Q&A: Eating After Dawn
Eating After Dawn
Question
Rabbi, hello. Does the prohibition on eating after dawn and before prayer also include a prohibition on drinking (juice)? And is there room to be lenient if I get up for guard duty / to study and my regular prayer is about two hours later? (Maybe it’s not really an issue of arrogance if I’m not praying before eating, because there’s a minyan at the yeshiva?)
Answer
I don’t really understand the criterion of arrogance in this context, so I don’t know how to answer that. I think there is room to be lenient if you need the drink (and certainly if without it your prayer would be affected). However, in Biur Halakha, section 89, paragraph 3, it is written that it is preferable to pray alone rather than pray with a congregation after eating.
By the way, there are opinions that the prohibition is from the Torah. For example, Ra’ah and Nachmanides on Leviticus 19:26, and this also seems to be implied by Maimonides in the Ninth Principle, in its second part. According to the views that it is Torah-level, it would seem that there is no permission even for something that is not a matter of arrogance.
Discussion on Answer
That permission applies specifically to women, because they are not obligated in prayer. Therefore it was said that they may eat after the morning blessings, since those they are obligated to recite.
One could distinguish between two laws:
– the prohibition of eating over the blood
– the prohibition of eating a full meal before prayer lest one be drawn on
In a case where you have recited the morning blessings, you are not eating over the blood; what difference does it make whether men or women? The second law indeed applies to men and not to women, because women have no obligation of prayer.
According to the Rabbi’s view, where do we learn that women are obligated in the morning blessings?
I didn’t understand the question.
From the Magen Avraham’s permission for women to eat after the morning blessings, one can infer that men too may eat a light snack after the morning blessings and would not be called “those who eat over the blood.”