Direct Action: Reflecting on the Call to Fast

By Jacob Feinspan | American Jewish World Service

Yesterday, I attended a prayer breakfast with dozens of religious leaders, members of congress, congressional staff, and activists gathered to call for debt cancellation for impoverished countries around the world. Every year, the world’s poorest nations spend billions of dollars on debt service, money that would be better spent invested in education or health care for their people.

The prayer breakfast was also a break fast. To call attention to this tragedy, thousands of people around the country, including Ruth Messinger, the President of American Jewish World Service, fasted during one of the 40 days leading up to this morning’s prayer breakfast. And one man, Reverend David Duncombe, fasted for all 40 days, drinking only water, while walking the halls of Congress, meeting with staffers and urging them to support debt cancellation. 

While reflecting on her experience of fasting, Ruth compared her Cancel Debt Fast with her Yom Kippur fast, a day when Jews atone both for our sins of commission and our sins of omission.

Hearing her got me thinking more about what kind of fast we are called to on Yom Kippur, something that has always troubled me.

Isaiah speaks on behalf of God instructing us: 

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the fetters of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

Isaiah 58:6

It’s a beautiful text, and gives a clear vision of what Yom Kippur’s fast should be. But on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, most Jews around the world observe the fast as a day of reflection and prayer. For most of us, Yom Kippur is a day of introspection; the OPPOSITE of what Isaiah declares that God wants – a day of action, of liberation (for more on this train of thought click here). 

This year’s Cancel Debt Fast offers us a chance to actually make good on Isaiah’s call – to use a day of fasting to undo the bands of the yoke that continues to shackle too many in the chains of poverty. We can do this by calling on Congress to pass the Jubilee Act, a bill that would cancel the debts of 67 of the world’s most impoverished countries so that they can reach the Millennium Development Goals.

Countries that receive debt relief have increased spending on health, education, and social services by an average of 75 percent. We know debt cancellation works, now its time to take Isaiah’s words to heart and act.