THE POSSIBILITY OF JEWISH VISION FASTS
This is a two part blog discussing the possibility of reclaiming vision fasts in the more than human world as a core earth based Jewish spiritual development practice.
The first part justifies the possibility of vision fasts as authentic indigenous Jewish practice based on historical precedent. The second part considers what might be the curriculum. If we are to reclaim vision fasts as an important aspect of Jewish spiritual development, it is crucial that we not merely appropriate the idea of vision fasts from Native American practice but instead draw on our own tradition.
We have a history of vision fasts. I want to highlight four extended vision fasts in the more than human world. “And Moses was in the mountain forty days and forty nights (Exodus 24:18). Moses is given the first set of tablets to bring back to his community. A second story of a vision fast is Elijah’s fast recounted in I Kings, Chapter 19. Elijah is fleeing from Jezebel who has threatened to kill him and he fasts for forty days and nights, walking from Beersheba to a cave in the vicinity of Mt. Sinai where he experiences the divine in a still small voice (1 Kings 19:12). He receives the task of anointing two kings and Elisha as his successor. We have a third example of Jesus fasting in the wilderness, also for forty days and nights (Matthew 4:2, Mark 1:13, Luke 4:1-2). Jesus resists the temptations of the devil He then returns to the Galilee and begins his career of preaching a gospel of repentance. I know that Jesus might be viewed by some as a problematic example, but Jesus lived and died as a Jew. The Baal Shem Tov fasted and secluded himself in the mountains (In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov, p. 22). This is just after his marriage and before he begins his practice as a healer.
We also have a history of fasting in order to purify ourselves and create right relationship with the divine. Queen Esther fasts for three days and nights as she works up the courage to go to King Ahasuerus, disclose her Jewish identity and ask him to intervene against Haman’s plan to kill the Jews (Scroll of Esther, Chapter 4). The Babylonian Talmud talks about community fasts against pestilence and against drought (for instance, Tannit 19A amongst other places). This is the context for the famous story about Honi the circle maker praying for rain. Jews are commanded to fast on Yom Kippur, Tisha B’av, the fast of Gedaliah, the fast of Esther, the tenth of Tevet and the Seventeeth of Tammuz. Jewish mystics fasted as a purification practice. There are, for instance, at least five stories about different mystics fasting in an early collection of stories about the Baal Shem Tov (In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov stories 7,8,49,54,187).
Fasting indeed is a core indigenous Jewish practice
