Q&A: Destruction and Waste
Destruction and Waste
Question
Does a “paintball” game (coloring water with gouache paint and filling water guns with it) that is prepared for the youth branch count as destruction and waste? What are the parameters of the prohibition in youth-branch activities (a tissue evening, an egg evening, etc.)? Many times we’re unsure what is included in the prohibition and what isn’t.
Thanks in advance
Answer
Hello Itai. I didn’t understand what exactly is being ruined there. The clothes? If people do things in order to play and enjoy themselves, there is no prohibition in that. Simply speaking, destruction is when it is done for no reason. Why should eating count as enjoyment but the enjoyment of play not count as such?! Still, one could discuss whether the enjoyment comes from the destruction itself, rather than people enjoying themselves and, incidentally, some destruction also taking place. Enjoyment from destruction as such seems problematic to me, and I think it is proper to avoid it (although I do not know whether one can actually forbid it halakhically. This is related to the law of one who tears in anger or over his dead, where the tearing itself provides the benefit of calming him down).