Tsom Shovavim – again

For a few years now, I’ve been trying to promote a renewal and reconstruction of an obscure Jewish fasting practice called Tsom Shovavim. Why do I do it? I mean, I barely make a dent promoting what the tradition considers one of the most important holidays, Shavuot, and that is a celebration with cheesecake! So 12 days of fasting over six weeks?! Seems like a hard sell.
I do it because Tsom Shovavim seems very suited to our times, offering a ritual practice for the very necessary turn from despair to hope. It’s so easy to beat ourselves up! So easy to give up! And here, hiding in the corners of Jewish tradition, is a practice of discovering that beating ourselves up is itself the sin to repent of, a practice of cleansing ourselves of despair.
The story associated with Shovamim (in my version) (this year): After Adam and Eve ate the fruit and were expelled from the garden, and Cain killed Abel, Adam gave up. He thought he and the whole human enterprise were doomed. So he refused to sleep with Eve for a hundred thirty years. God thought that was terrible. It damaged the world. The tikkun (the repair) began much later in Egypt. The Israelites had been there also a hundred thirty years and Moses’ mother, Yocheved, was a hundred thirty years old, when she gave birth to Moses. She dared to reclaim God’s hopefulness from the days of Eden by seeing that Moses “was good – ki tov,” in spite of Pharaoh’s decree that he was so dangerous he should be thrown in the Nile. Over the next six Torah portions, Moses (with God’s help) will defeat Pharaoh and teach the Israelites and the world that it is possible to build a society that is good and just.
Those six Torah portions have names that form the acronym “Shovamim,” which means “wayward” or “rebellious.” There’s a passage in Jeremiah in which God says, twice, “shuvu banim shovavim – return wayward/rebellious youth.” In what way are we “wayward?” Rebbe Nachman says in our believing about ourselves that we’re somehow separated from God, the SOURCE OF HOPE. And so we’re called to return, as Yocheved and Moses did. I’m also interested in the translation “rebellious.” In one sense, it might be read as calling those who rebel against God to return to God. But we might also understand it as a call to return to rebellion – against modern Pharaohs and the forces of despair. ‘Come back, rebellious youth! We need you!’
So the practice: Over the six weeks of Shovavim, the first six Torah portions of the book of Exodus, one might fast from dawn to sunset each Monday and Thursday. (There are alternative versions in the tradition that replace fasting with going vegetarian, giving tzedakah, or fasting from un-useful talk.) This year, the first Monday fast would be New Years Day (one doesn’t fast on holidays – does that count?) and the last Thursday would be February 8th.
And why fasting? In Judaism, fasting is associated with return (teshuvah). In general, fasting is a powerful spiritual practice that promotes awareness, purposefulness, and the sense that one has some control over their own life. I first discovered Tsom Shovavim when seeking a Jewish tradition that might offer some of the spiritual benefits I noticed of the extended fasting of Ramadan in Islam.
I’ve created a short liturgy to recite each morning of the fast. It understands that passage in Jeremiah as rejecting unuseful shame, urging a “just do it” attitude of return to God, truth, justice, and equity. It goes like this:

Jeremiah 3:22-4:2
“Return, ye backsliding, rebellious children, I will heal your backslidings.”
“Here we are, we have come to You; For You are the HOPEFUL our God.
Truly the hills have proved false, The mountains a confused uproar; Truly the salvation of Israel lies in the LIBERATING our God.
But shame has devoured our parents’ labor since our youth; Their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters:
‘Let us lie down in our shame, and let our confusion cover us; For we have sinned against the ETERNAL our God, we and our ancestors, From our youth even unto this day; And we have not hearkened to the voice of the ETERNAL our God.’”
“If you would return, O Israel, says the ETERNAL, return unto Me; And if you would remove your detestable things from My sight, and not waver; And would swear by the life of the ETERNAL in truth, in justice, and in equity; then shall the nations become blessed by It, and by That One will they become praised.”

Rebbe Nachman :
Gevalt, Jews! Do not despair! The main thing is to be as strong as you can, for there is no despairing in the world!
Have mercy on us and hear us crying out! And let us merit to bring forth awareness and knowledge and general redemption!

Come back, rebels! Come back, youth!

May the Merciful One who answered Eve answer us!
May the Merciful One who answered Yocheved answer us!
May the Merciful One who answered Miriam answer us!
May the Merciful One who answered Nachshon answer us!
May the Merciful One who answered King David answer us!
May the Merciful One who answered Judah the Maccabee answer us!
May the Merciful One who answered Clara Lemlich answer us!
May the Merciful One who answered Manya Shochat answer us!
May the Merciful One who answered Abraham Joshua Heschel answer us!


Sfat Emet (Shabbat Shuvah)
Let us return, Adonai, to you, to cleave to the divinity that dwells with us. And then, we – It and I, as it were – will return
השיבנו [ה’] אליך להתדבק בזה האלקות ששוכן עמנו ואז נשובה – כביכול אני והוא

הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ ה’ אֵלֶיךָ וְנָשׁוּבָה חַדֵּשׁ יָמֵינוּ כְּקֶדֶם:
Hashivenu adonai eleha venashuva hadesh hadesh yamenu kekedem
[Bring us back to you, POSSIBILITY, and we will come back. Make our days new as before.]