The Vaad HaRabbonim for Road Safety asked that HaGaon HaRav Chaim Kanievsky Shlita respond to a number of questions that are relevant to their work.
Responding to pikuach nefesh issues Rav Kanievsky states that one must fasten one’s seatbelt in a vehicle, the daily HaMevaser reports, adding the gadol hador adds one may not drive a vehicle if one is too tired.
The rav is quoted as adding that one who drives when one is overtired to daven at kivrei tzaddikim commits an avreira and requires a kapora for those tefilos who may turn to a kitrug on the mispallel, referring to the person who davened at the kivrei tzaddikim.
The questions were given into the gadol hador ahead of Lag B’Omer as the rabbonim work to get the message out, a message of road safety, responsibility, and that accidents are often preventable.
Among the rabbonim involved in the Vaad are HaGaon HaRav Simcha HaCohen Kook Shlita, HaRav HaGaon Rav Naftoli Nussbaum Shlita, and HaRav HaGaon Rav Baruch Shraga Shlita.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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9 Responses
Sad that we’ve reached a point where people won’t employ basic safety measures like buckling their seat belts unless instructed to by a Gadol HaDor.
But if that’s what it takes, kol hakavod for the Vaad!
FWIW, you are correct. The problem is that too many people seem to have fallen into a rut where they won’t move from point A to point B without a haskomoh, even if that journey is governed by nothing more than common sense. Bravo for the rabbonim for speaking up, but are we entering a phase in which the populace will ignore speed limits unless they are the subjet of a kol koreh? The flip side is that people then ignore everything unless the rov spoke to it, so basic courtesies like double parking are perceived to be OK because no p’sak was ever given against it.
Sorry, but posting online that the Gedolim say we should put on a seat belt and not drive when tired is just a set up for others to mock frum yiden.
GOSh we have stopped thinking for ourselves.
Why bother leadership & Gedolim in answering these questions? Let the brain cells get a slight workout.
This requires further study. Maybe the Rambam published a Hilchos Traffic Safety, where he instructs us to:
1) Obey all speed limits
2) Obey all road signs
3) obey common sense such as don’t drive when you are drunk, too tired, under the influence of medications, etc… These are also included in the next rule…
4) Obey all Traffic Regulations issued by the Medina, to which anyone with a license probably also signed as to their agreement.
It seems one of the crisis we face today is a STUPIDITY CRISIS.
We really have to refer to the gedolim to tell us to put on seatbelt?
Vu is der seichel??
Liondear
To anyone who thinks we shouldn’t need Rabbonim to remind us about safe driving, remember the meforshim to Parshas Mishpatim that say that Mishpatim are laws that people would have naturally come to even if they weren’t in Torah? But they are in Torah, which elevates them beyond just common sense to Mitzvos. So too in our time. We maybe don’t need the Gedolim to tell us that all these driving instructions are right. But by telling us and our listening and incorporating them into our Torah lifestyles we elevate common sense to the Mitzvah of listening to our Rabbonim. There’s absolutely no reason to be cynical when one of them tells us something that sounds “patently obvious.”
TO PBT
…remind us yes, but for us to feel we have to ask “do we really have to put on a seatbelt….fehtl sechel
I am starting a vaad called” vaad of looking right and left before crossing the street”.