Q&A: Is It Permissible to Refrain from Fasting on the Four Fasts?
Is It Permissible to Refrain from Fasting on the Four Fasts?
Question
Hi Michi.
According to Rav Pappa in Rosh Hashanah 18b, in a time when there is peace, they—the four fasts, aside from the Ninth of Av, for which calamities were compounded—will become days of joy and gladness. It seems that the implication is that fasting at such a time is forbidden. This is the view of Rashi, Rabbeinu Nissim, and the Meiri, who define this as “when the hand of the nations is not strong over Israel.” Rashba wrote that it means when “the Jewish people dwell on their land.” Even according to Rabbenu Hananel, Nachmanides, Ritva, and the Tur, who say that “peace” means the rebuilding of the Temple, the view of the Geonic responsa and of Maimonides in his Commentary on the Mishnah is that the matter depends on the will of each individual (though some disagree). In light of all this, do you agree that someone who refrains from fasting has what to rely on? If not, why?
Thank you.
Answer
I don’t think there is any prohibition against fasting. But there is an exemption from fasting. This is a forecast, not a command. In practice, it is hard to say that nowadays these are days of joy and gladness. But someone who refrains from fasting is not halakhically baseless. It does go against the accepted custom.
Discussion on Answer
Why not? Even when there is no prohibition at all, custom still has force. So if they made the prohibition depend on each person’s preference, and a custom developed that everyone fasts, that is a full-fledged custom in every respect.
The custom is that girls and women don’t fast
*and women
Vizhnitz, maybe that’s the custom in your community.
In my community, for example, they’ve never heard of such a leniency
According to those who hold that it depends on each individual’s preference, then there isn’t a binding custom, right?