This post represents the second and fifth parts in a (potentially) 5-part series on The Days of Awe: Rosh Hashanah, Eid, Navratri, Durga Pooja, and Yom Kippur
F(e)asting: Eid and Yom Kippur
October 2, 2008
I intended to move my fast for Yom Kippur forward, to place it during Ramadan so that I could share it with some of the city’s residents, but the calendar got in the way. Instead, I was unexpectedly home alone on a pleasantly gloomy weekday afternoon when I was invited to break the fast I’d never started. It was Eid, the feast after last day of Ramadan, and when I arrived the host was watching a documentary on climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania. By the time the other guests had arrived, the mutton biryani and stewed chicken and sweet vermicelli were flowing, and by the time I left it was clear that last year’s memory of an unintentional two-day fast combined with this pleasant closing meal and the upcoming Hindu festivities had ensured that I would never start the ritual pause I’d just celebrated completing.
F(e)asting: Eid and Yom Kippur
October 2, 2008
I intended to move my fast for Yom Kippur forward, to place it during Ramadan so that I could share it with some of the city’s residents, but the calendar got in the way. Instead, I was unexpectedly home alone on a pleasantly gloomy weekday afternoon when I was invited to break the fast I’d never started. It was Eid, the feast after last day of Ramadan, and when I arrived the host was watching a documentary on climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania. By the time the other guests had arrived, the mutton biryani and stewed chicken and sweet vermicelli were flowing, and by the time I left it was clear that last year’s memory of an unintentional two-day fast combined with this pleasant closing meal and the upcoming Hindu festivities had ensured that I would never start the ritual pause I’d just celebrated completing.
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