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“I have heard In the name of many gedolim that smoking the first time is aser. But after that first time is muter”
Right, the same goes for cocaine use, gambling, and inappropriate behavior; once you’re hooked, it’s all mutter.
i didnt say it was smart but halachicly if it was aser y r there gedolim that smoke
Zvei Dinim – Today it has been proven that smoking kills most smokers?!! That is the most ludicrous of all your claims (and that’s saying something)! What study are you citing? What significant research regarding mortality rates of smokers has surfaced recently? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to prove causation? What’s your agenda?
zvei dinim -“My question now is: how can we turn the above stated fact, that smoking is assur, into the strong mainstream opinion?”
This is an easy answer. The Yeshivos would throw out smokers & not allow it. I know of one Yeshiva that doesn’t allow it & it’s not just lip movement.
Why it’s not part of their rules, esp. since they have so many constricting rules, is a question that you have to ask the people running these Yeshivos!
“but halachicly if it was aser y r there gedolim that smoke”
The answer is simple. They became addicted to nicotine before they became g’dolim. G’dolim are human and not malachim. No one ever became a gadol and started smoking.
The question is why did all the yeshivas of years ago permit smoking? It was because it was out of control and could not be stopped; with a high pecentage of the hanhola and bais medrish hooked.
Unfortunately, many of these brilliant rosh yeshivas and rabbeim left wives, children, grandchilren and talmidim way too soon and suffered terribly.
Someone at some point in our community has to put their foot down and get real about cigarettes.
The idea that there are people tolerant of smoking just because they want to dismiss it’s danger because they think they are entitled to at least one vice and dont really see the immediate harm, is not only stupid, it is a big breach in the integrity of any community.
While many consumable and technological products have dangers, the product of cigarettes affords a person the ability to ingest over one hundred chemicals known to contribute to the, chas veshalom, worst of diseases including those which create genetic mutations which can, chas veshalom, be passed on to future generations all because daddy or mommy took maybe even just one puff before they were married.
Ammonia, nicotine, carbon monoxide, among tens and tens of other poisons are passing into the precious lungs and being dispersed throughout the entire body by anyone exposed to cigarette smoke.
And here is the beauty of it. Researchers are now adding radioactivity to the list of “nutrients” ingested by cigarette smoke.
There is evidence the soil now used to grow tobacco contains radon, a radioactive substance passed into the body via ciagerette smoke.
Interestingly, a product was developed to remove the radon from tobacco field soil, and the tobacco companies, yemach sh’mo, were not interested in using it as they felt it tampered with the flavor of the tabacco.
Cigarette smoking is a sakana, and because it is a slow damaging process, it is a favorite of the yetzer hora.
zvei dinim – I spent half an hour writing a post that included a link to your first study, and the mods didn’t let it through. I won’t do it again right now. Let it be sufficient to say, your studies don’t prove that most smokers (especially a pack a day or less) will die from smoking. And citing sourced material and claiming that they prove a “fact” is making [a] claim/s that those materials prove that “fact”. They don’t.
zvei dinim -“PS: “I spent half an hour writing a post that included a link to your first study, and the mods didn’t let it through” – I know how it feels,
YWN moderators should at least save or email you rejected posts for further editing.”
A simple solution is to save a copy of your post to Word or something like this, and then edit it, if need be. Then you can keep trying. You do actually have to save it -if you felt that your point was that important that you spent a long time on it.
The only problem is the Slow Modding -so you might not know whether your post went through for hours or days.
is smoking mutar?- is shortening your own life span mutar? cutting your life short? i won’t go as far as saying that it falls under committing suicide- for which there is no olam haba- but i will say that its pretty stupid to smoke- you know you are killing yourself- you are choosing to!!! how does your wife/ husband/ child/ parent feel about that? you are choosing to control your own death- unfortunately very few people who smoke don’t end up developing problems
Quit three days ago!
Humash limits us to stoning, beheading, burning, and strangulation.
Something as slow and painful as killing someone by tobacco smoking is not listed, and is therefore presumably prohbited.
The whole anti-smoking agenda is due to the influence of goyishe culture. For years everyone smoked wit no problems. You think it’s unhealthy don’t smoke. Live and let live.
Shalomtoyou-
I think you mean live and let die.
But seriously, I don’t think live and let live is a Jewish concept. Kol Yisrael areivim zeh bazeh- we are responsible for each other. If someone is in physical or spiritual danger (and with smoking it may be both- dangerous and halachically assur) then it is our responsibility to try and help our fellow Jew.
