interpret the Torah for themselves since it was written for all of us. Unfortunately, no body talks about the interpretation of the Torah like people used to. Everybody expects to learn from a Rabbi. No body just sits down and reads the Torah because everybody feels they have more important things to do than to sit down and discuss Jewish history.
Before the Twentith century, Jewish history has always shown individuals who are Jewish discussing and interpreting the Torah. The Torah is quite unique in itself. There are so many interesting findings in the Torah just waiting for us to read if all of us would be willing to read it. The Twentith century started a era where individuals who are Jewish decided to leave it to the Rabbis for discussions of the Torah.
Now for a discussion on prayer. We don’t need to read something in a book to make a prayer. All we need to do is speak from our hearts. By speaking from our hearts, we are saying a prayer. We can believe and watch people who we have seen learn and grow from us. Yom Kippur is a time to reflect now on the year which will be in 5769. It is a time for all individuals who are Jewish to listen to each other talk about Jewish faith and rejoice in our spirits. It should be a time now not about fasting, but about developing ways to not sin as much as previous years. Constructing a world where everybody can help each other out without thinking somebody is only thinking of themselves. This year Yom Kippur should be changing the world since the world is collapsing in front of our eyes. Many people are losing their homes, their jobs, and our whole financial system is melting away.
We need to reflect on this devastation and lean on each other in order to develop ways to secure a better world where we can fix the world’s problems as a team.
Anyway, I hope everybody has a good Yom Kippur and to those who don’t observe Yom Kippur have a good day.
OUT, J