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im not gonna get involved in that…i just think theyre being blinded by something which is why they dont officially come out against it, they all say its wrong why cant they make a kol korei about it??? we see so many other “takkanos” about lesser matters…
LET ME MAKE MYSELF CLEAR! SMOKING IS A TERRIBLE HABIT.NO ROSH YESHIVA REBBE OR RAV WILL TELL YOU ANY DIFFRENT!!
im just saying that many people use the halachic venue ,and are terribly misinformed. they don’t care if its assur .they would hate it just as much if it were muttar. its a form of attack, its being done without thinking. they are are not here to listen just to sell what they have to say if anybody doesn’t accept he’s WRONG!!
face it there is a flip side to the coin.
i think it would push some people to stop if they made it official
the 2 greatest challenges to convince yeshiva guys to stop smoking are. firstly ,they will eventually stop , which probally stands true for about 50%. secondly i only some a couple of cigarettes its not dangerous.
first of all…for the 50% that dont its terribel second of all, even smoking short term is damaging…third of all a few here and a few there is what causes addiction…thats how my chavrusa boruch hashem i got him to stop
To AJ -Brisk,
Can you quote me the names of the poskim that still hold Rav Moshe’s Psak still stands? I remember seeing it inside many moons ago and I remember him writing because of Hakol Doshin Bo is it muttar. That heter is very unlikely nowadays due to the fact many people quit and a lot less people are starting due to health concerns. It’s not similar to crossing a street anymore, were you can still say HAKOL Doshin Bo!
Bottom line, many decades ago, most Rabbonim did not yet fully know of the absolute sakana of smoking, both to the smoker and to those exposed to the secondhand smoke. Now they do, and a p’sak sometimes DOES get modified as new information is discovered, and rabbonim realize that the original heter was based on incomplete evidence.
valid points Health,oomis1105
no i will not quote names, experience tells me you will just lose the respect for them. i dont think if i tell you that R ELYASHIV says its muttar you will agree, your response will be, he is ill informed.
also the psak has nothing to do how dangerous it is it has to do with the specific guidelines of the halachah.
i ask you why is it so important that it be assur? you had some very good points. smoking should be stopped regardless of its halachaic status
going on a tangent here, there are those that believe the psak that is assur only if you smoke for a lengthly amount of time, where the dangers are absolute. stopping after a short while, is inconclusive to cause major harm to the smoker, although you can become addicted and continue to smoke an entire lifetime it is within reach to stop therefore only when the smoker decides to smoke all his life or actually smokes to the point where it in conclusive to cause major hard to the body that is when you are being oiver.
i have said my opinion, im not here on a marathon, this is the basic idea for more info stop the next yeshiva guy that you see smoking (make sure he’s a mature one or don’t bother)
now youre talking sense. what isnt assur isnt always right. smoking would probably fall in that gray area with stealing less than a penny
Tzippi –
I’m with you. Your friend is better off 30 lbs heariver, than a size 2 and a smoker.
Bike riding can be harmful to men in their older years (if the rides are 50+ miles a day) but the health benefits outway the risk by far.
Plus, with the proper fitting, cycling will bring little harm, while the lack of excercise will bring lots of harm.
AJ – 85% will stop smoking once they get married? Even if your numbers are right (which I doubt) the relapse rate of the 85% is probaly 99%, once those bochurim start feeling the heat of life’s stress (Job, kids, mortgage, ect).
I will agree with you on one point; If the bocher has a smoker in is immediate family (like his father, for example) is pretty much a sure thing he will smoke too.
As someone who is young enough to remeber my yeshiva days, coolness is what gets most boys (and girls) started. And once your in Bais Medrash, you can come out in the open.
Bottom line, smoking is a vile habit. It stinks in the short term. And yes, I know there are a number of people that smoke into their 80’s, but not being able to walk 2 flights of steps without wheezing, or not being able to keep up with your grandchildren in the park.. is that called living?
Thats called existing. Not living.
“i ask you why is it so important that it be assur? you had some very good points. smoking should be stopped regardless of its halachaic status “
Why? Because there are many things that are taivos to us, and we WILL do them – unless we know that these things are assur. I don’t go through red lights or stop signs.