Also, having a debate on whether a particular action is assur or mutar is something we do all the time in other areas of halachah. We don’t say live and let live, but we try to uncover the truth. I don’t think we should pretend to not care about the halachic ramification of smoking just because it’s a sensitive topic.
Smokers know its wrong and unhealthy and assur but its addictive and makes them feel good. Really nothing to do about it. They have to want to quit. I do hope the legal age to buy is raised to 21.
STY: “…anti-smoking agenda…goyishe culture…”, that sounds like Taliban propoganda: stay in the dark ages, ignore science. Then there is the 2nd hand issue. Many people also find the residual stink offensive.
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I see that the Gedolim agree with Bloomberg on something. The seizure of yet another liberty. Maybe Bloomberg will make smoker testimony invalid, that’ll get people to quit.
I don’t think one can make a legitimate case that smoking a cigarette is assur. All the grounds for issur are based on results of heavy smoking over long periods of time.
While there are still plenty of added risks for light smoking or social smoking, it is much more difficult to make the case that they rise to the level of issur. Furthermore, those who are only social smokers have a much easier time quitting, making it even less dangerous long term.
Maybe one could say that “being a smoker” is assur, but you can’t say that smoking a cigarette is assur.
benignuman:
Your premise is incorrect. There is much written about the dangers of a single cigarette, and the discussion is included in some of the sforim about smoking in halacha. It is without any shadow of a doubt that smoking even a single cigarette is assur. I urge you to educate yourself before making proclamations. Before I ever allowed myself to discuss the subject, I did extensive study of the medical research, collected the writings from the gedolei haposkim, and discussed the issues intensely with several rabbonim who assured me that I was reading the issues correctly. perhaps I qualify as an expert on the subject, but I will not adopt that mantle. I am not afraid to make a statement that is fully supported by halacha, al pi gedolei haposkim of today’s generation.
The little I know,
I did not do extensive study of the medical research. I browsed through various studies available for free online. I saw no source that even remotely suggested that smoking a single cigarette was dangerous in any meaningful sense (i.e. more dangerous than driving a car). The research I saw showed that the danger dropped dramatically as the smoking decreased. I could not find any study showing harmful effects for those smoking less than one cigarette per day.
What possible issur is there in smoking a single cigarette?
mihadrin min hamihadrin with an ice cold coors banquet.
A story on the NRG website says that HaRav Eliyahu Abargel, an Av Beit Din in Yerushalayim, has forbidden smokers from being aidim. I am not going to try to post a link to the story here.
About 1/5 or 1/4 of smokers get lung cancer, and a large proportion of smokers will die sooner than non-smokers, due to various other smoking-induced causes, from leukemia to heart disease to pneumonia. The proportion is probably more than 50%, though you’d have to analyze a lot of research, and have a good understanding of statistics and research methodology, to demonstrate this.
I know that some poskim think that it matters whether there’s more than a 50% chance of death from smoking. But I don’t.
If you play Russian Roulette once, with just one bullet in a six-cartridge revolver, there is only a 1/6th chance of dying. But it is certainly forbidden, because it is akin to suicide. So is smoking. Smoking a single cigarette should also be asur because it can lead to a habit and then an addiction.
Google “Absolute risk of tobacco deaths” and you’ll find an article discussing research that shows that about 1 in 2 smokers will die because of smoking. However, for those who started smoking young, about 2 in 3 will die because of smoking.
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Please check out this sefer and others. Even the first cigarette is assur, and there are many quotes to this from many of the gedolei haposkim. You may wish things to follow your logic and desire, but the facts are clear.
For a nation of people that have no problem finding chumras for any little thing it amazes me how many people seem to find no problem with such an obvious Issur…
Before I am accused of justifying something that I do, I will clarify that I do not smoke. I agree that smoking a pack a day or more is certainly assur. But when the case against a practice is overstated to the point of being silly, the people who need to hear the message will dismiss it entirely.
“Smoking a single cigarette should also be asur because it can lead to a habit and then an addiction.”
The majority of people who smoke one cigarette do not eventually become addicted to heavy smoking. In the U.S. today most people who smoke, smoke socially or on occasion at rates much lower than a pack a day. People that smoke intermittently also have a much easier time quitting. The facts in that sefer quoted above just aren’t true.
We cannot make up new geizeros in modern times (without a Sanhedrin). A school or even a shul, if it wishes, can make a takana for itself, but that is not binding on Klal Yisrael.
