Mudhouse Sabbath Chapter 7 Summary

In chapter seven of Mudhouse Sabbath, Lauren Winner talks about fasting. According to Lauren Winner, “fasting is meant to take you, temporarily, out of the realm of the physical and focus you attention heavenward (Winner, 83).” Basically, fasting is a way for humans to become closer to God. In Judaism and Christianity, fasting is very important. At first it may seems that the ways Jews and Christians fast are very different and even though they are different, they do share some similarities.

On the Jewish calendar, there are at least seven days that are dedicated to fasting. For Jews, those seven days for fasting fall under two different groups. The first group or the major fast. For the days that fall under the major fast group, one has to fast for 25 hours. This means that one has to abstain from any food, water and sex for 25 hours. Also during this fast, they should not wear very comfortable clothing,

Many people, including me and Lauren do not like to fast. For me and Lauren, fasting was difficult. Often times we might forget that we are supposed to fast that day or other times we are just so hungry that we break down and eat a snack or a sandwich. I think Lauren summarized that main point of fasting very well, she basically says that fasting is not meant to torture us or punish us but instead it is meant to help us slow down, take a break from any distractions in our lives and to focus on what is really important in our lives. Often times in life, we worry too much. We can worry about school, our jobs, our friends or even trivial things like, which girl is Ben going to choose on “The Bachelor.” To me it often seems like we never worry about our relationship with God. We are so busy living life that we sort of forget to slow down and remember the person who gave us life in the first