Q&A: Peeled Garlic, Onion, and Egg
Peeled Garlic, Onion, and Egg
Question
With God’s help,
Hello Rabbi,
My mother is very anxious about the matter brought in the Talmud:
“Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said: There are five things such that one who does them endangers his life and bears responsibility for his own blood: one who eats peeled garlic, peeled onion… that have had the night pass over them.” She throws in the trash any onion that was accidentally peeled, and worse than that she can get upset about it, etc., etc.
To me this does seem puzzling, since we have not seen that people who are not careful about this are harmed by it (although we have never actually done a real experiment about it). But still, I do not have enough halakhic knowledge to convince her.
The question is: in the Rabbi’s opinion, to what extent does this matter apply nowadays, and what good argument or arguments can be made to her so that she will simply understand that there is really no need to be so afraid of it?
Thanks in advance,
Yosef
Answer
Look, it is hard for me to bring proofs here. There are halakhic decisors who wrote that one may be lenient regarding these things that are forbidden because of danger. But there are also many halakhic decisors who are stringent, so I do not know whether that will help. My personal opinion is that there is nothing to it, but my opinion probably will not help either.
Thank you.
I looked into it a bit and found a responsum by Rabbi Waldenberg in Tzitz Eliezer, where he writes in the name of several halakhic decisors that nowadays there is no evil spirit, and therefore there is no need to be concerned about this. And even if we do say that there is an evil spirit, still, when the onion and so on are mixed into other foods, or when they are washed or salt is put on them, the evil spirit departs.