How the fast is looking with nothing to do tomorrow

In My Humble Opinion
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My shul is not holding services, except on zoom. I am not looking forward to the day tomorrow. Going to services has always made the day pass quickly, and I actually sort of like Yom Kippur. I have bad feelings about logging onto the computer on Yom Kippur, though, and even worse feelings about having nothing to do all day but not eat.

There have been a few years I didn’t fast all day, because my blood sugar dropped too low, and I have to drink water-- doctor’s orders. My blood sugar always gets too low if I get dehydrated (I get woozy around 1pm), but if I drink water, I usually make it all day without food. Have discussed this at length with doctors and rabbis.

I have a feeling I’m going to get very anxious tomorrow, and start testing my blood sugar more than I need to, and hoping it will drop, which is hardly in the spirit of the day.

Also, I don;t know how motivated I’ll be to say all the prayers by myself. DH has already decided he is not participating, and I do not anticipate getting much out of the boychik. This is supposed to be his first fast-- he turned 13 last year during Sukkot.

I almost wonder if it wouldn’t be better for him not to try to fast this year, when it will be really difficult, and let him wait until a year when he will get to be in services all day. I wish I’d though more about this a couple of weeks ago, and discussed it with a rabbi.

But, for those of you who intend to try, Have an easy fast.

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As I said elsewhere, I have the books to do the services at home alone. But after much internal debate, I’ve decided to join zoom services. I think the deciding factor was knowing that my mother in Florida will be watching the same services on her iPad.

I do intend to fast. However, I require both morning and night time medications. I tried skipping those one year and the result was very bad. So tonight, I’ll be drinking a small amount of water with my Mirtazipine and Lithium Carbonate. Tomorrow morning, I’ll have a small amount of water with Paxil, Vraylar and methylphenidate.

As lithium is VERY dehydrating, I’m worried I’ll need water during the day but usually I make it.

Oh, and fasting isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be productive and meaningful. One year, I fell asleep before Kol Nidre an didn’t wake up for 25 hours. It was the easiest fast I’ve ever had and it had zilch spiritual or educational value.

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Yeah, but “Have an easy fast” is what you say.

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Actually, I was taught to say “May you have a productive fast.” Rabbi Klears* made a convincing case.

  • He’s the guy who circumicsed me and presided over my becoming Bar Mitzvah.Given his age when I moved from Virginia to Philly, I’m sure he’s now of blessed memory.
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My synagogue is livestreaming/zooming all day into evening. So no toast and coffee with my web surfing this morning. Last night I did some looking around the interwebs and there were Erev Yom Kippur services being livestreamed from all over everywhere… usually from empty synagogues with just the officiants and the organist/pianist on the bima. Sad, sweet, and poignant. Some intercut scenes of people reading passages or lighting candles from home.

I plan to park it here in front of my computer pretty much all day. After the morning service, they always have a symposium/panel discussion of some kind, usually individual congregants talk about their personal experiences with Judaism. This year, there will also be two “classes” to fill in the time until the afternoon service.

I can get the prayer book up on the screen next to the window where the service is streaming-- I feel like we’re all getting the hang of it. I have to say our synagogue is becoming extremely accomplished at video production.

Next Friday we’ll be observing Sukkot in person, outside, in the parking lot adjacent to the synagogue. I feel giddy with anticipation. Masks will be required. After that if the local COVID numbers stay leveled off or come down, they may start allowing people back into the sanctuary. It seats 1,000 people so there would certainly be no problem spacing out the attendees. I’ll have to think about that. I actually like the zoom services.

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Since last Feb, my wife and I have been doing intermittent fasting: no food between 2PM and 8AM. We decided to fast for 24 hours, but 2PM Sunday to 2PM Monday. Basically, we skipped breakfast on Monday. But I am not about to skip my pills so of course I had water, both Sunday evening and Monday morning. We also had black tea/coffee Monday morning since we cannot function otherwise and dehydration is not good.

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Well, didn’t log into the service. Just couldn’t do it.

Did manage to violate the day, though.

Got to reading the haftarah, Isaiah “[T]his is the fast I desire: …share your bread with the hungry…” and generally, that the fast isn’t about sitting around being unhappy.

So, I had a lot of non-perishables left from Purim, because normally, I take sack lunches of non-perishable items around to homeless people around Purim, but COVID-19 hit right then, and I didn’t get to give out everything I had.

I got a dozen sack lunches, put them in a backpack, and handed them out. There’s always homeless people at the highway exits, and at the medians near major chain stores, and I live fairly close to several. I still probably walked 5 or 6 miles, because I didn’t want to drive on Yom Kippur.

Also, instead of water to hydrate, I used this drink I had leftover from when I had surgery a couple of years ago. It has like, 28 calories in 8 ounces, 7 grams of protein, and some vitamins. I dumped powdered, 0 calorie, electrolyte mix into it. My blood sugar stayed around 90 the whole time I was out.

I handed out all the lunches, then went home and fell asleep. If you know what an insomniac I am, the fact that I fell asleep and stayed asleep for over two hours was practically a miracle.

The only thing I really feel bad about is missing Hineni, but our cantor doesn’t walk up through the congregation singing it anyway. At my previous congregation, all the HHD stuff was covered by volunteers from the congregation, and the woman who always did Hineni did it so beautifully, and walked up through the congregation.

Except for three bottles of the vitamin drink, I kept the fast, and the drink was probably under the shiur.

I thought carrying around and handing out food while I was fasting would bother me, but it didn’t.

I’m feeling OK about the day.

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RivkahChaya:

Just two questions for you about the HHD (which I know means “High Holy Days”):

  1. Which tradition (Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, etc.) do you follow?

  2. What are the differences among the various traditions in how the HHD are observed?

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Oh, cripes, the differences in the ways that the different traditions observe the HHDs is too much to get into in a Dope post. There’s probably a Wiki for it.

I consider myself “observant,” albeit, not as much as I once was. I used to be totally shomer Shabbes. I don’t think of myself as belonging to any one denomination. The shul I attend is affiliated with Conservative and Reconstructionist movements. It uses the Conservative siddur on Saturday morning, for the daily minyan, and the HHD Conservative machzor. On Friday night, it uses the Reconstructionist siddur.

The shul I attended in my previous city was Reform-affiliated, but that was just so it could get student rabbis from the movement. For a long time, it was unaffiliated. It used an Orthodox siddur (Birnbaum) on Saturday morning, the Reconstructionist siddur on Friday nights, and the Conservative machzor. It did have enough copies of the Refom siddur, that if a family chose to use it for a Bar Mitzvah, it was available. There was a whole spectrum of observance among the congregants.

At my current shul, you see less shomer Shabbes, more shomer Kashrut, more people who speak Hebrew, but fewer regular service goers (by percentage-- it’s a much bigger place). I think probably more people who have Shabbes dinners even if they don’t follow it with keeping Shabbes, probably about the same rate of intermarriage, which I would guess is about 30%, albeit, I think there are more intermarriages where the non-Jewish partner actually practices something else. My current shul sustains a daily minyan, but it is small (I’m a member). We’re there, though. About every other day, we have an unknown face there to observe a yahrzeit.

Don’t know whether that answers the question or not.