Q&A: Regarding Swimming on the Sabbath
Regarding Swimming on the Sabbath
Question
Dear Rabbi Michael, hello,
Nowadays many people, some of whom are fit for it, run long distances on the Sabbath. If that is not considered weekday-type activity, is there not room to permit swimming on the Sabbath? If there is room to permit it, what are the limiting conditions? For example, if the pool operators on the Sabbath are not Jewish.
Answer
Running for pleasure is permitted on the Sabbath. However, I have serious doubts about such runs from the standpoint of weekday-type activity. For my part, I have always been conflicted about this concept, because anything not done on the Sabbath is weekday-type activity, and if people start doing it on the Sabbath it will cease to be such. It is a circular concept. The question of what is appropriate to do on the Sabbath and on weekdays is a question for which I do not know good criteria.
Maybe it's similar to what they said in the name of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman about customs: the first person who breaks a custom is breaching a boundary, but once everyone has broken it, it no longer bears the status of a custom.