Introduction to Noise Damage Between Neighbors - Rabbi Yisrael Metuf shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to the “Lema’an Yishme’u” podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 Noise disturbances between neighbors. It’s an interesting subject, and... as with many things, halacha discusses one situation, so applying it to our day is a little difficult. We try to understand what has changed between then and now, and what hasn’t. In the sequence of topics we’ve learned so far, we discussed visual intrusion. You could say Chazal established very clearly that visual intrusion is considered a form of harm. With the other issues, we’ll soon see how they’re defined. Visual intrusion is considered harm. What are the details? We spent several classes on that—there are many details. I thought about doing a review today, but I don’t think one class would be enough both to review the previous classes and to lay the groundwork for noise disturbances. So we’ll leave the review for later. But in general, visual intrusion is considered harm. We also discussed auditory intrusion between neighbors. In general, auditory intrusion is not considered harm. In other words, usually you can’t object that if your neighbor expands his apartment or makes his wall too thin, he’ll be able to hear you. In general, the poskim don’t consider auditory intrusion a form of harm. Why? Because you can still protect your privacy. You can speak quietly, in a way that you won’t be heard. With visual intrusion, by contrast, if the space is open, there’s nothing you can do. People can see you.

01:50 Speaker 3 What exactly is visual intrusion?

01:51 Speaker 2 Visual intrusion is when someone can see another person through a window, or through... say there are two adjoining courtyards. It’s a broad subject. We devoted several full classes to it; I’m mentioning it now just briefly so we can move on to the next stage. Today we’re moving into noise disturbances. It’s a common issue, with many, many distinctions. We may not reach clear conclusions today, because we first want to learn the fundamentals. We’ll devote the following classes to various examples. So the next three classes will be, with Hashem’s help: today’s class on the fundamentals of noise disturbances; the next class, with Hashem’s help, on noise disturbances in our time, with various examples of how this works today; and then another class on noise for the sake of a mitzvah. It’s easier to make noise for the sake of a mitzvah, though there are various distinctions there too. What counts as a mitzvah? I’m holding a farbrengen at home, hosting a celebration, or doing something regularly at home. There are all sorts of possibilities. Today we’ll touch on two examples from the Mishnah. We’ll look at them and try to understand what’s going on there: why was one prohibited and the other permitted? What’s the difference? We’ll see several approaches among the poskim. First, let’s try to understand whether noise is considered harm at all. Is it considered harm? Have I harmed you in some way? I’m making noise. Have I injured you? They said visual intrusion is considered harm. Is noise considered harm? Let’s see. Second, what kinds of noise are there, and how do I distinguish between them? And third, time permitting, is noise in the middle of the night different from noise during the day? We naturally think it is, but we’ll see whether the Mishnah and so on address it.

03:48 Speaker 3 Stealing someone’s sleep, right?

03:49 Speaker 2 Stealing sleep—we’ll see. In principle—

03:52 Speaker 3 Stealing sleep.

03:52 Speaker 2 I can tell you that many poskim have mentioned the expression “stealing sleep,” and they all say there’s no source for that concept. It’s an expression that has caught on, but the concept of “stealing sleep” has no source. The word “stealing”...

04:10 Speaker 3 But it’s noise!

04:11 Speaker 2 No, I’m not saying it’s permitted. I’m not saying it’s permitted. I’m not saying it’s permitted. There are various...

04:18 Speaker 3 No, it leads to—

04:19 Speaker 2 For example—yes, there’s a halacha that a worker and a teacher may not stay awake at night, because the next day it will affect their work for their employer. You see that not sleeping causes harm?

04:34 Speaker 3 Hearing damage can also result from a lot of noise, so afterward a person can’t hear well.

04:40 Speaker 2 Ah, if we’re talking about noise that causes that... that really is considered harm, physical harm. That’s physical harm. We’re talking here about noises that are disturbing, not ones that injure a person’s body. Now, is noise defined as harm? We’ll see that the poskim have several approaches. Let’s look at the sources and study them slowly. Source number one. The Mishnah says: “If someone has a shop in a courtyard, a neighbor may object and say to him: ‘I cannot sleep because of the noise of those coming in and going out.’” Let me remind you—perhaps we can see it here on the slide. Let’s see if I have it here—how things were laid out back then. Yes, people lived in several houses that shared a courtyard. Then someone came along and opened a shop. As I told you, shops were generally located in the alleyway—that’s the street here, where they would open shops. But this person decided to open a shop in the courtyard. Now what does a shop bring with it? People come, going in and out. So the Mishnah says: “A neighbor may object and say to him: ‘I cannot sleep because of the noise of those coming in and going out.’” People come and go, they make a lot of noise, and I can’t sleep. But if he makes utensils and goes out to sell them in the marketplace, the neighbor cannot object and say to him, “I cannot sleep because of the sound of the hammer, or the millstones, or the children.” That’s what it says. Let’s try to understand. This Mishnah is the foundation for all the laws concerning noise. It seems to say that all the coming and going is a problem. The neighbor can say, “I can’t sleep; it bothers me.” But if he makes utensils and goes out to sell them in the marketplace, the neighbor can’t say, “I can’t sleep because of the hammer, the millstones, and the children.” On a straightforward reading, what are the hammer, the millstones, and the children?

