Yom ha'Kippurim 5776: Fasting as "Literal" Self-sacrifice

This article is my understanding of why we fast on Yom ha'Kippurim according to the Kabbalistic reason brought down by the Abravanel with some help from Marty McFly.

Sep 22, 2015

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Marty McFly from *Back to the Future* - a metaphor which will be explained shortly

Yom ha'Kippurim 5776: Fasting as "Literal" Self-sacrifice

Here is a hastily written article which - thank God - I have been able to finish shortly before Yom ha'Kippurim. Pardon any typos and errors. I didn't have time edit this. Enjoy!

The Question

The Abravanel offers an interesting explanation of the taanis (fast) on Yom ha'Kippurim. He writes:

The benefit of fasting and abstaining from melachah on this Sanctified Day [of Yom ha'Kippurim] is clear, for through this, the soul withdraws [its energy from attachment to the physical] to cling to Hashem (exalted is He). The physical component of a person is drawn to transient things, and when it becomes weakened, the part of him which desires permanent things - namely, the intellect - prevails.
The Kabbalists mention that there are metaphysical forces above which consume the korban when the [miraculous] fire descends upon the mizbeach (altar). Corresponding to these forces, below, are the limbs of man which consume his fat and blood, by means of the vital heat within him. Therefore, they commanded that on a day of taanis, a person should focus his spirit and his soul as if he were a mizbach kaparah (altar of atonement) on which his own fat and blood are burned from his own [vital] heat within him, in service of his Creator.
They instituted [a practice] that a person should say during his fast: "[Master of worlds, it is revealed and known before You that during the time when the Beis ha'Mikdash stood, a man would sin and bring a korban, and he would only offer its fat and blood, and it would atone for him. And now I have sat in my taanis, and my own fat and blood have been diminished.] May it be Your will that the diminution of my fat and blood be [as if I offered it before You on the mizbeach, and You favored me."]
And in the Midrash Rus they said that Rebbi Nechunya ben ha'Kaneh said to the Sages: "My sons! [I swear by] your lives that there is no korban which finds favor before God more than the heart of man which is burned on his taanis."

There's quite a bit to work with here, but this year I'd like to focus on just one question: What is the idea behind diminishing one's own fat and blood through taanis as a sort of quasi-literal "self-sacrifice" comparable to a korban? Sure, the idea has a nice religio-poetic ring to it, but I would like to understand the IDEA behind it, if possible.

Ramban on Korbanos

When I first started working on this question with my chavrusas, the first idea that came to mind was the Ramban's explanation of korbanos (I don't have time to look up the original source right now). Ramban writes:

Because human deeds are carried to completion by thought, speech, and action, Hashem (blessed is He) commanded that when a person sins, he is to bring an offering and rest his hands upon it – which constitutes action; he is to confess [his sin] with his mouth – which constitutes speech; and he is to burn in the fire [of the altar] the entrails and the kidneys, which are the vessels of thought and desire, and the legs, which correspond to a man’s hands and feet, that do all his work. The blood is to be sprinkled on the altar, corresponding to his blood, which gives him life – so that a man will consider, as he does all these [acts], that he sinned toward God with his body and his spirit, and he deserves that his blood should be spilled and his body burned – if not for the kindness of the Creator, that He has taken from him the offering as exchange and substitute, that its blood should be instead of his blood, one life in place of another.

In other words, the Ramban views the korban as a substitute for the sinner. In truth, when a person sins, HE should be the one who forfeits his life on the altar. Thankfully, Hashem - in His abundant kindness - allows him to sacrifice a korban in his place. By recognizing the nature of this substitution, the korban may serve as a vehicle of kaparah.

If we take this as our model for how korbanos work, then it isn't too difficult to see the connection to the Abravanel's explanation of taanis. In contrast to korbanos, which are a substitute for sacrificing our own flesh and blood on the altar, a taanis is an actual act of sacrificing our own flesh and blood on "the altar" of the body.

