[Avodah] Why we eat on erev YK?

[Joseph C. Kaplan]

": But how does eating on the 9th serve "as if we fasted"?
: Or maybe more to the point, what are we supposed to be thinking about as we
: eat?

I think it should be considered an opportunity to practice eating in
order to live a life of avodas Hashem, rather than living to eat."

When I was a teenager I spent one erev YK morning sucking hard candies.  My mother finally had it with me and told me to stop it.  I piously explained that I read that the Chafetz Chaim did this all day because of the mitzvah to eat on erev YK.  My mother replied: "Exactly; he did it because of the mitzvah and you're doing it because you like candy."  (My mother was a wise woman.)

Joseph Kaplan 
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