06:43 Speaker 2 It sounds as though a person makes utensils or grinds wheat and then goes to sell the products in the marketplace. His neighbor says, “Your hammer bothers me.” But there’s nothing he can do; he can’t object. “The millstones you’re grinding with bother me”—again, there’s nothing he can do. And the children—which children? What do you think? What are these children doing there?

06:59 Speaker 3 A daycare. He’s running a daycare.

07:01 Speaker 2 Right. Now, if I try to connect the children with that shop where he makes utensils, who are the children? Tosafos there says that, on a straightforward reading, they’re children who come to buy things. That immediately raises the question: What’s the difference between the children who come to buy things and the people coming and going that we mentioned earlier? First you tell me the neighbor can object, and suddenly you’re telling me he can’t object.

07:26 Speaker 3 So he’s opening a Talmud Torah there.

07:28 Speaker 2 Right. That’s ultimately the answer. Now the Gemara immediately asks: “What is different about the first part, and what is different about the latter part?” At first you told me that people coming and going are a disturbance and the neighbor can object, and afterward you tell me he can’t object to the noise of the children. So Abaye answers: “The latter part refers to a different courtyard.” Abaye says this—look at the picture. He says: I live here, and someone opens a shop in my courtyard. I can tell him, “Listen, you’re opening a shop in the courtyard, and people are coming and going and making noise. That’s a problem.” But if he lives in the courtyard next door and opens a shop in that adjoining courtyard, there’s nothing you can do. It isn’t your courtyard; it’s his, and he can do what he wants there. That’s Abaye’s answer. In other words, you can object when it’s in your courtyard. You can’t object when it’s in a different courtyard. Rava challenges him: “If so, let the Mishnah state that in another courtyard it is permitted.” Instead of talking about children and people coming and going, the Mishnah could have said that if it’s in your courtyard, you can object, and if it’s in another courtyard, you can’t. So Rava answers: “The latter part refers to schoolchildren.” That’s what I mentioned earlier. The children here are children studying Torah, because there was a special enactment to provide a place for children to study in every community. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Gamla instituted it, and therefore you can’t prevent someone from doing that. So, to sum up: according to Abaye, it seems there’s nothing you can do about a shop in someone else’s courtyard. It isn’t your courtyard, so you can’t prevent it. We’ll see later to what extent that is the practical halacha. Second, with people coming and going, it depends who they are. If they’re just people coming to buy things in your courtyard, you can

09:17 Speaker 2 object. But if they’re coming to study Torah, you can’t object. That’s—

09:24 Speaker 4 Who are these children?

09:25 Speaker 2 Children.

09:26 Speaker 4 Why do I have

09:29 Speaker 2 It says children. Then the later halachic authorities come along—and, with Hashem’s help, we’ll devote a separate class to this—and say it’s not only children, but anything needed for a mitzvah. They give all kinds of examples, which we’ll discuss later. We’ll see what counts as a mitzvah today and what doesn’t. In general, you can’t prevent something that’s needed for a mitzvah. There are many possibilities. Today I want to talk about the basic principles first. Now, notice what’s missing from this whole equation. We talked about children and about people coming and going. What about the hammer? That hammer makes a serious noise. Imagine it’s the middle of the night. I’ll talk about the middle of the night later, but... What?

10:09 Speaker 4 Millstones.

10:09 Speaker 2 Millstones, yes. Millstones make noise too. Imagine that in their time, in a village, by five in the afternoon in winter it was already completely quiet. Everyone went to sleep when the sun set—they all set along with it. Then someone comes along and says, “I need to—I have utensils to make,” and it says you can’t object to the sound of the hammer, so he works with his hammer all night. Imagine hearing that throughout the neighborhood. Does that make sense? So what happened here is that the Gemara asked only about the customers and the children, and then began offering different answers. It didn’t address the hammer at all. The question is why not. And here you’ll see how many directions this takes. In the end, there’s a difference between Sephardi and Ashkenazi rulings, and that’s interesting in the laws between neighbors, both regarding noise and regarding smoke.

11:02 Speaker 4 Smoke?