It is against the law. If it were not against the law, I might be tempted to do so. Many people will do the right thing ONLY when it is a law and they HAVE to. The reason we have a Torah and cannot rely on our own objective morality of what is right and wrong, is that objective morality changes with time and circumstance. Only the Torah is L’netzach, and only the Torah gives us the blueprint for living a true moral life in an unchanging, always relevant state.
The Ten Commandments were not the Ten Suggestions. Were they the latter, I guarantee you that many Jews would break most of them. When it comes to Kashrus, we don’t say that we can’t eat chazir because it tastes bad. We say efshar aval lo muttar. It may taste AWESOMELY good, but is not permitted to us, and I will not eat it, for that single reason. Smoking needs to be stated as assur, so that there will be a similar wall in front of it, to prevent people from lighting that very first cancer stick. And even more, if every dollar spent on cigarettes were instead to be given to tzedaka, we could help a whole lot of people. If one has that much money to set fire to, at least put it to good use for more people than just oneself. JMO.
To aj-brisk,
My point wasn’t to list names, but want I want to know is the reason they hold muttar? Is it still because Hakol Doshin Bo or for another reason?
i dont thing its so much “mutar” as not assur…
One more thing – does the expression “Hakol doshin bo” mean the same thing as “everybody is doing it?” If so, that’s not a reason for it to be permitted. People do a lot of things that they shouldn’t, because “eveyone else” does it. We try to teach our kids that peer pressure to do bad things is WRONG! Please enlighten me, someone – I am unfamiliar with the term of doshin bo. Maybe I am in error here.
To oomis,
There is a heter on the issur of “Guard your life exceedingly” that if everybody does it -you aren’t oiver the issur. (Like crossing a street, even though it’s somewhat dangerous.) Rav Moshe relies on this to say smoking is Mutter. My point is that was awhile ago, nowadays due to health concerns- a lot of people aren’t smoking, so it’s hard to make the claim of “Everybody’s doing it!”
heres the question though…if most people were jumping off buildings…would that make it mutar? and if you say thats certain death and smoking isnt, plenty of people survive jumps…
“Like crossing a street, even though it’s somewhat dangerous”
Health, you meant well, but your analogy is not a good one. People NEED to cross the street most of the time, in order to get from point A to point B, so they have to learn how to do it safely. That’s why we have traffic lights and stop signs. They most certainly do not EVER need to smoke.
no one said anything about gedolim that used to smoke ?! i’m not sure who it was-i think rav sholom shwadron- used to smoke alot. the second he heard its bad for your health he stopped. doesn’t that show something?
To bombman,
I see you’ve been too long in Yeshiva. The reason that smoking can possibly be compared to crossing the street (even though I think you can’t compare it anymore -see previous post.) and not to jumping off buildings is because the purposes are different.
When you jump off a building -the main purpose is to hurt yourself (even if you think you can fly) -this is the basic purpose of your actions. When you cross a street- it’s to get to the other side. When you smoke it’s to enjoy the smoke. The Torah would never matter an action whose main purpose (eg. jumping from some high place) is to hurt yourself since you can use the stairs or elevator. In other words, normal people don’t jump off buidings just because they need to get to the ground floor!
“When you smoke it’s to enjoy the smoke.”
Not always – sometimes it is merely to look “cool” in the eys of other kids who smoke, sometimes it is to keep one’s weight down, and very often (especially with people who have emphsema and /or lung cancer) it is because they are so highly addicted that they suffer when they don’t smoke. When they are coughing their guts up, they are not enjoying the smoke, but they still have the need to smoke. It is because of that addictive quality that smoking should be assur, because it can cause harm in any amount. The first puff taken into the lungs causes damage to the lungs. Would you stand near a burning building and deliberately inhale?????
And for anyone who wants to compare smoking to alcoholism – if it becomes such a problem for someone to refrain from excessive use of alcohol to the point where it is destroying his liver and causing harm to others (due to his impaired judgment), then he should not drink anything stronger than grape juice. In fact, the nazir cannot even do that, because he recognizes in himself that he can be nichshal. Once we know of the danger inherent in a harmful action, it is an aveira to persist in doing it.
