Ready To Fast?

 

Last week we celebrated the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), with fasting and prayers.

The day before, I left home in the morning without any breakfast , and by late afternoon I was famished. I stopped at an eatery and ordered a 'schawarma' portion ( a pita pocket stuffed with roasted  meat, salad, and chips)+ a small bottle of cold soda water. I ate it at a table outside. The portion was unusually spicy, and being very hungry, I ate it hastily.

 

                                                                      schawarma skewer

I reached home having a burning thirst and an upset stomach. I drank some water and tea, but  felt no much improvement. Suddenly,  my eyes fell on the bowl with sabra fruit (cactus prickle pear).  'Here comes my salvation', I thought. I remembered reading somewhere that the sabra calms down the digestive system by absorbing whatever irritates it.

Well, salvation it was. At the third fruit, I felt much better. In fact, I felt wonderful.

This fruit has always been a favorite of mine for its taste and texture (I even put it on the sidebar of my blog and I wrote a post on it in Oct. 2017). Now, I've learnt that "there's more to it than meets the eye" as they say. 

I was glad to be ready for next day's evening - the beginning of  the 25 hours of fasting, hours with no liquid, no solid food. The Yom Kippur day and the fasting are very important to me spiritually.

The sabra fruit is small but encased in a thick, semi- thorny peel . It's not cheap, but I always buy some when it's available at the grocery store.

 * Web pictures

 

New in Town

 

Finally, the defibrillator, the external life- saving device during cardiac arrest, has been installed in our town. It is placed in public locations, mainly on lottery kiosks and old payphone booths. 

yellow device on the kiosk's outer wall

The defib. is meant for untrained people who by pushing the right button activate an electric shock  helping the collapsed person survive until ambulance with the rescue team arrives. Everyone on the street, they  say, could be a life saver.

I 've noticed, though,  there are no instructions on this yellow colored device, except for the one, demanding to dial the urgency number 101 when an emergency occurs.  Probably at that number one gets the necessary information on what needs to be done (buttons are under lock).

As I understand, Mifal Hapais (national Lotttery of Israel),  which owns the lottery kiosks,  is funding these devices.The phone booths are the property of the giant phone company Bezek. 

As most of  the phone booths are not in use any more, but still need some maintenance,  it is  now for the Magen David Adom (Israel's national Emergency organization) to bear the responsability for them; it's a win-win situation.

                                                           empty phone booth
 

                                       simple top booth with functioning phone

 

May we never need to use the defib! The sad reality, however, is that we often hear about cases of cardiac arrest. There's even a rise in the number of cases now, probably having something to do with the Covid infection.