Should You Really Be Fasting In This Heat?

Is it safe for you to fast when the temperatures have been so high in most of the US for so much of the summer? The answer may surprise you.

Three weeks ago, I wrote a post about the dangers of fasting in high heat, like much of the US has experienced this summer.

To recap, when the temperature surpasses 90º, are you required to fast?

For more people than you may realize, the answer is that not only are you are not required to fast, you really shouldn’t try to.

You may even be breaking halakha if you do fast.

First, some basic halakhic background.

The Tisha B'av fast is not d’orita, it is not of biblical origin. Even though it is the most important of the non-biblical fasts, holding a position that is really quasi-biblical rather than fully rabbinic, threats to life and health push it off easier than they would on Yom Kippur.

An ill person generally eats and drinks on Yom Kippur. So do younger children. That’s because anyone to whom fasting presents a physical danger is prohibited from fasting (except in very narrow circumstances).

What danger could there possibly be from fasting in near-100º heat?

Let me list a few:

• Dehydration, which can easily take place even if the person is not active and remains indoors. Dehydration taxes the body in many different ways, including but not limited to cardiac function. Dehydration and resulting electrolyte imbalances can cause cardiac arrhythmias which themselves can cause heart attacks and sudden death. The young, the old, the healthy and the infirm all face this risk. Even seemingly robust 30-year-olds do.

• Not taking prescribed medicines – especially beta blockers and other cardiac-related medicines – risks cardiac malfunction. Those risks are magnified by the extreme heat.

• Bowel issues. People prone to bowel obstructions or impactions are at elevated risk during any fast (which is why many adults who have experienced one of these problems no longer fast – even short, winter fasts). That level of risk is dramatically elevated in extreme heat.

According to the Mayo Clinic, dehydration can cause:

• Swelling of the brain (cerebral edema). Sometimes, when you're getting fluids again after being dehydrated, the body tries to pull too much water back into your cells. This can cause some cells to swell and rupture. The consequences are especially grave when brain cells are affected.

• Seizures. Electrolytes — such as potassium and sodium — help carry electrical signals from cell to cell. If your electrolytes are out of balance, the normal electrical messages can become mixed up, which can lead to involuntary muscle contractions and sometimes to a loss of consciousness.

• Low blood volume shock (hypovolemic shock). This is one of the most serious, and sometimes life-threatening, complications of dehydration. It occurs when low blood volume causes a drop in blood pressure and a drop in the amount of oxygen in your body.

• Kidney failure. This potentially life-threatening problem occurs when your kidneys are no longer able to remove excess fluids and waste from your blood.

• Coma and death. When not treated promptly and appropriately, severe dehydration can be fatal.

Most people can handle an occasional sun-up to sundown fast if the weather isn’t exceedingly hot. Even so, some of them shouldn’t fast anyway, because a proper halakhic evaluation would forbid it.

In extreme heat – especially in consecutive days of extreme heat – the number of people who should not fast rises dramatically.

This is true even if yesterday was very hot but today is not, because it takes your body time to recover, and fasting impedes that recovery and exaggerates the damage done by the previous day's heat.

If there is any legitimate concern that fasting could sicken or injure you, do not fast.

The fast is not about testing your physical endurance, flirting with illness or worse. It is simply meant as a tool to focus your thoughts on repentance while it decreases your thoughts of worldly, physical things.

If you need to eat and drink this Tisha B'av to protect your health, do it.

You can demonstrate your understanding that this is a fast day by eating very plain food and by drinking water rather than soda, juice or coffee. (Although if you need to eat for health reasons, you can drink any of those without issue if you choose – except for grape juice and wine.)

It isn't the fast that is important – it is the teshuva, the repentance, that is.

For those of you are fasting, I hope your fast is an easy one.

And, as the saying goes, may we only know simhot.

Comments

[Turd Degree]

Hmnn..I wonder if it's permissible to eat 'fast' food.

[Moshele]

This year is even more lenient being that it's a "Nidcha" (pushed off) if fasting will cause any harm in any way to your body don't try to be a hero, it's called a "chassid shota".

[Yochanan Lavie]

Hopefully next year we won't need to fast.

[Jeff]

Hopefully next year we won't need to fast.

Posted by: Yochanan Lavie | July 29, 2012 at 01:10 AM

Because Moshiach will have come and reestablished the temple, or because religion will have gone the way of the dodo? ;-)

[maven]

"religion will have gone the way of the dodo?"
I don't forsee that any time soon, people need an excuse to hate one another.