To oomis,
I agree with you- people shouldn’t smoke -I think I posted it many times. I also said if I was a Poisek, I would say it was OSSUR! But, my posts were discussing the Halacha aspect of smoking. The reason Rabbonim permitted it was because it’s more similar to crossing a street than it is to jumping off a building. So you can apply the heter of “Hakol Doshin Bo”. Granted, there are many reasons a person smokes, but the main reason is not that he wants to hurt himself as opposed to jumping off a building. You should know crossing a street is dangerous -I think there is a pedestrian accident every 45 minutes in NYC.
to health…i was giving an exaggerated case to illustrate my point…nothing more. besides, there are people out there who BASE jump…lol
to halleluja the story of how i got the name bombmaniac is a very long one…mebbe some other time :D:D:D
“You should know crossing a street is dangerous -I think there is a pedestrian accident every 45 minutes in NYC. “
Poor shlemazel – you would think he would have learned to stay off the street after the first few times! 😛
Seriously though, smoking is NOTHING like crossing a street. You do not injure other people when you cross a street – unless you cross carelessly and cause an accident, when someone swerves to avoid you.
To oomis,
We were talking if it’s similar enough to get the heter of “Hakol Doshin Bo”; it doesn’t have to be exactly the same. Also, as far as I know this heter only applies to smoking yourself -whether you are oiver “Guard your health exceedingly”, it doesn’t apply to smoking around someone else. If you smoke around someone else & they don’t want to breathe in second-hand smoke, there should be no heter. (Children we would assume don’t want to breathe in smoke -you don’t ask them.)
It’s really very simple.
If you smoke long enough it will kill you through cancer, heart disease or the slow destruction of your lungs.
Tobacco is one of the most addictive drugs in the world. Only meth can be shown to hook you faster and more completely.
Most people have known – or should have known – this since the early 1960s and the original Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking. The tobacco companies knew this in the 1950s but kept it a secret in order to make money. Their own documents show this.
I suppose it’s alright to smoke on Purim, so long as it’s just once a year, the same way it’s alright to shoot up heroin or smoke crack on Purim, so long as it’s just once a year :-
To anuran,
Logically you would be correct, but you can’t do anything illegal. So I see no problem if someone smokes once in awhile, as long as it doesn’t go more than that. It also helps lessen the taavoh, if I can smoke on Purim -I’ll see smoking isn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread.
” if I can smoke on Purim -I’ll see smoking isn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread. :”
If it isn’t, then why waste your time, lung capacity, and money on something that unimportant? Only a smoker will ever find a zechus of any kind in smoking. Most people have learned it is a painful and ugly death waiting to happen. Smpking once in a while still pollutes the air the rest of us have to breathe. I would have more respect for a smoker who simply admitted he is too weak to overcome his taivah, but not try to justify his smoking with what amounts to very weak arguments. And to try to attribute halachic heterim to it is beyond the pale.
BS”D
If you want to smoke on Purim, smoke a cigar that you inhale only into the mouth. It is more Purimdige, goes better with most costumes, and usually won’t get you addicted.
if you want to smoke on purim…youre an idiot
bombmaniac, YOU ARE TOTALLY WRONG. If someone smokes on purim he is doing an idiotic thing, but that doesn’t mean he’s an idiot
nitpick all you want HIE…you get the point
I merely stated that only a smoker could find a zechus for smoking,and I stand by that. Most non-smokers do not find anything good to say about smoking. It literally stinks, it causes cancer, emphysema, bronchitis, heart disease and stroke, and it is a vice that affects not only the person using it, but also everyone around that person, as well as our environment at large. I may never smoke in my life, but if I live or work with a smoker, I can also get those diseases.
Babies who have a parent who smokes, have statistically higher rates of upper respiratory infections compared to those raised in a non-smoking environment. These are not my own stats, it is common knowledge. In this day and age anyone who fails to grasp that very simple fact is sorely in need of a visit to any lung cancer ward to see what that heter has allowed to happen. I have no doubt that were he still alive, R’ Moshe ZT”L would reverse his original decision.
