Thirty years ago I had the following conversation with a student who was estranged from Judaism. He was a devotee of the current trend of the era: free choice free thinking — in fact “free” everything. But especially freedom from Judaism which he in his ignorance believed to be a faith that held its adherents in shackles.
“I don’t fast on Yom Kippur” he declared.
“Why not?”
“I don’t believe in all that… in all that stuff. I am a good honest person period. Fasting on Yom Kippur is a purely religious act and I am not religious. I define myself as a free person who determines his own way of thinking and his own actions. A person who forms his opinions independently who plans his own fate in any given situation. I am accountable only to myself. I answer only to my own conscience. Do I make myself clear?”
“Certainly. But permit me to ask you one question: when do you think?”
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