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Did anyone ever hear that you’re not supposed to say that when someone sneezes?
It’s kind of a habit for me to say it. I guess I heard it a lot growing up. Then the other day, someone said that they heard we’re really not supposed to say it. She didn’t know the reason.
So if anyone here has any info on this, please do share. Thanks.
The Mishna Berura says in simun Reish Lamed Seif Katan Zayin “If someone sneezes and his friend tells him Asusa, and he should answer back Baruch Tihyeh Leshuascha Kivisi Hashem.” Asusa is aramaic for Good Health, which is Gezundheit or Labriyut. The Mishna Berura goes on to say that In the original times nobody got sick before they died, they just sneezed and died. So when they sneezed people said Asusa until Yaakov Avinu came and davened to Hashem to take it away. It sounds like from this Mishna Berura that you could say it.
This is a custom of good manners that seems prevalent in almost every tradition and society on earth. I have no idea why someone would say that you shouldn’t say it. It’s even in the Gemara.
The Halachah is that you can’t say it in a Beis Medrash though. Maybe that’s what they were thinking of?
Why not???? What does it mean??? So should i say bless you instead?
No shopping you should say you are so good looking instead.
Say “Gezuntheit if you want”
I thought we say these things so we dont sneeze and c”s die like they did in the olden days???? I dont want to die!!!! So, ummm….what wrong with it???? Isnt it a good thing to say bless you or wtvr
No, I did not. And how can it EVER be wrong to wish good health on someone? Do we not say Tehillim for someone who is MAMESH ill? The whole “bless you” came from the belief that a person sneezed before death, so if someone sneezed, he was immediately wished gesundheit, or bless you, lest that be his sneeze of death.
I learned that it wasnt a beleif, in like somewhere from the 1500’s -1899 there was some sort of bug going around, brought by all the new immigrants in america, in short one guy brought it and it spread, the bug was where if you sneezed you died, something like that. It only went on forca short while then stopped and they never discorvered the reason.
You know the song ‘ring around the rosies’ that was made during the time of the bug. Its about kids playing in the flowers, and it makes them sneeze and they a die, thats why jews like to sing ‘Ring around the Torah/Mitzvos’
Shopping613, FYI it was called the bubonic plague/black death. Ring around the rosies-the victim’s face would turn red. A pocket full of posies-The victims would smell bad, so they put flowers in their pockets to smell bad. Ashes ashes we all fall down-the victims died.
Shopping: The custom of saying “bless you” etc. after a sneeze is at least 1500 years older than that. Also, that was about the black death, which had nothing to do with sneezing. The first major (and biggest) outbreak of the bubonic plague was in the 1300s. Somewhere between 25-50% of the European population died.
Yeshivaguy: It was more than just that they smelled bad. The theory at the time was that the disease spread through smell (they weren’t so wrong, it was airborne). So they all carried fragrant perfumes (sometimes they even wore masks with duck-billed noses full of perfume) to avoid catching the disease from the smell.
sam2 thanks.
But it all boills down to the original question: So it should be good to say bless you or wtvr, so why do the other posters say you shouldnt….
the ignorance of basic world history on this thread is astounding.
I guess the makers of “the chumra song” missed one!
Why not?
gefen that’s a machlokes achronim whether you’re allowed to say it in a beis Medrash. I think it’s between the Shach and the Taz.
Does saying “G-d bless you” pose any halakhic problems?
Sam2, I thought people in that time carried around perfume because they never bathed!
But why arent you allowed to say it?????
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