As a Jew, Jesus used a powerful tool of the Jewish tradition – Good Stories. Like fables, these stories were methods of teaching that engaged the imagination and spirit in ways that memorization (or catechism) could not. In Hasidism and Modern Man Martin Buber shares such a story, a folk tale passed down for generations.
A devout young Jew met with his rabbi and committed himself to a week-long fast from food and water, giving his entire self to prayer. As the days passed, he wondered whether he would be able to resist the growing cries of hunger, and especially thirst. But he was determined to return to his rabbi with a report of success. He did enjoy periods of enlightened prayer, awareness of God, of his relationship to God, of visions that he would struggle to even put into words. But these brief times of rich experience would be islands in a tumultuous sea of agonizing hunger and thirst. As he approached the end of his week, hunger and thirst possessed him. Somehow he was able to press on, and when he awoke on the last morning, he began his day-long walk back to his town. The walk was hard on his weakened body, but he was drawn forward by the nearing finish line. He would be so happy to see his rabbi, to make his rabbi proud of him. As he approached his town, with only a few hours of fast remaining, he became dizzy with the SMELL of water. His nose turned his head toward a well, willing him to the life-saving water there. Even as he longed to complete these last minutes of his almost-complete fast, he found himself helplessly drawn toward the rim of the well. The closer he came, the more he smelled the water; he could feel its moisture on his cracked tongue, on his inflamed nostrils. He imagined its coolness on his throat, assuaging the pain in his long-empty stomach. His desire to complete his fast was being overpowered. He would fail. He wept dry tears even as his feet carried him to the well. Now he could look down and see the water, its smooth surface rolling from the bucket floating on its surface. But suddenly, as one of his fingers twitched toward the bucket’s rope, he was blessed with enlightenment, the desire for only God. He was able to turn away from the well and returned home, where he bathed, drank, and ate in grateful joy for the grace of completing his fast successfully. With bright eyes, he told the story to his rabbi, watching his face for signs of pride in him, of joy. But his rabbi’s look was one of sympathy, of sadness, and perhaps a bit of judgment. In disappointment and confusion the young man waited for the words of his rabbi. “How unfortunate that you turned toward the well when you smelled the water.”
This story broke my heart. I was that young man. In the few paragraphs of the story, I so easily identified with him. I was so proud of myself, so grateful, to be able to turn away from that well and complete my fast. I felt his sadness when the rabbi did not praise him for not drinking. But I could see the wisdom in the rabbi’s counsel that our will weakens in the first steps of distraction. The rabbi was helping the young man see that when he turned toward the well, he was losing focus on God, his true desire. More and more his focus was on his fast.
Lent is not about fasting. Fasting is a means of remembering that we choose to be different, to become more like the God within and all around us. A growling stomach can be like a string tied around our finger that reminds us of something that we don’t want to forget in the busy-ness of our Lenten days. The string, like the hunger, can arouse in us a simple question – why the string? Fasting is not the subject of Lent. The subject of Lent is growing toward the God within and all around us, our wellspring and life source.
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