11:03 Speaker 2 Smoke. Making a barbecue on the balcony. You enjoy your barbecue while other people suffer—their clothes, their homes, and so on. So with both noise and smoke, the Shulchan Aruch, the Mechaber, is more lenient—or, let’s call it more stringent. He’s stricter with the person causing it: don’t do it. The Rema is more lenient with the person causing it.

11:27 Speaker 4 That’s connected.

11:29 Speaker 2 It could be connected too. You can see it today as well... Perhaps you could say that in the Sephardi outlook there’s more consideration for one another: don’t disturb someone else so much. Maybe. I don’t know; perhaps I’m mistaken. But that’s what emerges here according to—let’s see in a moment. We’ll read the Rambam, whom the Shulchan Aruch quotes, and you’ll see what follows from his approach. Pay attention. I’m going to read a few lines. It’s almost word for word from the Mishnah, but he added a few words. Notice this. “A shop in a courtyard,” number two: “The neighbors may object and say to him, ‘I cannot sleep because of the sound of people coming and going.’ Rather, he does his work in his shop and sells in the marketplace. But they cannot object and say, ‘We cannot sleep because of the sound of the hammer or the sound of the millstones.’” Now notice what he adds: “Since he has already established the practice of doing so, and they did not object.” Pay attention to that.

12:21 Speaker 4 Yes, interesting.

12:21 Speaker 2 Yes. He’s saying: You’ve already been doing it, and no one objected, so you’re allowed to continue. What follows from the Rambam and the Shulchan Aruch? If you’ve never done it before and you’re doing it for the first time now, they can object to anything. They can object to any noise: a hammer, millstones. Children—no. Children are a special case. We’ll leave the children out of this; notice that he didn’t mention them here. But according to the Rambam, they can object to all the other disturbances. Now, I wonder if anyone here can tell me how he understood that from the Mishnah. Where does the Mishnah say that the person had established the practice and no one objected? How did he derive that from the Mishnah? Does anyone have an idea?

12:57 Speaker 4 He slept there. It’s just that they don’t disturb him in every situation. So today they wouldn’t [unclear].

13:01 Speaker 2 That’s a good question too. A good question.

13:04 Speaker 4 I can tell you what you’re saying. You’re saying: Fine, let him do it once, let him do it a second time, but not on a regular basis. Once it becomes a regular thing, you have to tell him.

13:13 Speaker 2 Right, right. Now, regarding your question, let’s say two things. First, notice that even after the Rambam says they didn’t object, he still forbids operating a shop. He forbids it when people are coming and going.

13:26 Speaker 4 I don’t understand. How can he operate a shop if it belongs to—or is the shop within his own property?

13:31 Speaker 2 In the courtyard.

13:32 Speaker 4 In the courtyard—that belongs to the other person too. Today, you know, if someone has a courtyard, it’s a shared courtyard belonging to the other person as well.

13:37 Speaker 2 Yes, right. Right. Right.

13:38 Speaker 4 Within his courtyard.

13:40 Speaker 2 It’s shared space. How can one person use it for something like that?

13:42 Speaker 4 Right.

13:43 Speaker 2 Okay, so let’s put it this way. Certainly, in a shared space, as we already said in previous classes, all the neighbors can prevent one another from using it—except for laundry. A courtyard is shared space, and they can object to anything except laundry, because laundry is a matter of modesty. If Jewish women don’t do their laundry in the courtyard, they’ll have to go to the river, and that isn’t modest because their arms would be exposed. That’s what the Gemara says, so they can’t object to that. They can object to everything else. But here, with a shop in a courtyard, as he says, the person had already set it up and no one objected, and nevertheless they can object. They can object to the shop, but not to the hammer or the millstones. We’ll try to understand why in a moment, but that’s one point. Second, regarding what you asked: say I kept quiet for a while and then made up my mind about it. That’s a general question in all the laws concerning silence between neighbors. Some halachic authorities say that silence doesn’t make a difference. I kept quiet—even for several years—and then I say, “That’s it. I don’t want this anymore; I want to change my mind.” The Rambam takes the position—and again, the Mechaber, the Shulchan Aruch, follows him—that if you kept quiet even for a short time, not even three years, you waived your right to object. In other areas of law, three years are required. Here, between neighbors, if you were silent, you waived your right. That’s the Rambam’s view. And this raises the question: What if I was silent because I didn’t realize it was causing harm? So the halachic authorities say the determining point is when you recognize that it’s causing harm. If you realize it’s causing harm and remain silent, then you’ve waived your right. What does that—

15:17 Speaker 4 But Yisroel.

15:20 Speaker 2 Huh?

15:21 Speaker 4 [unclear]. Don’t take him into account.

