Q&A: Smoking on a Jewish Holiday
Smoking on a Jewish Holiday
Question
Healthy summer, in honor of the Rabbi,
Is it permitted to smoke cigarettes on a Jewish holiday?
Answer
In principle, yes. Some have argued that it should be forbidden because it is forbidden all year round for health reasons, but that is not related to the laws of a Jewish holiday. Some have argued that according to current knowledge this is not bodily enjoyment but rather a matter of danger to life, but that too is not an argument, because once kindling was permitted for a need, it was also permitted even when not for a need (through transferring an existing flame).
And still, of course, it is proper not to smoke at all, even on weekdays. It is a shame for one’s health and life.
(Especially in light of the greeting with which you open your question.)
Discussion on Answer
An interesting argument. First, according to Rashi and Maimonides there is no such category at all. Although in practice Jewish law does accept it. Beyond that, it does not have to be something that most people do, only something that reasonable people do. The question is whether smoking today is not something reasonable. I do not think so.
That argument is well known.
As for reasonableness, statistically speaking, in the Jewish population in Israel the smoking rate is less than 20%, and among women it is even lower.
But there is another point here: usually when people speak about the category of “equally applicable to everyone,” they mean to exclude things that people do not do only because they lack the means to do them, or because they are not so pampered as to do them.
With smoking, usually someone who does not smoke detests smoking, and would not smoke casually even if given cigarettes for free. Isn’t that more severe?
I don’t think so. As long as a person who does it is a reasonable person, it is considered equally applicable to everyone. If there were a food that only twenty percent of the population liked, would it be forbidden to prepare it on a Jewish holiday?
Hello Rabbi!
The Rabbi asks: if there were a food that only 20% eat, would it be forbidden to prepare it on a Jewish holiday?
It seems that the Rabbi is mixing up bodily enjoyment, where the reasonable person does not have to eat it, with “equally applicable to everyone,” where since we are not talking about actual food, the reasonable person does have to do it—isn’t that so?
Healthy summer!
This was said regarding labor for bodily enjoyment (and is also derived from the same verse). Indeed, they mainly apply it to things that are not bodily enjoyment (like incense), but only because of the principle I wrote here.
So then what is the point regarding the bathhouse? Because the reasonable person does not bathe every day. (Once that was the case.) Because he is not so pampered, meaning not accustomed to it. Seemingly smoking too is only for someone accustomed to it. In short, the distinction is not so well defined.
Apparently so.
What I heard is that there’s a problem here because it is not something equally applicable to everyone, like washing.