Fasting: when letting go becomes power and freedom is found in little

Source: A kav of carobs that sustains an entire world

"Rav Yehuda said that Rav said: Every single day a heavenly voice goes forth and says: The entire world is sustained for the sake of My son Hanina, and My son Hanina — a kav of carobs is enough for him [a little is enough for him] from Shabbat eve to Shabbat eve."

(Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Taanit 24b; Image: Getty Images)

Explanation: The power of letting go: Hanina and the meaning found in little

Hanina ben Dosa was a first-century sage who became famous for miracles and extraordinary piety. According to the Talmud, he was so poor that he lived on a kav of carobs (about 1.4 liters) a week. Carobs were considered poor people's food—hard, unsweet, and minimally nourishing. And the Talmud teaches an important insight: the entire world is sustained for the sake of Hanina, yet he himself makes do with next to nothing. Food is important; it expresses heavenly blessing. But food needs justification, meaning, and that meaning comes precisely through the one who gives it up. When there is someone in the midst of the community who makes do with little as a personal example, eating takes on meaning—valued and mindful, neither wasteful nor ascetic.

Perspective: Between poverty and simplicity: choosing freedom

What is the difference between poverty and simplicity? Poverty is when you have no choice. Simplicity is when you have a choice and you choose it. Hanina ben Dosa chose. The Roman thinker Seneca (Letters, Letter 18), in the first century CE, wrote: "Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: 'Is this the condition that I feared?'" The fear of lacking is what turns us into slaves.

Fasting—not eating for a day, two, three—tells you: "You can survive with much less than you think." An exercise in freedom from enslavement to a constantly full refrigerator. Rabbi Hanina is not pitiful, nor is he starving to death; he is alive. And not only is he alive—according to the Talmud, he was the person for whose sake the entire world is sustained. The implication is that when we free ourselves from dependence on material things, we reach a place of letting go, of giving to others.

Going Deeper: The evolutionary paradox: why give up when you need to survive?

In Charles Darwin's book The Descent of Man, one of the most important discussions in the theory of evolution as Darwin framed it appears. If evolution is built on the drive to survive, adapt, and live, why is there altruism, unearned kindness, throughout the animal kingdom? Why would a person give up food, money, power—a concession that weakens one's grip on life? There are several answers to this evolutionary problem, but the simple answer is that survival does not depend solely on how much we eat or how much property we own; letting go strengthens life no less than the pursuit of gain. This is what Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa understood.

Culture: The burghers of Calais: the human courage of letting go

One of Auguste Rodin's most famous sculptures, completed in 1888, depicts the surrender of the city of Calais in 1347 to Edward III.

Edward III offered to spare the city from destruction if the six most prominent burghers would come with nooses around their necks and surrender the city keys and their lives. Six of the townsmen went to Edward III expecting to be executed, but after considerable persuasion by the Queen of England, Philippa of Hainault, Edward III agreed to spare them. The sculpture depicts the six burghers as broken and defeated men, to the dismay of the public, who wanted to see them standing tall and heroic. Rodin preferred to show that courage does not need a heroic posture, and that the choice of the six to give up their property and their lives came despite fear, hardship, and suffering—revealing the human cost of altruism.