The Problematic Assumption

Something has always bothered me about this Ramban. Specifically, I am bothered by what this implies about Hashem's justice. To put it bluntly: I am troubled by the implication that unintentional* sins are inherently chayav misah (liable for death), and that Hashem is just "waiting" to take the life of anyone who makes a mistake.

Why do I find this to be problematic? Because this does not sound like the God we worship. The God we worship is Av ha'Rachamim. The God we worship is "a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in kindness and truth, preserver of kindness for thousands of generations, forgiver of iniquity, willful sin, and error, etc." (Shemos 34:6-7). The God we worship is not eager to kill those who err. To the contrary, Hashem says, "Why should you die, O House of Israel? For I do not desire the death of the one who should die - the word of Hashem-Elokim. Do teshuvah and live!" (Yechezkel 18:32). These messages of mercy are repeated throughout the Tanach, and are frequently referenced in the tefilos and piyutim of the Yomim Noraim.

When I have brought up this objection to my chavrusas in the past, the response is usually something along the lines of: "Of course Hashem doesn't ACTUALLY hold a person liable for death for doing an unintentional cheit! The Ramban is speaking within the framework of 'absolute middas ha'din.' But Hashem also relates to us with the middas ha'rachamim, and that is why He DOESN’T kill us!"

To my mind, such explanations sidestep the real problem, namely, the notion that Hashem's middas ha'din dictates that those who err should be killed. It's very nice to say that the middas ha'rachamim overrides this "absolute middas ha'din," but I'm still bothered by the notion that the middas ha'din demands death in the first place.

Hashem created us with free will, and it is within the nature of a free-will being to make mistakes and bad decisions, as Shlomo ha'Melech said, "For there is no righteous man on earth who does [only] good and does not sin" (Koheles 7:20). Even within a strictly middas ha'din framework (i.e. "Bereishis bara Elokim es ha'shamayim ve'es ha'aretz, etc."), man will sin, and if such sins are chayav misah, then the middas ha'din framework is built to fail!

One might counter by saying/repeating, "But that's WHY Hashem relates to us with middas ha'rachamim!" And then we'd run in circles. At the end of the day, you are either intellectually comfortable with the notion of a "zero tolerance" absolute middas ha'din which is mitigated by middas ha'rachamim, or you are not, and I am not. Hence, my trouble with this reading of the Ramban.

* I say "unintentional" because one can only bring a korban to atone for unintentional transgressions - not intentional or rebellious ones.

An Alternative Understanding of the Ramban

I would like to propose an alternative understanding of this Ramban which, to my mind, is more metaphysically sound than the superficial reading of his view cited above, and which might also help us to understand the Abravanel's explanation of taanis.

In order to understand the Ramban, let us turn to the opening words of the Rambam's Hilchos Yesodei ha'Torah:

The foundation of foundations and the pillar of all science is to know that there is a Primary Existence, Who brought all of existence into existence, and all of the existences from heaven and earth and everything in between only exist from the Reality of His Existence. And if, theoretically, He did not Exist, nothing else would be able to exist. And if, theoretically, all of the other existences besides Him didn’t exist, He alone would Exist, and He would not be negated by their negation, for all the existences need Him, but He (blessed is He) does not need them, nor any one of them.

Hashem is the One and Only Independent Existence. He does not need any other existence in order to Exist. We, on the other hand, are contingent existences, and are absolutely dependent on the True Existence for our existence. Where it not for His will for us to exist, our existence would cease.

This is the meaning of "olam chesed yibaneh - the world is built on kindness" (Tehilim 99:3). In other words, Hashem didn't NEED to create the universe, and the universe has no claim on Him. Rather, His creation of the universe is purely an act of chesed. The same is true of His continual maintenance of the universe and everything in it - including us. In other words, we have no inherent "right" to exist. Our existence is granted to us, by His chesed.

Everything in the universe exists by virtue of His will, and in accordance with His will. There is only one exception: human beings. As the only creatures who have free will, we can choose to go against His will, thereby undermining the basis of our own existence.

