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Washing on Hol HaMoed

שו”תCategory: HalachaWashing on Hol HaMoed
asked 8 years ago

Best regards, Rabbi Michael
Is it permissible to do laundry these days on Chol HaMoed, now that we wash in a washing machine?
Thank you very much, Amichai

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0 Answers
מיכי Staff answered 8 years ago

It is difficult to permit. This is a regulation that is at best meaningless and perhaps even a Torah law.

עמיחי, ירושלים replied 8 years ago

Good week. Thanks for the answer. In the meantime, I tried to find answers on the Internet, and I found that Rabbi Mazuz tends to allow it completely, because in his opinion the Sages did not rule on washing in a washing machine. And I found in the Migdal Tzofim Responsa (Rabbi Gedaliah Axelrod), Part 3, that he also tends to allow it, although he hesitates to actually allow it because it depends on the Sages of the generation. In general, I have come across this consideration of the opinion of the Sages of the generation regarding washing in a chav”m in several places. It seems that many believe that the law depends on the opinion of the Sages of the generation regarding what is considered desecration or desecration of a chav”m.

מיכי Staff replied 8 years ago

So you probably have someone to trust.

Igal Dahan replied 3 years ago

Rabbi, here is Rabbi Lior's answer, and we see that he is twisting because of the change in the act of washing in our days.
What's more, even if a person does laundry before the holiday, they accumulate, after all, everyday actions, in the modern world where we buy a lot of clothes and wash them every day, sometimes twice.

So the interpretation of the Ritva is correct, but even if we accept it and carry it out, there will still be mountains of laundry.

And the Rabbi's response to the possibility of change is interesting, meaning that the dissonance between reality and halacha simply cries out to him, but tradition pulls in the ancient direction.

https://www.yeshiva.org.il/ask/35168

I'm interested in how you see this, and not necessarily only halachically but in terms of dissonance?

מיכי Staff replied 3 years ago

I didn't understand the question. I wrote that I think there is definitely room for this explanation. The argument is that this is not a decree that has no merit, but rather something for which the decree was not made at all (they did not decree machine washing).

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