The Maccabaean

How I Learned to Fast

When I was about five years of age, I had a great desire to fast with the grown-up folks. On one day of Atonement, before father and mother left for the synagogue, I informed them that I intended to fast the whole day. But father was displeased and directed me to eat my breakfast at once. I was wiser the next time. I made no announcement, and was determined not to eat, and when mother offered me a cup of tea, I stoutly refused it. But when she pleaded that I ought to eat and begged and kissed me, saying, "Please drink just a little sip," I had not the heart to deny her that pleasure. I drank the tea.

But I was obstinate about it. The next fast day I left home early in the morning as soon as I was dressed and for two hours I wandered about the town, fasting. Presently I saw my elder sister running toward me. She had been sent for me, so I ran away from her. After a short race, she caught me, and in spite of my protests, smeared my lips with buttered bread, and observed spitefully, "Now fast!"

I knew that it was useless to pretend to fast any longer, for my lips had touched food. I confess that I was terribly hungry; and, in addition, why should I worry my dear, kind mother, if God would not take notice of my fasting? I marched in, therefore, with my sister, quietly took my seat at the table and asked for my breakfast. My brothers teased me.

"He could not fast, he could not fast!"

I protested that I could, and that if my lips had not been smeared, I would surely have fasted all day as well as they, but they kept on teasing me.

"You wait," I cried. "You wait until another fast day comes round; you'll see; you'll not say a word then; you'll see..... another day!" My mouth was filled with

food and my eyes overflowed with angry tears.

We soon had another fast day. That time I disappeared from home. I wandered in the fields until about 12 o'clock. My heart beat fast, my head ached, my eyes burned like fire; fasting was no trifling matter. I forgot why I wanted to fast, my desire to please God, my reward in Heaven, and thought of .but one thing, a slice of bread and a cup of tea. If my sister had only come my way then and had smeared my lips with buttered bread you may be sure I would not have struggled to get away. But no one appeared to save me, and I would not return of my own free will. In the meantime the hunger was torturing, it became .unendurable......

I do not know how it occurred, but when I awoke, my father and mother were bending over me. My mother wept and begged me to eat. "Until one o'clock such a child should go hungry." But father said, as soon as I had recovered, that he would tend to me later for my obstinacy; I remember yet how I fell to eating like a famished wolf, and ate everything that was offered. But the following day I could not attend Hebrew school, for I was seriously ill.

You might ask why did I persist in trying to fast? I confess that this desire was not due entirely to my ambition to be considered pious. I knew that I was too young to endure a full day's fasting, and that the Jewish Law was not so rigorous with young children.

It was the fasting of my brothers that provoked me. I was the baby of the family, and, naturally, my mother's pet. The good things of the table were reserved for me, and whenever I quarrelled with my brothers they were blamed and I always came out as an injured innocent, and was never punished. But on a fast day mother would take no notice of me, but coddled my brothers, who were old enough to fast all day. She implored them to eat; the fancy cakes were turned over to them,