15:24 Speaker 2 No, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. At what point do you realize it’s causing harm? There are all kinds of situations; each has to be judged on its own terms.

15:30 Speaker 4 Today he was working, and tomorrow you saw he had customers. At first they only came from the neighborhood, and suddenly they’re coming from all over the city. You understand? Is it allowed now?

15:38 Speaker 2 First of all, I’ll say again: when it comes to customers, the Rambam always said you can object. Why? We’ll see why in a moment.

15:44 Speaker 4 Someone.

15:45 Speaker 2 Even if you kept quiet. Customers are different. We need to understand why, but that’s what he said. With the hammer and things like that, though, the person struck with the hammer once. So you say, “All right, he urgently needed to do something that day.” Once you realize it’s a regular occurrence, you realize it’s causing harm. If you remain silent even then, that shows you’ve waived your right to object. That’s how we have to understand it. It’s a little hard to accept, but that’s what we have to say. Other examples are given too. For instance, someone installs... This happened to me. Someone asked me if he could install an air conditioner above my balcony. I said okay. He told me he would put the pipe so it would lead outside, and so on. He installed it. What?

16:22 Speaker 4 You didn’t think about the sukkah?

16:24 Speaker 2 No, no. It was a balcony where I couldn’t have put a sukkah anyway. That’s not the point. But he put the pipe outside. It was summer. Then suddenly, in winter, I was sitting on the balcony and drops started dripping on me. I thought there was a leak or something. I spoke to an air-conditioning technician, and he told me that’s how it works: the air conditioner is warm while it’s cold outside, and because of the temperature difference—in short, drops drip from the air conditioner. So when I told him he could install it, it didn’t appear that it would cause any harm. The pipe led outside, and only in winter did the problem arise. According to—although the Rambam says silence is like waiving your right to object, that’s when you’re silent about something whose harmful effect is actually visible. For example, someone puts in an air-conditioner pipe and it drips into another person’s courtyard. It’s dripping into that person’s courtyard, and we know he saw it.

17:11 Speaker 4 You saw the harm.

17:13 Speaker 2 He saw it.

17:13 Speaker 4 If you didn’t see it.

17:17 Speaker 2 If you didn’t see it or didn’t understand the harm. Yes, like here: you didn’t realize it was causing harm.

17:22 Speaker 4 Two things. One, [unclear].

17:26 Speaker 2 Yes. So that’s it.

17:28 Speaker 4 We did it inside the house, right?

17:32 Speaker 2 What happened was, I suffered from the neighbor above me, and then the neighbor below me complained about my air conditioner. For the neighbor below me, I brought someone to install a sort of tray beneath the air conditioner, with a pipe to drain everything away. And I forgave the one above me. That was it. In short, according to the Rambam, silence is like forgiving the nuisance. Yet he says that with the hammer, the neighbor has forgiven it, while with people coming and going, he has not. Why? A lot of people ask this and are puzzled by it. The Nesivos Hamishpat puts it in order. He says a person can forgive something he understands precisely. This is also connected to what he said earlier: something where he knows exactly what the nuisance is, and how great it is. A hammer, for example. The volume of the hammer is always the same. He heard it and understood, “That volume is fine with me; I can live with it.” But the people coming and going are different each time. One time these people come and go, another time others come and go. You can’t say, “I agreed,” because suddenly one person might speak in an irritatingly monotonous way, while another might suddenly shout and then fall silent. There are all kinds of people. So even if for a week, day after day, the people coming in were pleasant and calm, afterward someone less pleasant might arrive. Suddenly the people are more irritating, or more easily irritated. That is how the Nesivos explains the Rambam: the people coming and going are different each time; the hammer is the same hammer. So your silence counts as forgiveness for that, but not for the other things.

19:19 Speaker 4 Suppose he adds another problem. He adds more hammers.

19:22 Speaker 2 If he adds to it, then what you were silent about was one thing; the rest is an addition. Now, I don’t want to go on at length about this. In a word, according to the Rambam, as brought in the Shulchan Aruch, noise is a form of damage. Whether someone’s silence counts as forgiveness is the next step. But noise is damage. When someone makes noise that disturbs others, that is damage.

19:42 Speaker 4 I think I told you: right now it’s just my wife and me. If there are children at home and the family...

19:48 Speaker 2 Is small.

19:51 Speaker 4 I don’t feel anymore that the noise bothers us. For us, that changes the picture. Right, [unclear] and everything was fine.