With this yesod, we can make a critical move to modify our understanding of the Ramban's idea. Ready for it? Replace the Ramban's references to "death" with "non-existence." In other words, when we violate Hashem's will through cheit, it's not that "we deserve to die" in the sense of "Hashem wants to kill us." Rather, SINCE we only exist by virtue of Hashem's will, when we go AGAINST His will, we are undercutting the means by which we exist.

In truth, it is unbelievable that we should continue to exist after contravening His will. Can physical matter continue exist in violation of the laws of physics? Of course not! Then how can we contingent existences continue to exist when we subvert that contingency by violating His laws? That is where the middas ha'rachamim comes in. Hashem allows us to exist even though we INHERENTLY have no right to exist, and even though we have deviated from His will. As Chazal teach: Hashem's mercy is before the cheit, and Hashem's mercy is after the cheit.

According to the Ramban, korbanos are designed to remind us of this idea. It's not that Hashem would like to slaughter us on the altar when we make a mistake. Rather, when we are forced to recognize the contingency of the animal's existence when we watch it being slaughtered and offered on the mizbeach, we are compelled - by virtue of the similarities between ourselves and the animal - to recognize the contingency of our own existence, and to realize that we only exist through Hashem's chesed.

Back to the Abravanel

Now perhaps we can understand the Abravanel's idea of taanis as a "sacrifice" of one's own fat and blood. On a simple level, a taanis forces us to recognize our own dependency on Hashem's systems of sustenance within nature, in the sense of, "Poseach es yadecha u'masbia l'chol chai ratzon - You open Your hand and fulfill the desire of every living thing" (Tehilim 145:16). The experience of fasting forces us to face the fact that we are unable to live without Hashem's provisions - that our very biological lives are dependent on His will, as expressed in His systems in nature.

But within this lies a reminder of a deeper truth: the fact that we, and the entire physical universe we inhabit, are contingent existences. In other words, not only is it true that WITHIN the physical world, we are dependent on Hashem's systems to survive - but rather, the entire physical world ITSELF, with all of its systems, is dependent on Hashem's will for its existence.

When we refrain from eating and drinking, and our own physical matter begins to diminish (read: to fade away into non-existence), this brings to mind our own nature - that we are beings whose existence is not intrinsic, which is utterly dependent on the will of our Creator. When we fast, and we reflect on the fact that our physical matter is vanishing - passing from existence into non-existence - this alerts us to the realization that our LIVES are bordering that tenuous line between existence and non-existence. As much as we would like to imagine that we have an inherent right to exist, and that WE are a "Primary Existence" which is independent and secure, we know that this is not true.** This recognition facilitates our teshuvah, and brings us to kaparah.

Lehavdil, this reminds me of the scene at the end of Back to the Future, where Marty watches in horror as his own hand begins to fade away into non-existence. He realizes that his interference with the space-time continuum has jeopardized his own existence - that his existence is not something he can take for granted, but is something which is highly contingent. His sudden awareness of his own contingency fills him with a powerful sense of urgency - the need to DO something to restore and stabilize his own existence.

In Marty's case, his fate rested in the hands of someone else, and he was helpless. That is not true in our case. Although we may have undermined the basis of our own existence by going against the will of our Creator, we have been granted a remedy: teshuvah. So long as we are alive, we can change our ways, and realign ourselves with His will.

The time for Yom ha'Kippurim is approaching fast, and I'm afraid I must end the blog post here. I hope that this afforded at least some insight into the themes and mitzvos of the day. Have a gmar chasimah tovah, and a good new year!

** Indeed, the entire day of Yom ha'Kippurim revolves around the Shem Havaya - the name of God which refers to His Existence. It is imperative that we recognize the stark difference between His Existence and our existence, and the relationship between the two. I wanted to write more about this, but I didn't have time. Maybe next year - if I am granted existence for that long!

What do you think of this approach? I’d love to hear your thoughts AND your experiences.

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