[John]

Apkoris

[ultra haredi lite]

Stay in an airconditioned synagogue, pray, say kinnos, watch all the videos, do teshuva and have an easy fast.
see you at metlife stadium on Wednesday.

[GodFatesHags]

Perhaps there is a leniency to allow you to fast indoors?

[Jill]

If you think the heat is an issue for you then by all means stay inside with the air conditioner on. Simple solution.

[Chatzkaleh]

It's semachot btw ;)

[Bas Melech]

Good post. Many people unfortunately ignore Rabbis when told not to fast.

Tisha B'Av is no longer a day of mourning and fasting. It has become a time for "inspirational" movies that are really propaganda. The Rabbis speeches are charedi revisionism and tell people to blindly follow them.

The focus of the day is the fasting and not ending causeless hatred.

[haredi sweat like pigs in the summer, bc of their heavy suit they must wear]

....' should haredi be wearing HEAVY black suit in this heat ?......

they sweat like pigs . so unhealthy .
how can they survive in this unbearable heat wearing tons over their body ?

for ppl who are 'pro health ' , that's a blatant contradiction of their health values .

and the women ! OMG !

how much they sweat under their wigs !
how can they put back their wigs on their head for 30 days PLUS of heavy sweating ?

the wigs have to be washed EVERY DAY so that they can put it back on the next day .

but they don't . so, just imagine !

on top of their wigs , they sweat like pigs on their heavy long sleeves tops or dresses AND THE TIGHTS TO COVER THEIR FEET .

OMG !!

i hope they remove everything when they get home for relief .

but beware ! they might get attacked for
sex from their sex obcessed husbands .

as if mandatory sex is not enough .
bc the luny haredi husband is lurking for more sex ANY CHANCE HE COULD GET .
haredi husbands are tireless when it comes to sex . cuz that's all they do.

as much as they don't like to work, they are always ready for sex ANYTIME , even in the torrid heat !

[Bas Melech]

Haredi sweat...,

What are the men doing tody?

[Yochanan Lavie]

Religion won't go away, not because of what Maven says (people can always rely on other reasons to hate) but because it addresses a hardwired human need, like sexuality does in its way. Like it or not, religion is here to stay. The question is, what kind of religion- primitive fundamentalism or a more open kind?

[Reuvan Nuchem]

@ haredi sweat like pigs in the summer, bc of their heavysuit they must wear

Did you mother and father send you to a religious school as a child? Seems that way from your writing.

[John]

Hareidi sweat. Stop talking about ur experience from ur mom and dad banging each other every change they get.

[WoolSilkCotton, rock star and sports superstar]

++pray, say kinnos, watch all the videos, do teshuva++

Watch all the videos? What videos? And when did that become Jewish Law?

[haredi sweat like pigs in the summer,bc of their heavy suit they must wear]

to' reuvan nuchem and 'john'( who is not'john'at all ) or maybe a chabad john ,like the chabad rabbi from russia who was having phone sex with a russian prostitute .

did you both go to a yeshiva ? with no doubt , you did .

therefore , at what age did you get molested by the rosh yeshiva or your teacher rabbis at school ?

number 2 question : how many times did you get molested in the mikvah ?

[Adam Neira]

Jews Read Lamentations Outside Temple Mount in Defiance of Ban (Arutz Sheva)

"...and going up to the Temple Mount in purity according to halacha (Jewish law) is the beginning of the process of rebuilding."

- Rabbi Chaim Richman

This is an incorrect interpretation of the prophecies. There is a timeline to the Redemption. I repeat...Pushing one of the messianic imperatives before its time could prove dangerously counter-productive. The recognition and acceptance of Moshiach's sovereignty precedes any building of the Third Temple on the Mount.

[haredi sweat like pigs in the summer,bc of their heavy suit they must wear]

to ' john' ,

the only one who bang recklessly is your haredi dad .

you know it bc you have 10 siblings .

do not think every one does , like your dad do .

they are very decent and educated ppl out there , bc they got a good education .

they are not rude like you and those like you. and non haredi educated ppl do not SCHNORR like you do .

non haredi ppl = normal ppl work to make a living and they pay their taxes = they are decent , respectable ppl .

normal people do not take advantage of people like the haredi do .

