Broadcasting the Miracle of Fat Liberation

At Fat Torah, Hanukkah is our favorite holiday. Okay, maybe we also say this about Passover and Rosh HaShanah and.... but if we had to pick just one, it would definitely (probably) be Hanukkah. Why?

The catalyst for launching our project of bringing body liberation to the Jewish world was a hurtful fatphobic quip at a preschool Hanukkah party: A song leader told a room full of preschoolers and their grown-ups that eating sufganiyotsufganiyotסֻפְגָּנִית"Jelly doughnuts;" traditionally eaten in Israel during Hanukkah; singular: sufganiyah. could make them too fat to dance. However, when I tell this story, we seem to get stuck on the bad part, the part about how anti-fat bias creates a barrier to full enjoyment of our Jewish traditions. It's definitely very bad.

But this story has a good part too. Hearing that song leader's fat joke tapped a deep well of Torah, of Jewish wisdom, that I had been keeping to myself for far too long: we can deploy Jewish tradition to bring more fat joy into this world; Hanukkah in particular is a holiday that celebrates fat. On Hanukkah, we remember that miraculous oil that was meant to only last for one day and ended up lighting the rededicated Temple in Jerusalem for eight days. Eating foods fried in oil, in fat, is a key part of this commemoration. Whether you enjoy Israeli sufganiyot, Ashkenazi latkes, or Moroccan sfenj, we celebrate fat as a symbol of our people's endurance in the face of generations of hardship.

When we light our Hanukkah lights, themselves sustained by fat, we are meant to place them in such a way that they are publicly visible. This is called pirsumei nisa, publicizing or broadcasting the miracle. Fulfilling this mitzvah can be daunting. Broadcasting the Hanukkah miracle means being public about our Jewishness. Indeed, in places where being Jewish is truly unsafe, Jewish law holds that we can choose to put our menorah in a less visible spot in our home. In the five years since the fateful Hanukkah party that birthed Fat Torah, sharing a Torah of body liberation with the whole world has been intimidating as well. I cannot hide my fatness, but I could certainly have chosen to keep my liberatory attitude to myself.

Why even broadcast this miracle when so few seem ready to receive its message? Fat Torah's social media posts bring out all kinds of trolls. One recent email-sent only to people who had asked to be on Fat Torah's mailing list-even generated some hate mail. I had joyously announced that we are getting ready for our first ever Fat Torah Teacher Training Institute (yes, FATTI!) only to be told that this effort is "an embarrassment." Even people who are "well-meaning" do not really seem to get us. More often than not, when I share the message of Fat Torah, people often take it as a cue to start sharing with me their own negative body image, their own internalized fat hatred, and their own struggles with their weight. I usually nod, smile, and refrain from sharing insensitive thoughts like, "Have you considered switching to a more worthwhile struggle?"

I keep broadcasting the miracle of fat liberation, spreading that luminosity, because I know that there are so many people out there for whom it will be a cause for celebration: finally, a Jewish voice that counters our culture's anti-fat bias. Fat Torah's message of body liberation and fat joy sparks something these people did not even know was hiding within them. Someone will see the little light of Fat Torah as a bright, life-affirming beacon. Kol echad hu or katan v'kulanu or eitan, we sing each Hanukkah: "Each of us is a small light; together we burn brightly." We are going to keep broadcasting the miracle of fat joy, shining our little light so that others who are with us can start lifting their own lamps; someday we will all be able to bask in their collective glow.