Carly always fasts on Yom Kippur. This is the day of atonement and boy does Carly have a truckload of sins; beyond anything she could conceive after the last fast when the slate was wiped clean. Carly is very naughty and can also be sinful. It does make Yom Kippur meaningful. And there is nothing like complete abstinence from food and fluid for 25 hours to focus the mind and apologise to God for all those sins she has committed wilfully against her fellow man and woman. But it is also a day of contemplating and trying to be spiritual. And 25 hours is really a heck of a long time for someone like Carly who likes to flit hither and thither spending very little time on any one thing. She has been able to complete projects and has had a successful career and feels she has parented adequately. Those were both really long projects to undertake. And she is still working so that needs completion and commitment. She has three adult children, but they often need advice on how to get out of scrapes or support with various initiatives involving breastfeeding or puppy raising. The parenting business never ceases but, to be honest, she does like to be called up for her expertise. She smiles wryly to herself. There is one prayer that you say several times on Yom Kippur. It is to say sorry to teachers. When she was an adolescent, Carly looked forward to the day, when after leaving school, she could omit this one. But that was naïve. Throughout life she has had teachers. Sometimes they have been mentors and coaches but sometimes regular teachers. She is always learning and curious. That is the very essence, she feels, of being human.
The rules are you become a Jewish woman at 12 and a Jewish man at 13. The male sex has always been immature, thinks Carly, and at least this is officially acknowledged by the Rabbis! And once you are a woman or a man you need to fast for 25 hours. An obsession amongst her friends and family when she was growing up, was the need to practise fasting. At aged nine, she missed breakfast, at ten she missed lunch as well and by 11 she did the whole thing in preparation for the following year when it was mandatory. Phew, she succeeded. Unsurprisingly, she was as determined then as she is now! Her most abiding memory of that time was meeting her cousin Estelle on the corner of her road, between their two houses, on the way to the children’s services at their local synagogue (shul). They would take gulps of air and pretend they were tasty and stave off their hunger pangs. They would also dart along the pavement popping the white balls of fallen fruit from some bush. If you were lucky, you could stamp them all out in quick succession and make a tune. And, of course, Estelle and Carly would have a competition to see how many they managed to splat. Of course, Carly won. Or rather Estelle knew “let her little cousin Carly win!” Some things are obvious to all and sundry irrespective of how young you are. And it is funny that Carly still calls Estelle “big cousin Estelle” and Estelle calls her “little cousin Carly”. And they are both now enjoying their 60s and neither is little anymore!
Carly really didn’t mind fasting. She was actually very good at it, so her mother gave her a task: to provide her younger brothers their lunch, who weren’t expected to fast yet. They also practised by missing breakfast but were happy to have lunch served. To make it more fun, Carly took on the role of a waitress and wore an apron to fully immerse herself in the role. But Carly always liked to take things to a new level. Not an extreme level. You can’t really do that as a waitress. She decided to be from another country. One year she was French, the next Italian, and finally Spanish. She supposes she could have taken it to an extreme level if she had waitressed in a fancy-dress costume or, heaven forbid, her birthday suit. Enough to put anyone off their food! And so she didn’t.
For many years, Carly would also fast on Tisha B’Av, which marks the destruction of the second temple. The same rules apply but, you can go about your normal day-to-day business. Not all this atoning and spending all day in the synagogue. This meant it was easier, and Carly told herself she did it for others. Yom Kippur was a personal fast, but Tisha B’Av was for everyone and everything else. But that fell by the wayside as Carly got older.
Since 2023, Carly has been in Israel for every Yom Kippur – well, apart from one year in Pushkar, where she broke her fast at a Hindu wedding with copious amounts of delicious and totally unhealthy food. The experience was super fun, and she was shown where the marriage had taken place earlier. It looked just like a chuppah – a Jewish marriage canopy – so it felt an appropriate place to break her fast!
Yom Kippur in Israel is a totally wild affair. Hardly any of her friends fast or go to synagogue services. But they do all wear white and cycle everywhere. They cycle along the motorways, and every single road has large groups of kids with their parents all on bikes. It is as if the cyclists have totally reclaimed the roads. No one drives except for police cars to make sure no one else is driving. All the shops and cafes are closed, and it feels a bit like the olden days. Tel Aviv is usually awash with electric bikes, but these too, are banned. Sometimes people sit and play cards or backgammon in the middle of the highways to make a point. Carly feels it is a uniquely Israeli experience. It has nothing to do with atoning for sins but has taken on national importance, and everyone who is not religious, joins in. This last Yom Kippur, Carly went to have the pre-meal fast with Haz, G-girl and Loony Luna. The usual. Pasta and tomato sauce. Once the fast began, Haz and Carly hopped off to the local shul (Yakar) to hear Kol Nidrei. This is a must. It is one of Carly’s favourite tunes. The Max Bruch version for cello, best played by Jacqueline du Pré, is sumptuous and divine. But Haz and Carly don’t have too much patience for long services, so they hotfooted it back. G-girl headed off with Carly to watch the cycling on nearby Dizengoff, whilst Haz was on babysitting duty. They spent over an hour chatting about everything and putting the world to rights. They said goodnight but Carly found it tricky cycling back to Jaffa as they were so many unpredictable toddler cyclists buzzing about in the streets! In principle Carly is very much in favour of everyone cycling, but not when it hinders her ability to get from A to B in a timely fashion.
Carly spends most of the Yom Kippur day pottering at home and getting an ever more severe and annoying headache from caffeine withdrawal. But she likes to go to Neilah – the last Yom Kippur service, where she is hoping to be sealed into the ‘Book of Life’. It is pretty hard work since you have to stand up the whole time. But the fast is nearly finished and it is always so rewarding to be a completer/finisher. She has done it now for over 50 years. Gosh that is a long time, she muses. For the last two years she has gone to the International Shul on Frishman with AbeBaby. She isn’t sure why it is international! They do announce all the page numbers in Hebrew, English and French to help participants follow the service. And best of all, the chazan (cantor), who leads the service wears canonicals. This is an outfit with a long, flowing black robe and the most bizarre hat. It is hexagonal with a pompom on top. Carly didn’t think anyone wore them anymore, but yet again she was most definitely wrong. Carly had arranged with AbeBaby to meet outside, and he was keen to hear the shofar (the ram’s horn) mark the end of the fast. Bizarrely, the outside was totally mobbed by others who also wanted to hear the shofar. They were regular Israelis with their cycles, kids and dogs. None of them was waiting to hear the fast had ended so that they could eat. But they wanted to feel part of this important day, which is celebrated in a unique way. It sums up why Carly is so happy that she moved to Israel. It is never predicable, and it is never ever dull.
