Fast day | Imamother

amother

Gold

Sun, Jul 21 2019, 9:31 pm

amother [ Pewter ] wrote:

How about teens?
Do you also not keep Shabbat because it interferes in your role as Akeres Habayis?
I know women within two years of childbirth are exempt from fasting. I know that when the fast is nidcheh you can should break your fast if you feel unwell.
I even know people who say the lesser fasts shouldn't be fasted today in the age of geula.
I don't understand how women can have a blanket exemption from halacha. Being Akeret Habayit is not halacha, just like you keep kosher and Shabbat etc and still perform your role as a Jewish woman you can fast and be a Jewish women. If you are ill or can't function because of the fast for sure there is room for leniency. But why shouldn't a 16 year old girl fast? Why shouldn't a 50 year old woman fast?

This is just rude. What gives you the right to denigrate a Rav and the psak Halacha he gave fo the poster you responded to?

PinkFridge

Mon, Jul 22 2019, 8:20 am

Before this thread fizzles out, I just want to say something in the unfortunate case we're fasting again in three weeks:
Please contact a rav to find out what is appropriate for you to do.
Even if you don't fast, and/or you have obligations that will distract you such as work or childcare or parentcare, etc., you can and should have a meaningful day. Meaningful moments.

Your Tisha B'Av will be more meaningful if you prepare now. Shiurim - long or short. A book like Why We Weep, which has essays for each day of the 3 weeks. When you daven, focus on EY, Yerushalayim, and the Bais Hamikdash. Imagine your tefillos leaving where you are and traveling through this "vortex of holiness" directly up to Hashem. (Rav Matisyahu Salomon shlita's words and thought.)

Don't wallow in sadness* but do allow it to enter your life. Get proactive and come up with plans to live outside yourself and do something to make the lives of others better, one at a time.

As Rav Matisyahu says, when we are united, and united around Yerushalayim, we go up as individual shevatim with our own unique strengths which we should embrace, but differences dissolve in the face of this essential unity. (If I didn't present this well, I'm typing this without rereading, the errors are mine. When you read his words referencing Tehillim 122 it seems obvious that this is the pashut p'shat of the perek.)

*I've heard a Lubavitch take on Mishenichnas Av mema'atin b'simcha as, when Av enters we minimize, b'simcha. This too we do in simcha. And even hardcore Litvaks will say that serving Hashem b'simcha is 24/7/354 (384).