The RCA's ban on smoking tobacco versus Judaism's take

http://www.1SaleADay.com - Sponsored this. 1SaleADay has amazing gadgets & cutting-edge electronics. 20% of 1SaleADay's proceeds are donated to help fight poverty around the world. Does Jewish law prohibit smoking? Kick the deadly habit already!
Monday, December 29, 2008 4:17 PM
By Eli Federman

There is a consensus in the medical community that smoking is detrimental even when it is done in moderation. Coffee and alcohol in moderate amounts will not hurt you but any amount of smoking is extremely dangerous and will invariable render damage to the human physiology. Tobacco smoke is directly linked to increased risk of heart disease, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and the list goes on and on and on.

Deuteronomy 4:15 instruct us to take care of our health. The obligation of safeguarding ones health is concisely expressed by the theologian Moses Maimonides (1135 1204), who is also considered one of the greatest physicians in history. In his treatise Yad ha-Hazakah (the Strong Hand) he devotes an entire chapter to the prohibition of doing harm to one's own health and body. Similarly, Rabbi Joseph Karo, author of The Code of Jewish Law (an exegesis on the Torah) devotes an entire chapter to the injunction of removing any obstacle that may be deleterious to ones health. It seems clear that therefore smoking should be a violation of the obligation to safeguard ones health. Many contemporary Jewish legal scholars such as Rabbi Hayyim David HaLevi the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv and Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg have in fact prohibited smoking for the reason that it violates the Torahs prohibition against endangering ones life. In Igros Kodesh vol. 7 p. 66 the Previous Chabad Rebbe strictly banned smoking for anyone under 20 and beseeched those over 20 to stop smoking immediately.




So why do so many seemingly Torah observant orthodox Jewish people smoke carte-blanche? Why is it so taboo to condemn smoking in the orthodox Jewish world?

Part of the reason is because the late Jewish legal analyst (posek) Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (zt'l) refused to ban smoking although he strongly discouraged it. He held that smoking could not be banned on Jewish legal grounds because it involves an activity and element of danger that people are willing to engage in and G-d protects people from such activities. He also believed that since the risk of developing a life threatening illness is small that activity should not be banned on the grounds of safeguarding ones health. (See Iggrot CM II:76; dated June 10, 1981)

Rabbi Feinsteins unwillingness to ban smoking is based on the premises that 1) The activity only presents a speculative/ possible danger AND 2) most people are willing to take the risk of that activity....




Regarding the first premise, the research conclusively demonstrates that the danger from smoking is not only possibly, but inevitable. Death from smoking may only occur to a minority of smokers but cardio-vascular and pulmonary system damages is immediate and inevitable. The second premise is also debatable today considering the advent of the anti-smoking educational efforts spearheaded by the Surgeon General of the US, American Cancer Society, and lawyers suing big tobacco. The results are that large numbers people have kicked the deadly habit and smoking is no longer a risk that most people are willing to engage in.

Do you think Rabbi Fienstiens premises still exist today? Do you think Jewish law prohibits smoking? Why yes? Why no?




It is also interesting to note that Rabbi Feinstein's son-in-law, Rabbi Moshe Tendler, co-author of the Rabbinical Council of America ruling condemning smoking contends that in light of recent studies verifying the widespread dangers of smoking and the fact that there is considerably fewer smokers today indicates that Rabbi Feinstein would revise his position and ban smoking if he was faced with the same question today....
See http://www.jlaw.com/Commentary/smoking.html

Note: For other great topics on the interplay between contemporary issues and Jewish law see
http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=20309103

Category:

Education

Tags:

• RCA
• tobacco
• halacha
• Jewish law
• Jews
• Judaism
• nazir

[mmysama]

Well, in the garden of Eden, all plants and animals where there in abundance and Adam and Eve where told by god that they could eat anything they want except for the fruit of knowledge. there must have been Tobacco in the garden, and it's pretty doubtful that tobacco is the fruit of knowledge. God actually allowed it.

[ronennachman770]

Good point, my friend. G-d put these plants here on this earth for us to enjoy. The same could be said of magic mushrooms and the like. It's sad to me when man tries to out smart G-d in terms of what should be allowed for us and what should be forbidden. G-d made His will very clear and the Torah is complete. Who are we to add to it?

[BigBudHitz]

you'd be surprised of the element cannabis has had in your religion and many others. Its a plant that is used to expand ones consciousness like you have said about tobacco. I think what your saying is very well put and i agree i am not Jewish but i am very open to everything. plus it doesnt hurt i went to jcc 10 years of my child hood.

[Arielcohen1980]

Excuse me to disagree with you but judaism has added many things to the torah given to Moshe , not oncly christianity and islam. May you be with Hashem right now

[Scribe99]

Thank you! Stress kills millions of people yet no one would move to ban the active contributors. I think the RCA decision was not based on smoking - but on health issues that are known to be related to smoking in America (one must not do a thing that harms them). I would like you, to take on the issue of electronic cigarettes... since nicotine is not a carcinogen and e-cigarettes are without the 4,000 carcinogens found in tobacco (both organic and synthetic). i own capecodsmoke shopcom

[bdschuh]

"He who fears the L-rd will lack no good thing." Do you believe that? Do you know one righteous man who does not smoke? If he doesn't smoke, do you think he lacks a good thing?  In my learning of Judaism, I have given up several habits that I realize are just no good-- one of which is watching television. And most recently, smoking tobacco. There is absolutely nothing good about smoking tobacco.

[MzProgressive]

@MzProgressive BTW, I'm a member: smokersclubinternationaldotcom­

[MzProgressive]

Thank you for your well-thought comments. I agree. If God did not want us to enjoy the pleasures of His creation, He would not have given us the gifts of sensual perceptions - taste, sight, smell, touch and the ears to enjoy the music of His world. (Consider a splashing stream, a robin's springtime song, or the sound of a violin.)

Smokers in America are the new vilified minority. We are now publicly chastised and socially marginalized - for what reason? "Live and let live!"

Sei Gesund.

[findtruthfindpeace]

and that is tobacco alone...like poison ivy...would you eat poison ivy?

[findtruthfindpeace]

There are many health risks to tobacco, it's written on the product itself. Tobacco is known to cause... it sounds like a cry from a avid smoker who doesn't want to quit.

[iHIMselfish]

@Learn1slam I think God will let me choose for myself.

[Learn1slam]

Do u think that god will want u to harm ur health. ????

[GamberroSalvador]

There's this bit that I like to quote when people assume that being a penitent religious person requires abstinence from things that a MAN created society considers unethical:

"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times, some shall … speak lies in hypocrisy … commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth." (Paul: 1 Timothy 4:1-3)