20:02 Speaker 2 That point—that I’m not feeling well—is exactly the point everyone relies on today. According to the Ashkenazi authorities, it appears that noise is not a problem. We’ll see in a moment. What everyone relies on today to prohibit making noise is the case of someone who is ill. Right? Now, the Nesivos we discussed earlier says elsewhere that if someone was healthy and suddenly became ill, then even though the noise was fine until now, he can now say, “That’s it. I’m ill now.” By the same reasoning, an elderly person who has grown older and is now disturbed by it, or someone whose family has grown with more children—the situation has changed, and he can now say it bothers him. Right? Right. Now let’s look at the opposite extreme. The Rambam said that all noise is damage. At the other extreme—notice, this is a list of several poskim: the Ritva, the Ramban, the Rashba... They aren’t Ashkenazi authorities, but the Rema went along with them. Let’s see. Regarding a shop in a courtyard, the Ritva says: “The meaning is not because of the sound.” He says the problem with the shop here is not the noise. Why? “For the sound of a hammer and a mill is worse than that,” yet the neighbor cannot object to them. A hammer and a mill make more noise, says the Ritva. And the Gemara’s question about the latter clause was only from the sound of the children: why can’t he object to them? Besides, if the issue is the sound reaching his ears, why would the Gemara distinguish between this courtyard and another courtyard in the alleyway? If it’s about noise, what difference does its location make? Whether it’s in this courtyard or another one, the noise reaches me. Why should I care where it comes from? So he says: “Rather, the reason is the large number of people coming in.” The problem is not the noise the people make, but the crowding in the courtyard. Now, that isn’t so easy to reconcile with the wording. Right? Let’s see. He also brings

21:47 Speaker 2 proof from the Yerushalmi. We’ll skip that. Then, in the last line, he says: “On the contrary, the wording ‘I cannot sleep because of the sound’ is not meant literally.” That’s what he says. It’s a little surprising, but that’s what he says. He says the issue isn’t really the noise; it’s the crowding. The Rashba explains it a little differently. He says, what does “I cannot sleep” mean? I can’t come home and sleep, or get up and leave the house. I can’t come in and go out. That’s what “sleep” means here—to settle down and sleep, to get up and go to sleep. It’s a bit of a stretch, but that is how they explain it. They want to say that noise is not damage. Fine, there’s noise. So what?

22:29 Speaker 4 He can sleep.

22:29 Speaker 2 It’s difficult. I don’t know. The wording is difficult, but he says it means the crowding in the courtyard.

22:33 Speaker 4 Crowding isn’t noise.

22:35 Speaker 2 No, crowding. I’m explaining: I go out into the courtyard now, and people are passing by me, coming in and going out. That bothers me. So I can make that claim, as it were, but I can’t make a claim about the noise. That is how these poskim hold. And I said the Rema goes along with them. That’s not quite accurate. We’ll see in a moment: the Rema follows the next opinion more closely. Let’s look at the next opinion, number four. He says: “We therefore conclude that in another courtyard, even if he teaches children for pay, the neighbor cannot prevent him.” What does “teaches children for pay” mean? These aren’t children studying Torah. They’re children learning geometry and arithmetic. One of the poskim calls it calculation; I think the Rambam even mentions calculation. It’s like geometry and the like, and an objection can be raised to that. The Ramah, Rabbi Meir Halevi, says that in another courtyard, the neighbor cannot prevent him even from teaching children for pay. Why? “Because he is doing it on his own property and is not bringing them into the shared courtyard.” He says: I haven’t brought them into your courtyard, the shared courtyard. It’s in another courtyard. It’s none of your business. That is the Ramah’s approach, and the Rema follows it. Let’s go on a little: “And regarding a mill and a hammer, he cannot prevent him, because when he works, he is doing so on his own property.” A mill and a hammer. Why can’t you stop him? It’s in my house. Don’t—what business is it of yours what I do at home? You can hear it? That’s your problem. I’m working in my own home. That is the approach of the Rema and the Ramah.

24:05 Speaker 4 What limit can I set on that?

24:08 Speaker 2 I mean, how far does it go?

24:09 Speaker 4 Exactly.

24:09 Speaker 2 And it follows plainly from his view that as long as it isn’t deafening you or harming you, but only bothering you—well, what can you do? But in the same courtyard, he can prevent him. And when it comes to children studying Torah, he cannot prevent him even in the same courtyard. In other words, the rule is—

