A Pre-Yom Kippur Poll

[gnomi]

Given the scenario in which one is not allowed to fast for medical reasons...

[Poll #1059066]

Comments

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Where can you get kosher Narf in Boston?

Tzom kal ug'mar chatima tovah!

[xochitl42.livejournal.com]

I cannot explain why, but "kosher Narf" is cracking me up without fail, every time I think of it.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Kosher Narf! Kosher Narf!

Re: Other Stuff

[morgan-lowri.livejournal.com]

Have some fresh fruit with your bread and cheese and Sukkot samples. ^_^

[magid.livejournal.com]

The break fast should include food and water, available as quickly as possible :-)

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

My break fast consists (immediately after services) of V8 and whole wheat crackers, which I bring with me, and then leftover dinner when I get home.

This year...um. I was rather ill last night, and I'm not 100% now. I'm...taking things as they come, basically.

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

by "meat!" i mean tunafish. which, i know, technically not meat, but it didn't fit any of the other categories. altho if you go out for dinner, meat as in "came from a four-legged animal" does not seem inappropriate. (a couple years when i lived in new york, we went to a diner to break the fast. yum.)

so far i seem to be the only person who said yes, bringing a wee soft-sided cooler to services was tacky, which probably makes me sound judgemental and harsh, but it seems kind of, uh, unfair to all the folks who are fasting. unless one leaves it in the kitchen or somewhere other people won't see it.... altho i don't doubt people would understand.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

The plan is to bring it in a tote bag and leave it in the coatroom.

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

i don't know why i was picturing someone with a little cooler under their seat, but that's kind of what i was picturing. >.< possibly i'm an idiot.

[abbasegal.livejournal.com]

I would not consider bringing a small cooler to be tacky (especially if you left it in the coat room). Crunching potato chips during Unetane Tokef, now that would be tacky!

Seriously, I had a similar debate with myself about food for my kids (who as you are aware but all your readers may not be are not required to fast), and last night I brought water for them, but left it out in the hall. When the kids whose father I was sitting next to were wandering in and out munching on Bamba (an Israeli junk food, sort of like Cheetos but with peanut butter instead of cheese) and drinking shoko (i.e. chocolate milk) I didn't feel as bad about feeding the kids grapes to try to keep them quiet before the shofar blowing at Neila today.

Shana tova!

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

Bringing the cooler is not tacky; eating where you can be seen (even by children) is. I once watched someone at the shul you attended this morning sipping water from a bottle. (Then again, the shul I attended this morning had enough of a problem with cell phones that an announcement had to be made. For the readers who don't know me, this was an Orthodox shul.)

Whatever you break your fast on, it should not involve blueberry syrup. That would be why I no longer own a white dress for Yom Kippur wearing. :-)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

The shul with the cell phone problem -- was it that-shul-what-we-usually-attend, and was it *today*?

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

Yup. I personally ended up out of the shul sanctuary for most of my time there, so I missed the ruckus, but Shani T. told me one woman rang not once, but twice, prompting Yisrael G to make an announcement along the lines of "Folks, it's Yom Kippur and Shabbat. Cell phones must be OFF." Seth says that someone told him that you could hear all around the sounds of vibrating as people switched their phones to silent mode.

Not as bad as last year, when I told some creep who didn't speak English but who understood my anger and gestures (take a wild guess what his primary language was...wasn't Hebrew...) that it was NOT ok to smoke on the shul's front steps. (He moved down the stairs and a little away from the front door, then eventually to the side of the building.)

I think we should post a bilingual sign for yomim tovim and shabbat, particularly the ones where yizkor is said (since that's when the offenders turn up, in huge crowds), to the effect that cell phones and smoking are not permitted on shul property.

