Today is the 10th of Tevet 5781. As I do almost every Friday (sometimes on Thursday), I am cheerfully fluttering around the kitchen, kneading and baking challah for the Shabbat bread, a task that usually occupies me from early morning until early afternoon, including time for shopping and lunchtime snacks. Today, however, is different: Ariel and I are not going to the supermarket because it's Christmas Day 2020 and everything is closed. As for me, I am fasting for Asara be Tevet: on this sad date every year we Jews commemorate the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonian army led by Emperor Nebuchadnezzar in 425 BCE, which ended with the destruction of the first Temple.
Fasting has different meanings and nuances throughout the dates of the Jewish calendar on which we are supposed to fast, as these occasions commemorate events of different gravity or magnitude. In Asarà be Tevet, tradition certainly suggests an introspective fasting, especially since our sages deemed that the cause of the attack on Jerusalem is also rooted in conflicts within the Jews, a baseless hatred. At the same time, we are encouraged to perform actions or thoughts that are inspiring and uplifting for the spirit.
Despite the fact that this day of sacrifice has been marked by moments of serene creativity - and in any case of gladness for the impending arrival of Shabbat - or perhaps because of this, as I have been experiencing it in an almost normal home environment - today I had a deep impact from fasting. I felt how the physical lightness and restriction, B'H intentional and temporary, made me vulnerable to the surfacing of my innermost emotions. I decided to let them go, at least to start.... I perceived the similarity of the situation created by the coronavirus to a colossal siege. I reflected on how my approach and feeling towards the difficulty, made extreme by so many factors, of being physically close to my mother has been evolving since the beginning of the health crisis.
It was then that I felt that the knot, the core of the sadness and fear that I have felt from the beginning in my relationship with my parents and siblings, is the feeling of being hunted, as if they had always decided, for me too, to let us be besieged. By whom, by what? To put it mildly, by impotence of the heart. But I will develop this epiphany of mine in future episodes! In the meantime, I will plait my strands!
