My Experience Fasting for 48 Hours on the 9th and 10th of Av

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fast began at 8:30pm on Saturday (7/17) and ended at 9:00pm on Monday (7/19)

My Experience Fasting for 48 Hours on the 9th and 10th of Av

I’ve been doing intermittent fasting all year, for health and for energy. I generally fast between 17-19 hours each weekday. “Fasting” in this context means not consuming any calories. I still drink water, coffee, and tea. I had never fasted longer than the standard 25 hour taanis (fast) on Yom ha’Kippurim and Tishah b’Av, but after learning about the health benefits of fasting for 48 hours, I decided to give it a try this year. My plan was to break my Tishah b’Av fast on water and tea, then continue fasting until at least the next morning, if not longer.

In my mind, this extension of my fast had nothing to do with halacha. I figured that since I was drinking fluids, then this wouldn’t count as a halachic taanis. That is, until I saw this Tur (Orach Chayim 558):

It was taught in a Baraisa: "On the 7th of Av the gentiles entered the Sanctuary. They ate and drank and wreaked havoc on the 8th and the 9th until late in the day. Towards the evening they lit a fire in it, and it burned until sunset of the 10th." R' Yochanan said: "If I were there, I would have established [the commemoration] on the 10th, when the majority of the Sanctuary burned." It says in the Yerushalmi that R’ Avin fasted on the 9th and the 10th, [whereas] R' Levi fasted on the 9th and the night of the 10th because he didn't have the energy to fast for the entire night and day of the 10th. Nowadays, our energy has waned, and even Yom ha'Kippurim, which would be proper to observe out of safek (doubt) for two days, we are unable to do. Nevertheless, it is a proper minhag to not eat meat on the night of the 10th and the day of the 10th, but only what restores the soul, which is partial inui (affliction).

It is clear from the Yerushalmi that fasting on the 10th of Av is an ideal to strive for, since that’s when the majority of the Sanctuary was burned. The Ramban (Moed Katan 28b) explains that these Amoraim extended their fasts as a minhag chasidus (a custom of piety), and that “the more one mourns over Yerushalayim, the more meritorious it is for him.” Even a partial fast would count for something, as we see from R’ Levi’s fast on the night of the 10th.

Less clear, however, is the scope of the “proper minhag” mentioned by the Tur at the end. According to the Taz’s explanation of the Tur, the minhag is to refrain specifically from meat – a food associated with simchah (rejoicing) – but there is no kiyum (halachic fulfillment) whatsoever of abstaining from other types of food. According to the Bach, the Tur’s minhag is to refrain from eating even non-meat food, except for “that which restores the soul,” since this abstention constitutes “partial inui.” Thus, according to the Bach, my extended fast would constitute a kiyum in “fasting on the 10th of Av,” despite my consumption of liquids. If abstaining from non-restorative food is a kiyum because it produces inui, then kal va’chomer abstaining from all food!

But then I asked myself whether my fast really did fulfill the minhag. After all, I was doing this for health reasons, not as an expression of mourning, which – according to the Ramban – is what makes this fasting meritorious. In an effort to “legitimize my fasting,” I spent all morning and afternoon learning through the relevant sources to understand the purpose of what I was doing. I made it my mission to find an idea worthy of writing up as an article. The result? I learned a lot, but I didn’t find anything that I deemed profound enough for even a one-page article.

I was about to give up on the search and the article when I realized that this health-motivated 48-hour fasting experiment fit right into my goal of prolonging reflection on the ideas of Tishah b’Av beyond the demands of halacha. Indeed, my observance of this minhag caused me to spend an extra day learning about Tishah b’Av! What began as a non-halachic health experiment became a she’lo lishmah observance of a real minhag (at least, according to the Bach). This might not have yielded transformative insight this year, but it will certainly pave the way for such insight in the future. This is yet another example of “a person should always learn Torah even she’lo lishmah, because from she’lo lishmah one will come to lishmah” (Midrash Eichah Hakdamah 2). And that is a win in my book.

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