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I fast on Yom Kippur. My parents didn’t fast and my wife doesn’t. Most American Jews don’t fast. Forty percent of American Jews fast the whole day, according to a 2016 Pew study.

On Yom Kippur morning, my wife, Alice, eats cereal for breakfast, and I put away the dishes from last night’s big meal. For lunch Alice has a peanut butter and honey sandwich. Does the honey have any religious significance? I doubt it. In the afternoon, Alice makes a dish for the evening’s hearty meal, simply known as “break fast.” She typically prepares a mushroom and spinach frittata that smells up the house. She is torturing me. Fine. Yom Kippur is not supposed to be a picnic. It’s the Day of Atonement.

Strictly observant Jews fast from sundown to sundown to transcend the physical and focus on the spiritual. Jews atone for a year’s worth of sins. On Yom Kippur I think mostly about two things: what I’ve done wrong and where’s my next meal.

At 6 p.m. I break my fast. I know I’m supposed to fast till sundown, but 6 p.m. is my personal accommodation with Judaism. I usually eat crackers with tomato juice. My father-in-law swore by slivovitz to break the fast. That plum brandy burned all the way down. One particularly fiery Yom Kippur, I finally had enough and put a Post-it note on my bottle of slivovitz, “Do not drink this on Yom Kippur.”

Yom Kippur ends with Neilah (“Closing of the Gates”) prayers, which start around 6:30 p.m. I’ve never been to Neilah at the synagogue; I’m at home eating crackers. Neilah ends with a shofar blast around 7:30 p.m. Finally, it’s dinnertime for all Jews.

At the “break fast” that evening—usually at a friend’s house—there are all kinds of bagels and smoked fish, kugel, lox, Jell-O molds for the kids, and a mountain of herring, which usually goes uneaten. At the “break fast” table, the High Holy Day fasters report their times (how long they fasted) and rate their rabbis’ sermons. I eat the equivalent of three meals and get sick to my stomach. The rest of the year is cake.

Mr. Stratton is author of the blog Klezmer Guy: Real Music & Real Estate.