On Asarah b’Teves we began the descent into galus, questioning if we’d been abandoned
I used to sail energetically through fast days. Then I encountered motherhood, and for years I was pre-birth, postpartum, or simply too overwhelmed with needy little people to forgo food. Since then, my fasting proficiency has been in sharp decline; I never make it through without a nap and have learned to anticipate a mammoth post-fast headache.
What’s the rationale behind fasting?
The Selichos of Asarah B’Teves provide a clue: “Because our forefathers trusted in Hashem… they prospered and grew and produced. When they thrust Him away and related to Him with keri (happenstance), they deteriorated until the tenth month.”
Ohr Gedalyahu reads this piyut as an obvious reference to the Rambam’s explanation for our communal fasts. The Rambam designates fasting as a positive mitzvah from the Torah. He explains that when plagued with misfortune, we must turn to Hashem and recognize that our affliction is rooted in our own misdeeds. What we do matters.
“However, if we refrain from crying out, and instead say, ‘This misfortune is a natural occurrence of the world, it is happenstance,’ we engage in ruthless brutality, [for we then] maintain our wicked behavior and our misfortune will be multiplied, as it is written, ‘You have attended Me with keri (happenstance).’ ” (Rambam, Hilchos Taanis 1:1–3)
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