As a practical matter, if we want to protect the lives of our fellow Jews, it would be better to stick to the facts. Say that if someone wants to smoke, they should not do so on a daily basis and when they do smoke, they should smoke only one or two cigarettes.
zvei dinim – Here is my Zvei Dinim -it depends what kind of part- time smoker you are. If you smoke anytime somebody gives out cig., eg. for every Chosson, then IMHO this is Ossur, but if s/o smokes a pack once a year – on let’s say Purim, for the fun of it, then I see nothing wrong with this.
zvei dinim,
First of all your mashal is not accurate (because even the “second candy” here is not akin to cyanide). Second of all, yes that would be muttar; unadvisable but muttar.
I understand that tobacco is a carcinogen and therefore any amount can cause cancer. However if the amount of the carcinogen is very small, the odds of it causing cancer are miniscule. I can’t access the full version of that study so I can’t look at the numbers, but is occasional smoking more dangerous than driving or getting X-rays?
Zvei dinim,
Because there is only a sakanah if you do a second act and you have bechirah on the second act. It is the second act that is assur not the first.
That a certain percentage will fail the test doesn’t mean that they don’t have bechirah.
I agree with ben.
Someone who calls himself zvei dinim shold be able to easily be mechalek between the two cases.
SpiderJerusalem
I see that the Gedolim agree with Bloomberg on something.
Actually, I think most Gedolim would agree with Mike bloomberg on 2 issues:-
1) Not smoking {after all each & every puff is being Mevatel a Mitzwah Asseh Min haToroh of “veNishmartem Me’od leNafshoseichem”}.
2) Just about every Rabbi probably is in favor of the total annahilation of all & any guns, and every USA street has to be totally gun-free. {Maybe also meat cleavers after this horrific murder in Woolwich}.
zvei dinim,
Reuven decides to smoke one cigarette a year. He does not plan or expect to smoke a second cigarette that year. He is full control of his faculties and not dependent on anyone else’s choices. On what grounds can you say it is assur for him to smoke his cigarette?
This is not a case where he is subject to someone else’s bechira (which he can’t control). He is in full control, and he is not expecting to be unable to resist the temptation (in contrast to someone who knows that under torture he will serve A”Z, chas v’shalom).
I don’t get it. We won’t change a psak from 500 years ago even if science can prove the psak irrelevent to be matir something, why add extra issurim if the situation happens to be reversed? If someone wants to smoke that is their business, not yours. If we want to make the world a better place, we should spend more time fixing ourselves and less time “fixing” others.
You are not allowed to harm your body. Smoking harms. Smoking kills.
There are two things here, the harming and the killing. The killing is for a routine smoker. The harming is even smoking one.
Also, just an aside to 147 who posted that most gedolim would be in favor of banning all guns, I’m sorry, but that is not a Jewish perspective. You have been brainwashed and I am going to assume you live either in the NY or LA area. Gun control is not a Jewish concept.
HaRov Asher Weiss,in his Haggadah, states explicitly that smoking at any time, Yom Tov or not, is absolutely assur because of the now proven danger to health and lives. He’s a real live posek in this generation.
Reuven decides to smoke one cigarette a year. He does not plan or expect to smoke a second cigarette that year. He is full control of his faculties and not dependent on anyone else’s choices. On what grounds can you say it is assur for him to smoke his cigarette?
Smoking a Single Cigarette Rapidly Reduces Combined Concentrations of Nitrate and Nitrite and Concentrations of Antioxidants in Plasma
Masahiko Tsuchiya, MD; Akira Asada, MD; Emiko Kasahara; Eisuke F. Sato, MD; Mitsuo Shindo, MD; Masayasu Inoue, MD
Chovel B’Atzmo is Assur. Of course, there may be extenuating circumstances, but they don’t change the Halacha.
GAW -“Chovel B’Atzmo is Assur.”
That research paper would Not fall into that category.
Health – OK, I assume you would know more about this than I would. I’m a Gavra, not a Doctor.
zvei dinim,
No one can be 100% sure of anything (I’m 99% sure of that). I am saying that he doesn’t expect to be unable to resist, of course he cannot be absolutely certain.
GAW,
The study cite is discussing temporary reactions (and theorizing that if one smokes often the damage won’t just be temporary). We do many things that temporarily damage our bodies in some fashion but we gain enjoyment or utility from it and we expect to recover. We play sports, lift weights, we pinch ourselves to stay awake, we eat processed and fatty meats, we pick scabs, etc.
Truthsharer,
Smoking one cigarette (or even smoking a couple of times a year), does not do any significant or lasting harm to the body.
PBT,
I have never seen this statement by Rav Asher Weiss but my guess is that he is referring to smoking regularly, not smoking once a year.
Who said harm has to be significant? Hurting yourself is still assur. Smoking one cigarette does harm, albeit tiny harm.
Why is cosmetic surgery assur? It’s assur because you can’t harm yourself. Same here.
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