24:26 Speaker 4 That he can’t—no—

24:27 Speaker 2 In his own courtyard, he can prevent it, except when it comes to children studying Torah. He can’t prevent that even in his own courtyard, when they pass through it. If they make noise as they walk, even though they are studying in your home, they pass through the courtyard, making noise as they come and go. There’s nothing to be done; he can’t prevent it. So this is what emerges. Let’s try to summarize it. One moment. Is noise defined as damage? According to the Rambam, always yes. Noise is damage. Of course, he doesn’t mean a level of noise that doesn’t bother most people at all. A level of noise that does bother people is considered damage, and the neighbor can tell you, “Listen, you’re disturbing me.” The Ritva and the other poskim hold the opposite: noise is not damage. What caused the problem here was the crowding, not the noise. That was their view. The Ramah, whom the Rema follows, says it depends on the location. Where is the noise? If it is in the shared courtyard—for example, you open a shop at home and customers come in—that is how he will explain the difference between people coming and going and the hammer. Where do the people come and go? Through our shared stairwell. You’ve opened a shop at home, and it’s all well and good that it’s in your home, but they pass through the courtyard and stairwell, and there they discuss the price you charged them, whether it was cheap or not, and so on. They disturb me. They disturb me in the shared courtyard, and I can object to that. But if it’s inside the home, they’re banging—

25:59 Speaker 4 Even when you bring them into your home, they bang on the window.

26:02 Speaker 2 Could be. That’s even worse. But even if you do bring them inside, they still make noise outside in the end. They pass through there.

26:08 Speaker 4 Meaning, at any hour.

26:10 Speaker 2 What?

26:10 Speaker 4 At any hour.

26:12 Speaker 2 That’s the...

26:12 Speaker 4 During the day. There’s noise around anyway.

26:17 Speaker 2 Right. If it’s during the day, and it’s the kind of noise that isn’t disturbing, then it doesn’t interfere. Noise can cause harm, yes. Everyone agrees on that. But noise can also be disturbing. Now, there are two other approaches. I may leave them for later, depending on the time. I want to move to the next stage: What happens in the middle of the night? In the middle of the night, a person—did you want to say something? No. A person starts hammering in the middle of the night. Did Chazal really mean that, in their time, when everything was completely quiet, someone could hammer in the middle of the night? Does he say, following the Ritva, “Noise isn’t damage”? Or does he say, “I’m doing it in my own home; you can’t interfere with what I do in my own home”? Does that make sense? Now, that was in their time. When we come to our time, all the contemporary poskim start writing halachos or formulating classes to clari—when is making noise permitted, and when is it forbidden? Everyone takes it as obvious that in the middle of the night, making noise is forbidden. But the question is: What is the source for that prohibition? So let’s look at the source some poskim rely on to prohibit making noise at night. There are actually three ways of understanding this. Let’s skip to number six on the page. The Rivash, Rabbi Yitzchak bar Sheshes, discusses a case where someone opened a weaving workshop. Apparently, he needed to strike things to prepare the threads or something like that. His weaving involved various kinds of pounding, and someone claimed it disturbed him. It disturbed him because it shook his courtyard, and it also disturbed his wine. He said the wine was being shaken, and that harmed it. His third claim was that it disturbed his wife, who was ill. So let’s read it: “And likewise, the third claim…”

28:07 Speaker 2 “…that Reuven made because of his wife’s illness, saying that it harmed her head.” The Rivash says this, too, is a substantial claim. “Although we learned in the Mishnah that one cannot protest and say, ‘I cannot sleep because of the sound of the hammer or the millstones,’ even when the workshop is in the same courtyard—all the more so here, where it is in another courtyard—that applies to other people who are healthy. But since this woman is known to be ill, there are no more direct arrows than these.” “Arrows” means direct harm. We mentioned in previous classes that, generally speaking, the halachah follows Rabbi Yosi: If two neighbors interfere with each other, who has to take precautions to protect himself? The person being harmed, not the one causing the harm. That’s what Rabbi Yosi says. But Rabbi Yosi agrees when it comes to “his arrows.” If the person causing harm does so directly, like shooting an arrow that goes straight toward the other person, then he must take precautions not to harm him. So here, with harm between neighbors, who has to act? For example, you could soundproof a house to block the noise. Or we spoke about putting up a partition so people cannot see one another. We discussed an example with a roof and a courtyard: One person regularly uses his space, and the other does not. Who is harming whom? The one who doesn’t regularly use his space goes up there from time to time and can see the person who does use his space. Who has to put up the partition—the person being harmed or the one causing the harm? Since it is direct harm, the one causing it has to take precautions not to harm the other person. The Rivash says that the noise you make here is also considered direct harm; it is like arrows. Therefore, you must take precautions not to harm that sick woman. That’s what he says. He gives an example: “It is like smoke or an outhouse.” It’s like smoke or an outhouse. An outhouse

