Do you fast if you are not pregnant & not nursing?

Ema of 5

Thu, Oct 06 2016, 2:32 pm

5mom wrote:

Of course it doesn't make them any lesser. The fact that an individual woman can't keep a particular mitzvah doesn't necessarily mean that all women should be exempt.

As much as some women really cannot fast, I really believe that a lot of this is cultural. Our Muslim sisters manage to fast every day for a month in Ramadan. (Of course, not everyone, but it's the default.) Are we so much weaker?

Victorians believed that women were too delicate for all kinds of things that in fact they could do. Have our bodies changed so much? No, but our social expectations have.

I know very well that some women - and some men - cannot tolerate fasting. For some, even taking Tylenol the day before a fast is enough to impact their fasting abilities. But the idea that women as a whole are too weak to fast just doesn't stand up to reality.

Just so you know, many of the Muslims who fast only abstain from food. And there are also those who will fast in public but will sneak a quick bite here and there. So you never really know who is fasting and who is not. And please, don't compare what we do to what Muslims do. It's not an accurate comparison.

Ema of 5

Thu, Oct 06 2016, 2:39 pm

LittleDucky wrote:

So wrong. Even if you don't fast, for whatever reason, you still shouldn't be eating purely pleasurable foods. The reason to not fast doesn't make the day disappear. I was told to break Tisha Bav once (pregnant and sick). I still didn't wear leather shoes, wash myself etc.

That's not the fault of the fasters (or in this case, the non fasters) It is the fault of the education system of which they are a part. Why are the schools not teaching the girls about room gedalya? There aren't that many fast days that fall on actual school days (only 3 that I can think of) so I can't understand why the girls don't know what's going on.

amother

Coral

Thu, Oct 06 2016, 2:48 pm

eema of 3 wrote:

I'm guessing because all the girls teachers are women (with some very, very rare exceptions), who have never fasted on minor fasts either and are disconnected too since the fasts never really affected them...

5mom

Thu, Oct 06 2016, 2:48 pm

eema of 3 wrote:

You're missing the point. Lots of Muslim women (I know some personally) fast, even if many don't. What they do is much harder than we do.

I know some American Jews who are hardly observant but go to shul on Yom Kippur morning. After the service they all have lunch because "it's too hard and completely unreasonable to fast all day." We're talking about grown men here. In our world, where adults expect to fast, no one says it's unreasonable to go for a day without food.

I won't say that it's all mind over matter, but social conditioning certainly affects what people think they can do. In any case, Chazal assumed that women who were not pregnant or nursing were hardy enough to fast.

Ema of 5

Thu, Oct 06 2016, 2:51 pm

amother wrote:

I don't fast, but I know what all the fasts are. It's sad if that's the reality- they are missing out on a big part of Judaism.

LittleDucky

Thu, Oct 06 2016, 3:15 pm

eema of 3 wrote:

And a fault of their parents. My father went through the halachos and history/reason with us.
And the girls/women themselves- why don't they ever ask "why does the calendar say "tzom"? What happened?"
Even if they don't fast they see their brothers, fathers and husbands fasting. It's not like they had zero exposure to the day.

Ema of 5

Thu, Oct 06 2016, 3:19 pm

LittleDucky wrote:

Parents are part of the education system.

amother

Coral

Thu, Oct 06 2016, 3:23 pm

LittleDucky wrote:

Even if they don't fast they see their brothers, fathers and husbands fasting. It's not like they had zero exposure to the day.

I have some chassidish cousins. The way the bochurim spent the fast day was by watching frum DVDs. My parents usually didn't let me go to their house on a fast day when I was young because they knew I would just sit and watch films, which was kind of sacrilegious on days where we fasted to mourn tragedies...

Once I was there on a minor fast day because my parents weren't home. The girls sat and watched with the bochurim too, the only difference was that they were eating snack bags and ices while they were watching. At one point, one of the girls got up to get more cookies and passed them around to her brothers, having forgotten it was a fast day.

This is not speaking for any group as a whole... just my personal experience where I saw this phenomenon.

If they barely learn anything about the fasts, and don't fast themselves, why should they have any meaningful connection to it?

Their brothers and father go to the mikvah every day, yet why should they ask them details about that ? It's just something that's vaguely in the background.

amother

Blush

Thu, Oct 06 2016, 4:40 pm

To me it's like davening. Many mothers of small children don't daven and are exempt from davening. Still, we are taught to daven in school and the default is that you daven unless you have some reason not to. And because you grew up davening it's ingrained in you, so if a period goes by that you don't daven it feels "off." You may daven a shorter davening but you don't forget about the obligation altogether. When girls are never taught to fast this part of Yiddishkeit simply does not exist for them.

out-of-towner

Fri, Oct 07 2016, 8:19 am

amother wrote:

That's just bad Chinuch. Full stop.

Even before I was old enough to fast, but was of Chinuch age, my parents would make sure that I knew about what the day was about and why it was a fast. And they didn't let us have treats in the spirit of the day.

HonesttoGod

Fri, Oct 07 2016, 10:34 am

In reponse to the whole "women are weaker" thing.
Some women really are. And some men are.

For example on a regular day my husband can go from his coffee at 7:30 am to his 12 pm cream cheese bagel through to 7 pm supper with NO PROBLEM. Some days he doesn't even eat a bagel. And he may have a small headache but he will eat and drink at supper and feel fine.
If I haven't eaten by 9:30 am I get dizzy, nauseous, weak and moody.

By comparison I have a friend who can fast every other day. She won't eat or drink until 3 or 4 pm purely by just not realizing/feeling the need. It doesn't affect her.
I know men who get so sick by chatzos that they are on IV.

It really depends on the person. But by majority a mom, especially a pregnant or nursing mom, will need more fuel and food/drink = fuel.

Jeanette

Fri, Oct 07 2016, 10:41 am

HonesttoGod wrote:

That may be true, but is there any reason why ALL women and girls should not fast by default? I know fasting is no fun and most people are affected by it one way or another. Nobody says getting through a fast is easy or you don't notice it. What's disturbing is the community standard that "girls don't fast," regardless of their actual health or ability.