SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
We're in the holy month of Ramadan, when many Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. We're also in the middle of Lent, when Catholics and Orthodox Christians give up certain foods, and the 19-day Baha'i fast is in its second week. All this raises the question, why do so many faiths call for giving up food? Reporter Deena Prichep looked into this spiritual practice and has the story.
DEENA PRICHEP, BYLINE: At Oregon's Muslim Educational Trust, a few dozen people have gathered for evening prayers...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Singing in non-English language).
PRICHEP: ...And also to end their fast with a communal iftar meal.
(CROSSTALK)
PRICHEP: People fill plates with fruit and salad, rice and lamb and homemade flatbreads.
ZIKRIA HAQIQI: Your mom brought that one?
PRICHEP: Zikria Haqiqi is here to break his fast. He says the first week is the hardest.
HAQIQI: As a coffee drinker, like, I sit there and I'm just, like, this weird, pulsating headache in the back. You get cranky. You get hangry. You get all these things, and then it passes. It passes, and it's just you.
PRICHEP: Haqiqi's co-worker Amber Malik (ph) says even these small sacrifices can heighten a sense of connection with people experiencing real need.
AMBER MALIK: Like, we can have the utmost compassion for them, but it brings us to a different level of empathy when we actually experience that hunger for ourselves.
PRICHEP: There's a reason fasting is paired with charitable giving. And people don't just give up food or the all-important coffee. They give up all sorts of daily pleasures. Zikria Haqiqi has given up his weekly video game night to spend more time in study and prayer.
HAQIQI: When you remove everything else, like you do in Ramadan, it's so freeing.
PRICHEP: The overlap of fasting holidays this year is sort of a hiccup of various lunar and solar calendars aligning. But in some ways, that's not surprising because there are a lot of fasts.
CATHERINE NEWELL: It truly is, I think, one of the only universal religious practices.
PRICHEP: Catherine Newell is a professor of science and religion at the University of Miami, who has written about fasting as a spiritual technology.
NEWELL: It is a very ancient, very compelling, very effective way to kind of disrupt everyday life.
PRICHEP: The format of that disruption can vary across traditions. Jews fast on Yom Kippur. Some Christians abstain from animal products during Lent. But whether it's about atoning for the past year or going hungry to feel closer to Jesus, the goal remains remarkably similar - purify the body in order to focus on what's really important. Newell says taking away something so essential to life can, on a basic level, remind you of who and what you are.
NEWELL: A lot of religions have struggled with this notion of the divine, the luminous interior core that is something that's part of the eternal, and also just this meat sack we're walking around in.
PRICHEP: These days, many of us don't have to think of the needs of our human bodies. You can tap your phone and have any food or really any anything appear on your doorstep.
JAY RICHARDS: The modern era, it's almost like we exist in an eternal now.
PRICHEP: Jay Richards is vice president of The Heritage Foundation and has written a Christian guide to fasting. Richards, who is Catholic, says the abundance many people enjoy today is a gift. But the practice of fasting, which wasn't always optional, can be a chance to reset both the body and the soul.
RICHARDS: Fasting gives us both an opportunity, I think, to sort of channel our spiritual practices but also to remind us of our mortality in a way that we simply don't have in the 21st century.
PRICHEP: And after this existential discomfort, or enlightened emptiness, or whatever a fast may bring, comes the chocolates and Easter eggs, the samosas and dates because the final gift of the fast is a deep appreciation for the feast, the here and now of this delicious world.
For NPR News, I'm Deena Prichep.
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