[haredi sweat like pigs in the summer,bc of their heavy suit they must wear]

to reuvan nuchem,

thank g-d, my parents never sent me to a
religious school as a child .

i'm gonna tell you why . i was never molested .

i am clean, bc i went to public school .

[jancsibacsi]

maven-Religion has already gone the way of the dod long time ago,as the saying goes if everyone has his way then no one hashis way same with religion it is in a state of anarchy withall this thievery and molesters can it be worse? no one heeds whatthe toireh says anymore its everyone fending for himself.

Shmarya you should burn down in this heat.

[John Nagle, Silicon Valley, CA]

Another bad idea from Islam that somehow was imported into Judaism. This isn't something from biblical times, this is a tradition newer than the discovery of America.

[A Yid]

Shmarya, you are improving slowly. I see that you took my rebuke 3 weeks ago seriously, and mentioned here that the main purpose of the fast is teshuva.
However the fast is part of teshuva.

But as I mentioned before, who is this health alert for?
Everyone knows that a person who is sick should make sure to drink and if he needs to eat he should do so.

[spacedout BT]

One hundred years ago my zaydie kept the fast of Tisha B'Av in a sweltering tenement on Rivington Street - no middle room windows, no hot water. Today I don't need the a/c, thank you very much. Eveidiently Shmarya believes in yeridos ha-doros.

[LofasaShegedre]

shmarya, I was just thinking. You are so similar to this Rabbi Eliyasev. You both live in your mothers house with all your children. Of course his children are all grown up and out of the house, and all your children are still at home, all over your walls. Both of you are great deciders of Jewish law.
But here the difference ends.
Where Rabbi Eliyashiv's decisions are misogynistic, sadistic, masochistic, cold and sexist, your rulings are all warm, caring and fully if good fuzzy feelings.
I'm sure in the not too distant future there will be a long well trodden path to your humble doors.
I can just imagine you facing Rabbi Eliyashiv in Olem Haemes (if there is one) and you telling him of all the terrible rulings that he made.
May our society merit this meeting very very soon.

[Abu Jihad Schneerson]

@John Nagle, Silicon Valley, CA:actually,it's right the opposite!There is a hadith or a verse of the Koran(I don't remeber precisely)where Muhammad institutes fasting for his Ummah after having seen the Jews fasting,althought it was Yom Kippur.

[Abu Jihad Schneerson]

@LofasaShegedre:at least try to spell hungarian bad word correctly!It's writte lofasz a seggedbe(a horse's dick in your ass.)

[dh]

Not that it's a bad thing......

[jancsibacsi]

Abu-haha ye i was about to write the spelling is incorrect also.ki lehet az aki eszt irta mit gondolsz?

[Abu Jihad Schneerson]

nem tudom;de szerintem egy Magyar.Lehet hogy egy Szatmàr......

I dunno,but I guess a Hungarian.Maybe a Satmar......

[jancsibacsi]

Abu-Could be lots of them know broken hungarian non correctly just like the english language,here in my neighborhood i know a dozen of them the szatmar some of them teach their children hungarian.

[rebitzman]

Another bad idea from Islam that somehow was imported into Judaism

Fasting is mentioned specifically at least 10 times in the Tanakh - and well over a 100 times in the Talmud - both predate Islam by 100's of years.

Tisha B'Av is also discussed in the Gemara (late in Tanith), so this specific observance also clearly predates Islam.

[speaker]

Should You Really Be Fasting In This Heat?
Yes.
and you should too. you should also have this great feeling that we all have motzhe tisha buv. we feel so relieved after shedding all this tears in the past 24 hours and you know shmerye what i noticed when I said all the 45 Kines today? that we always sufferd from goyem and from yidden everything is so old and we are still so strong... and now if you will excuse me my fresh flownder fish with mash potatoes and blintzes that my dear wife made for us (besides the ckokosh cake i just finished)is waiting for me so i must go... sorry shmerye

[D]

Speaker, nice going! We had some delicious steelhead salmon with potatoes; my stomach is aching, as usual, post ta'anis. I sit straight on the floor, trying to do at least one thing fully, and connect with the Jewish experience through the ages.

[How much for her to blow me?]

SHMARYA.

IF YOU CAN BANG YOUR BITCH IN 90d WEATHER THEN YOU CAN FAST AS WELL.

[ultra haredi lite]

No heat wave, krohn was actually pretty good, and the break-fast was scrumptous as usual. Next year in yerushalayim!