Rabbi Grossman seems to fast on Yom Kippur for reasons ranging from something to do with snapping at her son to not being in the Holocaust. This is all very nice. I, too, don’t like snapping at children. And boy, am I happy I am not in an Auschwitz gas chamber this September. But what, may I ask, does any of this have to do with Yom Kippur??

Personally, I do not need some 24-hour food shock therapy to make me realize how lucky I am not to be in a concentration camp. And for that matter, I hope no one does.

The truth of the matter is the rabbi doth protest too much. Rabbi Grossman’s 1001 reasons to fast on Yom Kippur only point out how absolutely meaningless and amorphous the fast has become for Americans today. There might be a million reasons as to why one would fast, but I can’t think of any one better than that’s just what Jews do on Yom Kippur.