Feasting/Fasting during the High Holy Days

Yom Kippur is now over. Jewish ritual and tradition calls for Jews to fast during the 24 hours of Yom Kippur, which was yesterday. "Fasting" includes no intake of water as well as food. Jewish tradition also says that those who are sick, as well as children, should not fast.

I like to follow along with what my community is doing. However, I do fall under the category of "sick" for this exercise: diabetic, high blood pressure, previous cancer patient, on and on.

So I do what I can. I had a cereal breakfast in the morning, and ate a banana for lunch but no more. I use water to take my medication the three times a day I must take it, plus a little more. But believe me when I say I was really hungry (and thirsty) when I dove into the oneg feast at sundown last night.

And that's the other problem for me during Yom Kippur: eating all the wrong things, all at once, at the end of Yom Kippur.

I tried to eat a lot of fruit. However, I also ate a lot of sweets (because they looked really good). And there wasn't enough water available -- they ran out of water in the first 10 minutes -- and the only thing left was red wine or apple juice, both rife with sugar.

My blood sugar wasn't over the line (140+) this morning, but it was up there, 130. I didn't succeed all that well at controlling my blood sugar, and will have to think about that more next year.

Now, today, I'm back to routine.