n>Every year, on Yom Kippur, we read from Isaiah and I feel a queasiness, though not quite the response the prophet would seem to have intended. We read: “Is this the fast I desire, a day for men to starve their bodies? Is it bowing the head like a bulrush, and lying in sackcloth and ashes? No, this is the fast I desire: to unlock the fetters of wickedness, and untie the cords of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free; share your bread with the hungry …” and so forth. There is a certain satisfaction in the thought that some phantom rabbinic committee once obliged congregations to read the passage. Yet the plain meaning of the text seems a standing challenge to the rationale for rabbinic committees obliging anything; a challenge to Halachic life as a whole—to the Orthodox world of performative commandments, or rabbinic refinements of commandments. Read Full Article »