Even as we headed into the jungle, we made sure to eat well on Erev Yom Kippur so we could fast easily

As told to Sarah Pardes by Talia Sharon

T

he heat is what I remember most. It was a sticky, blistering heat; I was fasting under the open sky in the Bolivian jungle on the holiest day of the year.

How did I end up in South America on Yom Kippur? At the age of 21, I followed the trajectory of most of my secular Israeli peers and set out to travel the world with a few friends. We chose to visit Bolivia because of its vast stretches of uninhabited forest, rolling mountains, and beautiful scenery. We wanted to set foot where few had ever been.

We knew enough about Judaism to understand that the High Holidays were coming, but we didn’t let that interfere with our plans. We simply worked around it. We were in a city on Rosh Hashanah, so we found a local Chabad House and spent the holiday there. Then we journeyed on, this time into the Bolivian jungle.