NOTES for Joe 2:12-13

The initial sense of fasting is the mourning, either a personal mourning (connected for example, with the death of a loved one) or a public mourning (for example, on the occasion of a certain national disaster). It is not surprising that in the day of the national mourning in the streets of Jerusalem one could see people expressing publicly their woe: in the East such practice is still widely spread today.

And one of the gestures expressing the woe is the rending of garments. And God, however, says: rend not garments, but hearts. Outer signs are not needed, conversion and the repentance are more important. Why so? The woe, sincere, even if it is publicly (as it was custom in those days among the Jews) expressed, is not a sign of repentance? As we see, not always.

The woe, of course obliges to think, and sometimes to reevaluate something in one’s personal or public life. But not always: it can cause desperate sadness, and hatred of life, and the desire to take revenge on the one that you find culprit of what happened. And the external demonstrations (particularly public) of woe are only aggravating these feelings, often disturbing these spiritual processes, which could really help.

Can help, obviously, a reasonable evaluation of what happened, repentance of the committed sins and the call to God with a request of help. And the prophet proposes to the people particularly such a way, a way not of emotional outbursts, but serious spiritual work, which will help to make right decisions and to find a way out of situation, which can seem totally hopeless.