30:16 Speaker 2 has an unpleasant smell. It says there that with things like these, even waiving the right to object is ineffective. People think they’ll manage to live with it, but in the end they can’t. They can always object later, even after time has passed and they waived their right to object, even if they did so explicitly. There are different levels to this—whether they made a formal kinyan, and so on—but that’s the general idea. Smoke or an outhouse is something extremely disturbing. The Rivash says noise is the same for a sick person: It’s like smoke or an outhouse. It’s extremely disturbing, so they can protest it. He brings another example: Rav Yosef said, “For me, they are like smoke or an outhouse.” There was a case involving Rav Yosef’s fig trees. Some workers—he calls them bloodletters—would sit outside his courtyard and let people’s blood there. The blood that accumulated attracted many birds, which ate it and then perched in his tree. There is a disagreement as to whether it was the noise that bothered him, or the blood that the birds got on the figs. In any case, he came and said, as the Gemara records, “Get those cawing birds out of here.” Get them out of there. In other words, stop doing the work that brings the birds here. Then a student, or someone else there, asked him, “What do you mean? They’ve already established a right to do this. They’ve been doing it here for some time.” He answered, “I am particularly sensitive.” For me, this disturbance is like smoke or an outhouse, so even

31:58 Speaker 2 though time has passed and I remained silent, I can now object. The Rivash says: If something a person finds repulsive because he is particularly sensitive is, for him, like smoke or an outhouse—if you treat that as serious harm—all the more so when it harms him physically because he is ill or has a weak constitution. Noise doesn’t harm a healthy person, but it does harm someone who is ill, so it would be forbidden. One cannot protest.

32:31 Speaker 5 Particularly sensitive.

32:32 Speaker 2 What?

32:33 Speaker 5 [unclear] is particularly sensitive.

32:35 Speaker 2 All the more so, the harm here concerns someone who has a weak constitution. He isn’t ill, but he has a frail body. The Rivash is making an a fortiori argument: If a particularly sensitive person can protest, certainly someone who is weak or ill can. Based on this, many poskim today want to say: Why is it forbidden to make noise in the middle of the night nowadays? Because today, when it comes to noise in the middle of the night, everyone is like a sick person. If you make noise and keep someone awake in the middle of the night, he can’t sleep. The next day he won’t be able to work. Carry that over into another night, and he could really end up—I saw one posek write that it causes irritability and all kinds of mental health problems and who knows what else. They start expanding on it. In other words, they want to say that nowadays, the middle of the night is like the case of a sick person. But that raises a question: Wasn’t that true in the past? Back then, was everything fine in the middle of the night? “Make as much noise as you like”? Is it only today that people have become delicate and weak? So that’s the question. As I said, some contemporary poskim have written this, but let’s look at it. Noise in the middle of the night. The first approach is that nowadays it’s a problem. Why? Nowadays—

33:45 Speaker 5 Wouldn’t it be from sunset to sunrise?

33:48 Speaker 2 No, when people are sleeping.

33:51 Speaker 5 So from sunset.

33:52 Speaker 2 Right.

33:54 Speaker 5 [unclear].

33:55 Speaker 2 What?

33:57 Speaker 5 [unclear].

33:58 Speaker 2 Yes, but it’s forbidden at ten, at nine.

34:01 Speaker 5 By the Torah’s definitions, no?

34:04 Speaker 2 What? Children can go to sleep early. True, children can go to sleep earlier, and it disturbs them. Generally speaking.

34:16 Speaker 5 I decided that on my own. But still.

34:20 Speaker 2 Yes. We won’t have time in this class to cover the question of the law. There’s a lot more to discuss about how far the law is binding on us in this matter. Yes. Right now we’re talking about halachah. So, in principle, it’s when people are sleeping. If people slept from sunset, then it would seem to be forbidden from sunset. But it doesn’t make much sense to say that making noise is forbidden from sunset. We said here that one cannot protest the sound of the hammer. What does it mean to treat everyone as sick? I saw Rabbi Zilberstein write that presumably, even then, they meant several hours into the night: You can make noise at first, and later it becomes a time when it disturbs people. Even a few hours into the night, someone who hasn’t slept yet isn’t necessarily harmed. But if you keep making noise deep into the night, that is already like causing harm.

35:08 Speaker 5 Adults, not children. Everyone.

35:11 Speaker 2 Right. Now, if I say that the issue is like the case of a sick person, yes? Then if you know your neighbor has children who go to sleep early every day, then perhaps it’s forbidden. Let’s read the Alter Rebbe’s halachah about a sick person, number ten. The Alter Rebbe says: “If his neighbor suffers from a head ailment and the sound of pounding harms him, he may not pound groats or similar things when the sound of the pounding reaches his neighbor’s home and harms him.”

35:40 Speaker 5 In every situation.

35:42 Speaker 2 Yes. Now, it looks like we have time. Here, in number seven, I brought the Chazon Ish. Just about everyone who writes on this subject quotes the Chazon Ish; you really can’t ignore him. What happens with babies who cry at night? Picture this: a woman comes home from the hospital with a baby who screams and screams and screams. The neighbor comes, knocks on the door, and says, “Listen, I’m sick. You’re not allowed to disturb a sick person’s sleep, and your baby is crying. Please go back to the hospital, find some sort of convalescent home. You can’t live here.” Huh?

