Q&A: Leavened Food on Passover in Institutions
Leavened Food on Passover in Institutions
Question
Hello Rabbi,
What do you think about bringing leavened food on Passover into hospitals and into the IDF?
Today the High Court unanimously ruled that bringing leavened food into the IDF should not be allowed.
I think that in the IDF the main kitchen should be allowed to be kosher for Passover, while in a private room or a smoking area everyone should act according to his own belief. Is there some value to preserving the atmosphere/character—or whatever the right word is—inside the base during Passover? Or is it more proper and right to allow everyone to act according to his own belief, while keeping the main kitchen kosher?
Answer
I haven’t seen the reasoning, but I agree that bringing it in should not be prohibited. Nor is there any prohibition on those staying in a hospital because others bring in leavened food. In my view, considerations of atmosphere or character are not sufficient reason to coerce people. Especially since there are public Sabbath violations that, in my opinion, are no less serious than bringing in leavened food, and nobody complains about that. The claim is that here it causes a prohibition for religious people (“it shall not be seen”), but that claim is incorrect.
Discussion on Answer
There’s really nothing to write here. “It shall not be seen” applies only to something in my possession. People infer otherwise from Rashi very precisely, but that is an isolated and puzzling view that people are concerned about only in order to harass the public. Does anyone refrain from going on a trip during Passover out of concern that he might see leavened food there?
Thank you.
The law regarding hospitals is that each director can decide whether to allow leavened food in or not. Is a hospital considered to be “in his possession,” in which case the prohibition would apply to him? For example, a private hospital like Laniado. Or do we really just need to calm down about this hysteria once and for all?
It’s very interesting, because until now this was marketed to us as a violation of a severe prohibition—heaven forbid, how these wicked people are making us violate our religion just to provoke us.
If the hospital is privately owned, its board of directors should set the rules. As I understand it, the law deals with public institutions. In any case, the director is not the owner of any hospital. I’m not even sure there are any privately owned hospitals at all in Israel.
And even if there is an institution that I own, I do not violate “it shall not be seen” if someone enters it with his own leavened food.
Have you written somewhere about why the prohibition of “it shall not be seen” is not caused here? I asked for it and did not find it on the site…