I was born Jewish, somewhere along the way I realized the notion of God is, without being offensive, silly. still, I recognize a lot of important and valuable practices in Judaism, some of them becoming more relevant today.

Yom Kippur also known as the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the year in Judaism.[3] Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jewish people traditionally observe this holy day with an approximate 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue services.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur

Yom Kippur

I want to talk about Yom Kippur, as stated above, the holiest day in Judaism. The Wikipedia article describes the orthodox version of the holiday, in secular Israel, the holiday is a bit different. Everything shuts down, aside from hospitals and emergency services which are open, everything else is closed. No shops, restaurants, or supermarkets. There are no cars on the streets, no music, and somehow everyone is respectful of each other for 25 hours, which is not to take lightly in our tiny melting pot of different views and lifestyles. It’s common practice to apologize and sorry to the people around you and people who are close to you, and wish them a ‘good judgment’.

The country enters a standstill starting at 6:20 PM and ending at 7:20 PM the next day.

If you’re religious at the age of thirteen you’re expected to start fasting, no food and no water for the 25 hours, and so I did. In addition, you are not supposed to use any electricity, smoke, wear leather, take a shower, or be ‘fancy’. The only thing that’s “ok” doing is reading books, a lot of relatively secular people go to synagogues for the closing and opening prayers which are mainly focused on forgiveness for the past year. The song-prayer that’s ringing in my head translates to “we have sinned before you, have mercy on us”.

The Streets of Tel Aviv

I’m not sure how this would develop in other countries, but in Israel, it’s basically “bicycle holiday” since there is no driving all the kids rush out to the main roads and streets with bicycles, scooters, rollerblades — anything on wheels really. Where I grew up we had a big slope where each year kids would attach wheels to random furniture and ride it down. From bathtubs on wheels to the obvious shopping cart to simple plywood boards with wheels — 4 kids at a time taking turns riding down.

As I remove the religious aspect of this holiday the spiritual and mental remain. 25 hours with nothing. Not only being disconnected from your mobile phone, your laptop, and the online world but also without a place to run away to when your mind is bored, like eating, calling a friend, or playing a computer game, without a place to douse your fiery boredom, instead just accepting it

But why?

This doesn’t sound like fun does it? It’s actually very unpleasant because it forces you to focus on the only thing that is there — yourself. Your feelings, thoughts, hopes, doubts, and dreams. Making you face and recognize their existence, understanding why they are there and how they shape a lot of what you do, and this is something we don’t do very often. I’ll direct you to Zat Rana’s article The most important skill nobody taught you, for further reading on that.

And I’ll borrow this from him:

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” -Blaise Pascal

To conclude

This is a summed up version of the answer to my friends surprise when they know that I actually practice this super religious holiday. My point is that not all religious practices are bad. Yes, it’s riddled with easy answers to complicated questions that actually stop you from thinking, but in its core, it’s not much different from the mindfulness that’s being practiced all over the world today, Judaism in specific. It’s worth it to try and strip down the religion and practice the mental and spiritual.

In addition, when done for yourself, and not from the fear of some divine being that will judge you, it has a lot more meaning.

Find a Jewish friend and join them in the fast!

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