Eat More on Yom Kippur?

For the most part, Jews celebrate good things with lots of food. Holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Passover bring to mind full bellies and bubbie’s matzo ball soup, perhaps even more than the feelings of repentance and liberation they are supposed to invoke. On the other hand, to commemorate sad events, we fast. The temple was destroyed on Tisha B’Av, and an assassination marked the end of Jewish autonomy in Jerusalem (Tzom Gedaliah) and on these days, we refrain from eating to better concentrate on the solemnness of the day.

But Yom Kippur, the holiest of the Jewish holidays, breaks the mold: On Yom Kippur we’re supposed to not eat and be happy about it. The haftarah traditionally read on Yom Kippur makes this explicitly clear. Referring to the ancient Jews wearing sackcloth and ashes, the prophet Isaiah says in the name of God, “Do you call that a fast?” I imagine the end of the sentence must have gone “I’ll show YOU a fast!” as white linen-clad Isaiah dances an over-the-top dance to demonstrate his glee in front of a roomful of Jews in sackcloth and misery.