Rav Moshe Feinstein Zt’l knew of the dangers and paskened it was mutter anyway. I tried to explain this in some of my previous posts. Just because something is dangerous doesn’t mean the Torah forbids it; there is a heter called “Hakol Doshin Bo” (Everybody does it). What I did say, was that I personally don’t believe that this heter applies anymore, because there has been a dramatic decrease in the amount of smokers since the time that Rav Moshe was alive.
EDITED
as a resolution to this argument: health, yes it is mutar. no question that most poskim agree. however to argue in oomis’s favor mutar does not always mean that you should do it. plain and simple. keeping up this personal argument is pointless
BS”D
As a former pipe and cigar smoker, I’d have to say that smoking probably detracts from the fun of Purim. I don’t think I ever smoked on Purim between all the mitzvos of the day and wanting to enjoy the taste of the food, wine and mashke.
Smoking something else would be another story as it probably would get you to ad d’loi yodo fast but it is of course ossur for many reasons and should be avoided at all costs even on Purim.
I also said I don’t believe that someone who smokes once in a blue moon is considered a smoker! But my post was edited.
EDITED
There was a time when the Gedolei Hador of Europe wanted to pasken that POTATOES were kitniyos on Pesach, because flour can be made from the potato starch and it resembles regular flour. However, when they realized what a full-scale rebellion they would have on their hands, because potatoes are such a staple food item, they retracted their views. Sometimes chachomim do re-think their positions and have charatah on their p’sak halacha (I have experienced that myself with a rov who first assered and then mattired something that I asked him about). R’ Moshe ZT”L may have been aware of SOME of the dangers in smoking, but it is only in recent years that the medical community has recognized the life-threatening danger of SECOND-hand smoke to innocent victims who never lit up even once in their lives. Even if someone feels you have a right to risk your own life (and that is a big IF), they certainly would not espouse the belief that it is ok to harm another person. Let’s move on already.
The gedolim held it was muttar, no matter how dangerous. The only reason you can say it’s ossur -is for the reason that I posted. As far as second-hand smoke, I don’t think anybody would matter, but that doesn’t make smoking totally ossur!
EDITED
You’re not getting the message. No personal attacks towards other posters please.
To editor,
You seem to say everything I post is a personal attack on others. What about the guy who called people who smoke an idiot? You have to be evenhanded when you edit people. Most of my posts are mild compared to others here.
This is a thread about smokers. To say a negative comment about smokers in general is one thing. Personal attacks on a particular poster are another.
Here is a quote from your last deleted post:
“I don’t appreciate your accusations that are baseless…I hope you don’t have any children because if you don’t let them do anything they will rebel on everything you say.
I don’t know why you think you are a know-it-all. Do you have Smicha or a degree in psychology or medicine? The way you talk it sounds like you do!
BTW, if everything is Ossur, why are you on the internet?”
You can think what you want about the fairness of your posts being edited and deleted, but this subject is closed. Be concerned about the Derech Eretz of YOUR posts and not others, then your posts will not be modified.
about the person who called smokers idiots…namely me…a person who willingly damages himself and others is an idiot
bombmaniac, a smoker is not necessarily an idiot. He or she is in the grasp of a powerful drug which chemically alters the brain and impels the smoker to seek out the drug even though it is known to be harmful. We are talking about an addiction which is more difficult to shake than heroin or cocaine. Further, some of the best minds in psychology spend their entire professional lives figuring out how to make the addiction emotionally fulfilling, an essential part of the addict’s self concept.
It takes a truly great degree of strength to fight this.
We all know that breaking an addiction is a great nisayon but to start in the first place with no regard to the dangers is lunacy
EDITED
It is lunacy. That’s why the Spawn of Satan, sorry, Tobacco Companies know they have to snare their victims young. Almost nobody starts smoking after twenty. Hence the ad campaigns like Joe Camel aimed at ten to twelve year olds, the association with sports and so on. It’s designed to hook kids while they’re still impulsive and willing to do really stupid things.
Do any of you have one shred of proof that it’s dangerous or even addicting -smoking one day a year?
EDITED
- The topic ‘Good Bachurim Can Smoke?! What’s the Purim Heter?’ is closed to new replies.