36:19 Speaker 5 When it crosses a line.

36:21 Speaker 2 Right, that’s what you need to define. You need to define what the distinction actually is. Now pay attention: the Chazon Ish establishes a principle here, and it would seem that the Alter Rebbe doesn’t agree with that principle. Let’s see. In number seven, he says: “It appears that the Rivash’s words apply only when someone does something that is not an essential part of living in a home, such as weaving and the like.” What was the Rivash talking about? Someone who starts weaving clothes. Fine, so don’t weave here. You want to work? Do some other kind of work or something. “For this is not something everyone, or even most people, do. But if he does things that most people do, and at times their activity and conversation make noise that disturbs the sick person, the sick person cannot object, even if he was there first.” He’s saying: I’m doing something normal in my home. I’m eating dinner, and the sick person is right on the other side of the wall, and he says, “Listen, you’re talking with your family over dinner. It bothers me; I can’t sleep. I’m sick.” So the Chazon Ish says: I’m doing something most people do, and as part of it I also talk and make various noises. You can’t object to that. “And a person may build a house next to his neighbor and bring in little children and infants who cry at night, and the sick person cannot prevent him, for he is not obligated to leave his home.” Notice that he deliberately gives the case of someone building a house next to his neighbor. He means that even if you were already there on your own, you had grown used to the quiet, with no neighbors around, and I had a plot next to you and have now built a house there and brought in babies—even if you were already sick and living there alone, and you say, “Listen, I’m sick. I got used to living here alone, and suddenly you build a house next to me and bring in babies, making

38:12 Speaker 2 noise”—the Chazon Ish says—

38:15 Speaker 5 Babies are camels.

38:16 Speaker 2 No, no, no. They cry at night, that’s all—little children crying. So he says the sick person cannot prevent him. Why? Because he isn’t obligated to leave his home. As he said, the baby—what about the baby? A baby needs to cry. It’s part of his life. If you tell him not to cry, what are you really telling him? Move to—get out of here. You can’t drive him out of the house. Okay? Now notice: at the beginning, he said, “what most people do.” At the end, he said, “You can’t drive him out of his home.” I think the Alter Rebbe agrees with the end but not with the beginning. What did the Alter Rebbe write? We’ll finish with this. The Alter Rebbe said, “He should not pound wheat groats and the like.” Wheat groats are wheat that people grind to prepare a dish and so on. Is that something most people do, or not? Most people do it. People eat, they eat cooked dishes, they prepare things. The Alter Rebbe said no, he shouldn’t pound them. Why? Because it bothers the sick person. But most people do it! So what? Don’t do it. What if you had a sick person in your own home? What would you do? Like the example of an allergy. A child at school has an allergy, and everyone is told not to bring dairy. Now am I going to say, “What’s it got to do with me that he has an allergy? Now nobody should bring dairy?” What if someone in your family had an allergy? Wouldn’t you go without dairy your whole life because one person is allergic? Hard? Hard. Impossible? Not impossible. Hard. Fine. I think the Alter Rebbe means to say: don’t eat wheat groats from now on—or don’t pound the groats yourself. Buy the wheat already ground and cook it at home. It’s hard, it’s inconvenient, but it isn’t essential to living in the home.

39:50 Speaker 2 But babies crying at night isn’t a matter of something being hard or inconvenient. I would have to leave my home if I had to keep my babies quiet. Leave my home? Why should I have to leave my home while you can stay in yours? Why are you driving me out of my home because the noise bothers you? Maybe you should leave your home? And this is a principle—perhaps in the next class I’ll show you that it appears in another posek as well. The underlying idea is that I have to protect myself from harm, but not to the point of giving up my right to live in my home and moving out. That’s going too far. So what emerges, apparently, according to the Alter Rebbe is this: anything essential to living in a home—you can’t stop me from doing it. But when it isn’t essential, then apparently you do have to take someone else into consideration. If your neighbor has babies who go to sleep early, and you know that, don’t play music at full volume and disturb them, even if it isn’t eleven o’clock yet. The law permits it, but you are commanded not to harm another person. And for you, it isn’t something essential. You don’t have to listen to music at full volume right now. But if, for example, you need to renovate your home and someone tells you, “Listen, I’m sick all day, and all day—” you’re not going to refrain from renovating all day. You have to do the renovations at some point. So yes, you won’t do it late at night, but during the day you can do it, because right now it’s essential to your home: you need to renovate it. That, it would seem, is the rule. We’ll continue, with Hashem’s help, in the next class.