Friday 20 July 2018

Tisha b'Av for the sick

As it is likely that many will get this on Tisha b’Av, I will try to stick to things that one is allowed to learn on Tisha b’Av.

The gemara tells us that pregnant and nursing women must complete the fast on Tisha b’Av, just like Yom Kippur (obviously this does not apply if there is any danger to the life of the mother, foetus or baby).[1] The obvious question is whether or not this comparison to Yom Kippur is absolute, and as we shall see the consensus is that it is not.

The Ramban writes that a lady who has given birth within the last thirty days, or any person who is ill, may eat on Tisha b’Av without any assessment of whether or not he is capable of fasting. He explains that the institution of the Rabbis (to fast) was never made in the case of illness.[2]

This ruling is accepted by the Shulchan Aruch without mention of any dispute. The Rema comments that the custom is to fast unless there is great pain with a concern of danger, but he also concludes that one who is lenient about this does not lose out.[3]

When the fast is on the tenth

There is often considerable confusion about this issue, stemming from a lack of knowledge or understanding of the sources. Intuitively, there does not seem to be any logical reason to differentiate between fasting on the ninth and fasting on the tenth. We do not find any such difference when it comes to regular aveilus delayed because of chagim.[4]

Any leniencies here are derived from the case in the gemara of the family of Sanav ben Binyamin, who during the times of the second Beis Hamikdash had a yom tov on the tenth of Av (it was their day to donate wood for the altar). When Tisha b’Av fell on a Shabbos and the fast was pushed off till Sunday, as this was their yom tov they did not complete the fast.[5]

This dispensation is very understandable. As the tenth of Av was their yom tov every year, logically this took precedence over a fast normally intended to be on the ninth. Nowadays, without such a yom tov there is no obvious practical application of this principle.

However, the Shulchan Aruch quotes a ruling that if there is a bris on the Sunday of the tenth of Av, the ba’alei bris (father, mohel and sandak) need not complete their fast.[6] This is a big jump from the case of the yom tov of the family of Sanav ben Binyamin, as here we are not talking about a fixed yearly celebration. Furthermore, the idea of the day of a bris being a yom tov is far from explicit in Chazal. Presumably for this reason the Knesess Hagdolah says that our custom is to complete the fast.[7]

Even if we accept this ruling of the Shulchan Aruch, when there is no bris there still does not seem to be any justification for being more lenient with a fast on the tenth. The first mention I could find of any such leniency is in the Magen Avraham. He writes that even according to our minhag that sick people try to fast on Tisha b’Av, when the fast is pushed off to the tenth this is not necessary.[8] This is also not too hard to swallow, as we are dealing with people who anyway have no obligation to fast.

It should be obvious from all this that under normal circumstances, pregnant and nursing women (more than thirty days after birth) are obligated to fast even on the tenth. The Shulchan Aruch and other poskim quote the obligation for them to fast without making any distinction when the fast is on the tenth. But in recent times, even amongst those who usually keep halacha meticulously it has become relatively common not to fast under such circumstances. What happened?

The alleged source of these lenient rulings is a responsum of the Shvus Ya’akov (1670-1733). However, for one who looks at what he actually wrote (and does not just rely on shortened quotations found in later compendiums[9]) it should not be too hard to see that he did not go against everything written before him. His leniency is given explicitly for women who have given birth within the last thirty days (who as we have seen are exempt from fasting anyway), and pregnant women experiencing small pains.[10]

It is hard to know exactly which kind of pains the Shvus Ya’akov is talking about. Clearly a woman experiencing real contractions needs to drink even if the fast is on the ninth (and even on Yom Kippur). On the other hand, it is also clear that he is not talking about the standard pains that women have throughout pregnancy. From the context, the pain mentioned is enough to give the woman the same status as one in the first thirty days after birth (i.e. halachically ill).

Not taking risks

I am sure that by now some people reading this will be shouting “But it’s dangerous for pregnant women to be fasting!” It is certainly true that despite the fact that gemara does not in general consider fasting to be life-threatening for pregnant women or for the foetus, we have to be very careful before deciding that this is still the case (and which cases are exceptional). As this is more of a technical issue, I am not writing about it here.

Rightly or wrongly, the overwhelming majority of poskim do not give blanket leniencies for pregnant women on Yom Kippur. That means that they do not consider it dangerous. They also obligate pregnant women to fast on Tisha b’Av when it is not pushed off, as they do not even equate pregnant women with the sick. If this is right, even when the fast is on the tenth the obligation to fast remains in place.

May we all mourn for Yerushalayim appropriately, and merit seeing its rebuilding.


[1] Pesachim 54b
[2] Toras Ha’Adam, Inyan Aveilus Yeshana. This is not the place to go in to the halachic definition of illness, but it is the same definition used for the purposes of Hilchos Shabbos.
[3] Orach Chaim 554:6. The Vilna Gaon (Biur HaGra ibid.) explains that this leniency is similar to other leniencies for the sick explicit in the gemara, like instructing a non-Jew to do work on Shabbos (Shabbos 129a), and wearing shoes and rubbing oil into ones skin on Yom Kippur (Yoma 77b and 78b). The assumption seems to be that there is a blanket rule that Chazal never instituted any prohibitions in a way that would interfere with the needs of someone who is sick. However, one could add that even if elsewhere Rabbinic prohibitions apply to all, when it comes to fasting there is reason to be more lenient. For the sick, the physical affliction that most of us must do by fasting is accomplished by the illness itself.
[4] The only exception is that work can be done on behalf of the mourners during the extra days, as this was not allowed during Chol Hamoed.
[5] Ta’anis 12a
[6] Orach Chaim 559:9
[7] He adds that we fast even when a lighter fast (Shiva Asar b’Tamuz or Tzom Gedalya) is pushed off to Sunday. See also Aruch HaShulchan who confirms that this is the minhag, but makes the surpising claim that this is against the gemara.
[8] 554:9
[9] The authors of these later compilations also did not intend to allow all pregnant women to eat, although one reading these books alone could more easily make this misinterpretation.
[10] Shvus Ya’akov 3:37

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