But I might just be bitter because I twice had to restart my shacharit amidah, and eventually moved upstairs to daven in competition with the kids' running around (they were less disruptive than the adults), because I was on an end seat (my own was taken by one of the interlopers) and was stepped over in one case (bashed by a pocketbook on the way past), forcing me to move my feet or fall over, and subjected to repeated "excuse me! excuse me! s'licha! excuse me!" in my face in the other case (at which point I was forced to the left aisle to let the woman pass). And funny, the people in question never show up at any other time of the year, just duck in for yizkor and leave (I'm sure that makes SUCH a great impression on their dead relatives), always are inappropriate (in dress, in what they have with them, in their behavior), and none of them speak English very good. And they've never reserved (read: paid for) seats. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

(Sorry, as long as I'm ranting, let me note that it's the same crowd as BROKE the shul's front door at the ma'os chitim distribution last year (two years ago, sorry -- last year we had someone else handle distribution because it was too much of a problem) when the doors weren't opened quickly enough (or maybe there had been a problem in communication about the day, not sure). The same group that has caused deep fear in the office staff. And one of the ladies, none too steady on her feet to start, tripped over her feet and fell, and sued the shul (that was a different year).)

For those who don't know, what they give out for ma'os chitim (lit. money for flour: to buy supplies for Passover) is a $10 or $25 chit good only a week before and during Passover at the Butcherie. That's what a crowd of men in this demographic lined up for, grew impatient about, and broke down the shul door over. Most of them don't keep kosher in the first place.

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

Given that I know several people who are diabetic, and a bunch more with small kids, the idea of bring a cooler does not seem tacky. Keeping necessary supplies in another room and consuming/serving them as necessary away from people who are fasting seems like an actively good idea. Taking out food/drink where others will not be able to ignore it, especially if it's noisy (e.g. crunchy/slurpy) or smells strongly (e.g. Bamba - mentioned by abbasegal above), does seem tacky and inconsiderate.

For at least the past two years, a couple of people at the shul we've been going to have been supplying a break fast snack of juice (apple, orange) and small slices of cakes (honey, yellow, marble, roll). It's intended mostly as a quick boost before people go home to have their "break fast" meal, and it really does help (our walk is 3/4-1 mile).

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

I would say it depends on the circumstances.

[lisafeld.livejournal.com]

Depends. Bringing a cooler to your seat in shul implies you're going to eat right there in the pews, and the knowledge that there's food in it is too much of a distraction to hungry davenners. Leaving a cooler by the coat check should be fine. (If, say, you need refrigerated insulin, but really, if it's just food, why not an apple or a peanut butter sandwich you can slip in your coat pocket? [which is what I did the year I couldn't fast for medical reasons] Do you really need a frosty beverage or a hot roast beef sandwich?)

For break fast, I always go to a local restaurant where I can quickly get grilled salmon with mashed potatoes, spinach and sliced tomato, plus slice of chocolate cake next door. All five food groups... mmmm. ;D

This year, I actually had an unpleasant experience. I went to the restaurant, wolfed down my yummy salmon and veggies in record time because I was starving, and went next door for a slice of cake to take home, still carrying my tallis bag. I waited patiently while the family in front of me ordered, but as they were walking out the door, the wife said loudly to the husband, "If I'd been fasting all day, I wouldn't go right for the chocolate cake." I didn't feel like making a nasty scene right after a whole day of thinking of ways to be a better person, but I was tempted to say, "And if I were the parent of small children, I wouldn't teach them to belittle nice people, even strangers, in public."

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

(If, say, you need refrigerated insulin, but really, if it's just food, why not an apple or a peanut butter sandwich you can slip in your coat pocket? [which is what I did the year I couldn't fast for medical reasons] Do you really need a frosty beverage or a hot roast beef sandwich?)

Because of the amount one is allowed to eat/drink and still be considered fasting, and because of the medication in question that requires enough food that I don't become hypoglycemic, I figured cut-up cheese sticks was the way to go. Unfortunately, cheese sticks don't survive well in pocket, so I went with soft-sided cooler left in coat room, and in the end I didn't end up needing them, but I was glad I had them with me just in case.

[lisafeld.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense.