Ash Wednesday

In his introduction to The Prophets, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel asks, “what manner of man is the prophet?” He then goes on to write these words:

A student of philosophy who turns from the discourses of the great metaphysicians to the orations of the prophets may feel as if he is going from the real of the sublime to an area of trivialities. Instead of dealing with the timeless issues of being and becoming, of matter and form, of definitions and demonstrations, he is thrown into orations about widows and orphans, about the corruption of judges and affairs of the market place. Instead of showing us a way through the elegant mansions of the mind, the prophets take us to the slums. The world is a proud place, full of beauty, but the prophets are scandalized, and rave as if the whole world were a slum.

The prophets take us by the hand and lead us from the suburbs to the slums. They make us look, and ask those with eyes to see, to see.

As we embark on our Lenten journey, the prophet Isaiah has moved from preaching to meddling, making it clear that it is not enough to have our foreheads smudged with ashes and abstain from eating today. It is too easy for our fasting to become a form of narcissism: We live in a world where children will die today because there isn’t enough food or clean water in their neighborhood; to give up chocolate or wine or meat in such a world can seem trite. That is not an argument against fasting; it is simply to insist that fasting is not about feeling better about ourselves because of our piety or worse about ourselves because of our sinfulness. It is an invitation to see the world from another perspective. If we can imagine (even if just for a few hours) what it means to be hungry in this world not by choice but necessity that may lead us to act differently. To “give something up during these next forty days” is not about fulfilling some religious obligation—“such fasting will not make our voices heard on.”

But if that awareness in our own bodies of what it means to be hungry leads us to make changes in our lives—then it serves a purpose. Lent is about repentance and repentance is about change. So if our fasting leads us to “share our bread with the hungry and to bring the homeless poor into our homes and to cover the naked and to make ourselves available to our own families”—then it is holy and good. If our fasting leads us to identify with the poor and to rebuild ancient ruins and to raise up the foundations and to repair the breach by restoring streets where kids can play “kick the can” and not worry about being shot by a drug dealer then today matters. It puts us back on the right path.

The point of these next forty days is not to feel bad; but to do good. Now is the acceptable time. Now is the time for repairing the breach and for restoring streets worth living in. Now is the time to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.