JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

Tipografia Hebraica em Portugal… (1922), 19–21; J. Bloch, in: Bulletin
of the New York Public Library, 42 (1938), 26ff. Add. Bibliography:
J.F. Mascarenhas, Dos documentos arqueológicos recentemente
achados sobre os judeus no Algarve, (1980); J.M. Abecassis, in: Anais
do Municipio de Faro; Boletim Cultural, 15 (1985), 45–74; idem, in:
Memórias da Academia das Ciéncias de Lisboa, 25 (1986), 439–534; A.
Iria, in: Memórias da Academia das Ciéncias, 25 (1986), 293–438.
FASSŪTA, Christian-Arab village in western Upper Galilee,
Israel, 3 mi. (5 km.) northeast of Maʿalot, identified with Mifshata
where the priestly family of Harim settled after the destruction
of the Second Temple. In the Middle Ages, the village
is mentioned by the poet Eliezer ha-Kallir. Cave tombs,
parts of ancient buildings, and cisterns have been found at
the site. Its inhabitants, most of whom belong to the Greek-
Catholic (Uniate) faith, are engaged principally in growing
olives, deciduous fruit, and tobacco. The village’s jurisdiction
extends over 0.3 sq. mi. (0.785 sq. km.). In 2002 its population
was 2,860.
Bibliography: I. Ben Zvi, She’ar Yashuv (1927), 140ff.
[Efraim Orni]
FAST, HOWARD MELVIN (1914–2003), U.S. author, best
known for his imaginative historical novels as well as detective
fiction published under the name E.V. Cunningham. Fallen
Angel (1951) was published under the name of Walter Ericson.
Born and educated in New York City, Fast spent the Depression
years of the 1930s working in many parts of the U.S. at
various jobs. Some early novels had no success, but in 1937 his
story The Children attracted favorable notice when it appeared
in Story magazine. When his Place in the City was published
in the same year, Fast quickly gained recognition. A number
of his works deal with American history, notably Conceived
in Liberty (1939), The Unvanquished (1942), Citizen Tom Paine
(1943), Freedom Road (1944), and April Morning (1961). Fast
also wrote on themes involving injustice, as in The Passion of
Sacco and Vanzetti (1953), and on oppression as in The Last
Frontier (1942), an epic account of an American Indian tribe’s
attempted flight to Canada and in Spartacus (1952). During
the years 1943–56 Fast was an active member of the American
Communist Party, and in 1950 he was jailed for contempt of
Congress. One of the leading American leftist writers of the
1950s, he was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize in 1953. The later
excesses of the Stalin regime disillusioned him, however, and
he explained his break with Communism in The Naked God
(1957). Despite his political activities, Fast wrote a number of
books on Jewish themes, including Haym Salomon: Son of Liberty
(1941), a young people’s biography of the American Revolution’s
financier. Two other historical works were Romance of
a People (1941) and a Picture-Book History of the Jews (1942),
written in collaboration with his wife. My Glorious Brothers
(1949), generally considered one of Fast’s outstanding novels,
retells the story of the Maccabean revolt, while Moses, Prince
of Egypt (1958) was planned as the first of a series of works on
the life of the great lawgiver. In his “Immigrants” novels, Fast
fasting and fast days
studies, against a vast sweep of modern American history, beginning
with the last part of the 19th century, the interweaving
destinies and social mobility of immigrant families, one
of them being the Levy progeny. Fast’s television scriptwriting
resulted in his receiving an Emmy award from the U.S.
National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1977.
His autobiography, Being Red, appeared in 1990. His novel
The Bridge Builder’s Story (1995) traces a young gentile man’s
acceptance of his own life as he finds understanding through
identification with both the suffering and survival of Jews in
the Holocaust. Scott Waring’s maturation, achieved through
analysis, is a liberation from the past and an ability to create
a life that comports with this new-found freedom.
Bibliography: Current Biography (April, 1943) S.V. Add.
Bibliography: A. Macdonald, Howard Fast: A Criticial Companion
(1996).
[Harold U. Ribalow / Rohan Saxena and Lewis Fried (2nd ed.)]
FASTING AND FAST DAYS, the precept (or custom) of refraining
from eating and drinking.
In the Bible
Although the origins of the ritual of fasting are obscure, several
current theories claim that it originated as (1) a spiritual
preparation for partaking of a sacred meal (W.R. Smith);
(2) a method for inducing a state of susceptibility to visions
(E.B. Tylor); and (3) a means of providing new vitality during
periods of human or natural infertility (T.H. Gaster). Scriptural
citations have been adduced to support all these theories,
but fasting in the Bible clearly emerged in response to
more spiritual needs. The Hebrew root for fasting, ẓwm (םוצ),
can be used both as a verb and a noun, e.g., “David fasted a
fast” (II Sam. 12:16), a meaning verified in the next verse:
“he ate no food.” A synonymous idiom ʿinnah nefesh (lit.
“afflict the body”) includes fasting as part of a general regimen
of abstinence, a broader meaning confirmed by the following:
(a) laws annulling women’s vows and oaths that contain
the phrase “all self-denying oaths to afflict her body” (Num.
30:14, cf. verses 3, 7, 10–13), referring to all forms of abstinence,
not just fasting; (b) Daniel, who expressly “afflicts himself”
(Dan. 10:12) not only by abstaining from choice food, meat,
and wine (in biblical terminology, he is not actually fasting)
but also from anointing himself (10:3); and (c) the example of
King David, who, in addition to fasting, sleeps on the ground,
does not change his clothes, and refrains from anointing and
washing (II Sam. 12:16–20, though the term ʿinnah nefesh is absent).
In biblical poetry ẓwm and ʿinnah nefesh are parallel but
not synonymous. Indeed, one verse (Isa. 58:5) indicates that it
is rather the root ẓwm which has taken on the broader sense
of ʿinnah nefesh: “…that a man should bow his head like a bulrush
and make his bed on sackcloth and ashes, is this what
you call a fast…?” Thus, the rabbis declare that ʿinnah nefesh,
enjoined for the *Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:29, 31; 23:27–32),
consists not only of fasting but of other forms of self-denial
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 719