round lunchtime on March 2, students and faculty across faiths trickled into the Hawk’s Nest for an unusual event: a Lunchless “Lunch & Learn.”

Organized by the newly launched Harvard Presidential Initiative on Interfaith Engagement, the event was a recognition of the many students fasting during a rare lunisolar convergence in which several religious fasts overlap: the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Christian season of Lent, the Jewish Fast of Esther, and the Bahá’i Nineteen-Day Fast.

“We realized that there was this interesting calendrical moment when four different communities were all going to be having a fast,” says Rabbi Getzel Davis, who directs the initiative. “It seemed like an interesting opportunity for us to come together.”

For Jacob M. Sims Speyer, a Ph.D. candidate in health policy who attended the Lunchless Lunch, fasting is already a familiar rhythm. He observes several traditional Jewish fasts each year, including the Fast of Esther, where observant Jews abstain from food and drink from dawn until dusk.

Unlike Yom Kippur which lasts a full 25 hours, the Fast of Esther is considered to be one of Judaism's four minor fasts during which observant Jews refrain from eating or drinking from dawn until dusk. Nodding to more long-term fasts like Lent, Ramadan, and the Nineteen-Day Fast that were discussed at the Lunchless Lunch, he says the single-day Fast of Esther has a smaller impact on his daily life.

“I’ll wake up very early to try and eat breakfast, and I’ll try to make sure when the fast ends, I’m home so I can eat,” he says. “But I’ll try to attend classes as usual, try to get my work done as usual.”

Because Sims Speyer lived in Cambridge before starting at Harvard, most of his religious life already takes place off campus. Still, his commitment to Judaism draws him to interfaith events at the University like the Lunchless Lunch. “I’m passionate about my own faith tradition,” he says. “And I think it’s valuable to learn how other students and other individuals on campus also tap into theirs.”

The Lunchless Lunch marks just one example of students’ experiences fasting on campus.

Sitting in the Quincy dining hall, Sophie T. Salazar ’27, finance chair of the Harvard Catholic Center, describes the purpose of fasting during Lent The 40-day period leading up to Easter commemorates Jesus’ time fasting in the desert. Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays and often give up something personally meaningful.

This year, Salazar has chosen to give up meat throughout the week, not just Fridays, a sacrifice complicated by the daily dining hall experience. “Sometimes it’s hard to get different protein,” she says. Harvard University Dining Services does provide fish, which is not considered meat by Catholic doctrine, but typically just on Wednesdays and Fridays as part of their “Catch of the Day” initiative.

These changes in her routine, she says, allow her to develop discipline. “It helps enter into a certain religious mindset,” she says.

That mindset, she adds, often extends beyond spiritual life. “It kind of helps me be more disciplined in other things, like my schoolwork,” she says. “If I’m more disciplined with certain things, that can help me to be a better person in other areas, and a better friend.”

Fasting also builds solidarity within her religious community. “We are all in it together,” Salazar continues, “in the sense that, even though we’re doing different sacrifices, we’re all giving up something.”

For Muslim students observing Ramadan, that sense of shared experience is especially visible.

During the month-long fast, Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset. The day begins with a pre-drawn meal called suhoor and ends with iftar, the evening meal when the fast is broken.

Harvard Islamic Society co-president Moeen Razzaque ’26, says those communal meals are often the heart of the month.

Suhoor and iftar, Razzaque explains, “are two opportunities where a lot of people come together, eat together, socialize, build community.”

But observing Ramadan while balancing the demands of Harvard life can be challenging.

“It’s definitely harder to exist as a Muslim student during Ramadan on campus,” Razzaque says, “there’s definitely a balancing act that has to go on between schoolwork, extracurriculars, achieving high academics, and then also trying to achieve high levels of spirituality as well.”

Though historically dining hall hours can make it challenging for some students to have their pre-dawn and post-sunset meals, HUDS does provide accommodations for students observing Ramadan, like offering dates in the salad bar or preparing bagged breakfasts for students to pick up during dinner. This year, sunset falls before the dining halls close for the night.

Throughout Ramadan, Harvard’s Muslim Chaplains have also hosted weekday iftars for students to break their fast together. On March 5, they collaborated with the Interfaith Initiative to hold an Interfaith Iftar at the Student Organization Center at Hilles.

Under the crescent moon and star decorations, students from different faith traditions gathered to break the fast, observe the Maghrib prayer, and discuss questions printed on tabletop cards — including how their own religious traditions approach fasting.

Rabbi Davis (who, as director of the Interfaith Initiative attended both events) believes that these shared experiences — whether over an empty table or a full one — should be a cornerstone of a Harvard education. “I think it would be really wonderful if, by the time every Harvard College student graduated, they had attended an iftar,” he said after the Lunchless Lunch, three days before the Interfaith Iftar. “I think the same thing about Shabbat dinner. I think that everyone should — not to become Muslim or not to become Jewish, but should just have basic cultural competency.”

—Arts staff writer Khadijah A. Olufayo can be reached at [email protected].