A few times I’ve heard and read GTA making fun of Ramadan, the lunar month during which observant Muslims fast during the day. The humor he used to diminish their daylight abstinence was his imagining a nighttime feeding frenzy following the fast.
Ramadan 2013 starts on July 9, during the Hebrew month of Av. Unlike he Hebrew lunar calendar, the Muslim lunar calendar continually cycles 12 lunar months, and is not tied to the agricultural seasons.
While doing some research through the Talmud, I found that most Biblical fasts, according to Jewish sages, are daytime-only. Not all were the full “even until even” as the fast on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). In fact, Yom Kippur and Tisha B’Av (the 9th of Av, a fast to mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples) were considered the only “sunset until nightfall (of the following day)” fasts; other fast days were considered to be “before dawn until nightfall”. So along with the fast days during Ramadan, Biblical “ordinary” fast days are also only during daylight hours.
In one sermon, GTA was on a roll about Pharisaic legalism. Commenting on the Pharisee in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector who fasted twice each week, GTA remarked that it probably meant skipping a couple of meals and eating at sunset, “like Ramadan.” Although the remark related to a parable, Pharisees normally did fast twice each week, on Mondays and Thursdays. The Didache (“Teaching of the Apostles”, ca 100 CE) instructed Christians to be different and fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. These “ordinary” fasts would have been daytime only.
Another small point: I seem to remember reading in a WCG publication many years ago that “a fast day can’t occur on a feast day” so the Day of Atonement can’t fall on the weekly Sabbath, as it is considered a feast day. However, Jewish sources say the Day of Atonement was the only fast permitted to be on the Sabbath. Other fixed fast days (such as Tisha B’Av) had to be moved to another day of the week. Personal fasting on the Sabbath, festivals, and Rosh Chodesh (the beginning of a lunar month) was also prohibited. There were, however, rare exceptions when fasting on Sabbath was allowed, if the need was urgent. As we know, COGs occasionally have urgent exceptions – The Work facing crises, attacks by Satan, …
