I was perusing a a Mishna, as one is wont to do, when I came across a slightly unnerving phrase in Nedarim 7:8:

אָסוּר לֶאֱכֹל

he may not eat

Well, that was a bit disconcerting. I happen to eat quite frequently, so if that happens to be forbidden, I'm in a bit of a pickle (and I wouldn't even be able to eat my way out of it!).

But at this point, I wasn't too worried. I mean, I know that the Mishna is the basis for Jewish law and practice, however it is not the final word on our heritage. It gets defined and interpreted through the lens of the later codes and commentaries. So I figured it would be best if I dug a little deeper.

And this is where the trouble began. I checked to see what the Gemara had to say about this, and lo and behold, Berachos 42a also says "אסור מלאכול - he is forbidden to eat". And to make things worse, this is brought down through the codes as well, with the Rambam in the laws of Leavened and Unleavened Bread 6:12 writing " וְכֵן אָסוּר לֶאֱכֹל " as the Halacha! This goes all the way through the Shulchan Aruch (in O"C 476:2), Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (10:16), and even contemporary works like the Mishnah Berurah (568:18)!

How in the world is one supposed to explain all these sources saying it's forbidden to eat? If it was one or two places, I could understand if you said that maybe in context it means something else, but 5 or 6 examples? There must be some sort of deep, spiritual message behind this! It's not like you can just plug the words אסור לאכל into Sefaria search and come up with hundreds of quotes out of context!

What am I supposed to do? It's almost lunchtime and I'm getting hungry. Please help!

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Anyone who searches אסור לאכל on sefaria will find that there are exactly 637 texts in our popular Jewish sources that contain these words. As everyone knows this is also the exact gematria of "ויאמר י-ה-ו-ה אל אברהם למה", which translates as "And the L-rd said to Abraham 'Why?'" (Genesis 18:13) Thus, clearly, the L-rd wanted Abraham to say the answer to you question, "Why can't I eat anything?"
Well, if you look at Genesis Chapter 18, it seems that Abraham doesn't reply. This would seem to demonstrate there is no answer.
However, 637 is also the gematria of "עפר ואפר", which translates as "dust and ash" (Genesis 18:27). If you look at that verse, we can see cleary that Abraham was replying as it says, "And Abraham replied."
Therefore, the prohibition of eating, says Abraham, is only with regards to dust and ash. However, we all know that there is a custom of eating bread, water, and a hard boiled egg with ash on the eve of the ninth of Av.
We can solve this problem with Genesis 3:12, which says, "Then the L-rd G-d said to the serpent, “Because you did this, ... and you shall eat dust eat." We can make an inference from this that only the serpent shall eat dust, but everyone else shall not eat dust, as Abraham said. Now, since one of the things that Abraham said that one shall not eat actually only applies to everyone but the serpent, it is only fair that we be allowed to eat ash, whilst the serpent is prohibited from eating ash.

This is one of those questions where you are really complicating things.

All these places are giving you a subtle hint to what your mom always told you when you were about to steal that cookie from the cookie jar, taste the batter, eat desert first, etc. C'mon, you remember those famous words that your mom said:

DON'T EAT THAT. YOU'LL RUIN YOUR APETITE!

So, you didn't ask why are you not allowed to eat. You asked "Why Can't I eat anything?" You don't have the ability to eat anything whatsoever .. EVER! All because of that one time in life that you ate something before dinner!! You're appetite is permanently ruined!

Moral of the story - listen to your mom. She knows!!