כדורי ״צום קל״ ליום הכיפורים

00:01 All right, this is Igris. We're coming up on Yom Kippur. We're doing a relatively short one today. I don't have multiple letters from the Rebbe on this one, so it's going to be a little bit more halakhically focused. This one's going to be sort of a, uh, a Jewish law version of Igris. We do these every now and then, but this is about a hot topic. Uh, when I go into the Jewish supermarkets, I see these all the time now. There are these easy fast pills. I think that's actually the brand name that I don't know if they work at all, and this is not an endorsement whatsoever. They, they might just be... I don't know. They might be totally invented. But, uh, they claim on the box that if you take these pills before Yom Kippur, that for twenty-four hours, twenty-five hours, twenty-six hours, you won't be hungry at all. I don't know if any of you have tried them. I have not tried them. They're like fifty dollars a pill, and I don't know if they work. I know there are people taking them. I know a lot of people are invested in them, in these, uh, and not just pills, but it's all sorts of things they do before the fast to make sure that they don't have trouble during the fast. And I did find a letter from the Rebbe about these, where the Rebbe talks about these pills, and it turns out that this is actually a pretty big halakhic

00:54 discussion. We're gonna look at some shailas and teshuvahs. We're gonna look at a Halchos Yaakov, a Stei Chemed. Uh, this is a major discussion in contemporary psak, whether you're allowed to take these pills in order to make your fast easier. So without further ado, we have this letter is in Igris Kodesh. It's labeled vav tof tof kuf nun alef. It's from chof daled Tammuz of tov shin yud tes. And the Rebbe writes, "Shalom u-bracha." The letter's on your screen. "Ma sh'kasu eid et hatzem, ti-uh, Tisha B'av u've Yom HaKippurim." You wrote to me about fasting on Tisha B'av and Yom Kippur. Apparently, this person had written to the Rebbe that they have-- they find fasting very difficult. You get a idea from the tone of this letter that this person wasn't necessarily frum yet, uh, based on the fact that it almost sounds like they're asking whether they can just skip fasts entirely. Uh, and the Rebbe writes back to them. "So you wrote to me about how you find it difficult to fast the entire day on Tisha B'av and Yom Kippur." And, uh, between me and you, the Rebbe doesn't say this. I'm just adding. I mean, welcome to the club, right? "So you wrote about your difficulties." Move on. The Rebbe writes, "Move on. It's understood." "Sh'tzarech latzom kol Yom Kula." You should understand, obviously, you have to fast the entire day. There's no, like, half fasting on Yom Kippur. Obviously, this doesn't apply to a sick person who has a heter

01:54 from a rav. If you do need a heter from a rav, ask your rav. But generally speaking, people have to fast the entire day on Yom Kippur and Tisha B'av. "Ki mitzva aleinu betzedah she'ni tedas chayim," as is commanded upon us in the Torah, which is our Torah of life. So we have no choice. We have to fast. "V'idei zesh yamim amum ba-bamalacha beys hayam." If you make sure to work a little bit less on that day, I assume he means on Tisha B'av because nobody's really working on Yom Kippur. But if you do fewer strenuous activities, "k'chol efshari" as much as possible, you'll find that it's easier to fast. The Rebbe's first piece of advice to this person who is afraid of a long twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six hour fast is that they should move around a little bit less, work a little less. The conventional advice from a rav is that if you're really having trouble fasting on Yom Kippur, there's no chiyuv to be in shul. Lie down in bed in the air conditioning the entire day and keep your fast. "Ve'ikar." But the main point is, "She yihye asuk binyanei shimenu la'ashev al derech hatzem." The main thing is you should be involved in things that take your mind off the fast. Uh, honestly, being-- having your face in a sitter is one of the best ways not to think about fasting, but this is another technique the Rebbe says. So first of all, the Rebbe says that if somebody's having trouble

02:53 fasting, they should do less work. They should move around a little bit less. Number two, they should find ways to distract themselves. They're not thinking about the fast. All good pieces of advice that are pretty standard. "Ve'ochlam al yas hamar." You certainly will be able to fulfill the aforementioned and keep the fast if you do these things. "Elash be'arisa v'yishal et roefa." But in addition to that, the Rebbe says, "I have a third idea," and that is, "Why don't you ask a doctor she-- about sheyesh nem kedur nim matim keyach hateyavim lemeshech kamim kama shais u'lai eid yeser." You should ask a doctor about whether there are pills that might decrease the urge to eat for several hours, maybe for more than several hours. So the Rebbe says that he suggests that if there are such pills available, ask a doctor about them and then take them. So the Rebbe here seems to be coming down on the side of taking easy fast pills. Now, this does come with some conditions. Number one, something we've learned in many of our prior letters. Letters written to individuals are not horas hatavan. This is not the Rebbe paskening that he loves easy fast pills. This is the Rebbe telling somebody who, from the tone of the letter, was looking into not fasting at all, that it was certainly a good idea to look into easy fast pills. This does not at all mean that's la'tchila for a, uh, for a, uh, a upstanding member of the Jewish

03:55 community to be taking easy fast pills. That's not what we're-- That could be true, but it's not what we're getting from this letter. From this letter, all we have is that it certainly, according to the Rebbe, is not going to violate Yom Kippur. It's not going to be asur to take a pill prior to Yom Kippur, uh, that helps ma-make your fast easier on Yom Kippur itself. I will note that today we are only going to talk about pills taken prior to Yom Kippur. There's a whole discussion in poskim about pills taken either orally or as suppositories on Yom Kippur itself and ain kan makim. We just can't do two things at once. We're only talking now about pills that are taken on Erev Yom Kippur in order to make the fast easier. And what we see from the Rebbe here is the Rebbe does not seem opposed to it. The Rebbe doesn't say anything to suggest that he would be opposed to it. And in this particular case, where somebody's writing to the Rebbe about their struggles with the fast, the Rebbe specifically suggests taking these pills. I wanna show you a Stei Chemed. So what's interesting is that, uh, is that in, in, uh, Shulchan Menachem, which we've looked at together a few times, that's a collection of the Rebbe's letters that are halakhic. They bring this letter, and they quote the Stei Chemed as if it's supposed to be supporting the Rebbe, which either it's not, and I'm just misreading their quote

04:57 of it, or they misread the Stei Chemed. I don't know which one, but I'll show you the Stei Chemed. The Stei Chemed, um, he died in, like, the year nineteen oh five, uh, has an entry on this even back then. So this would have been, like, in the late eighteen hundreds. In the late eighteen hundreds, it seems they had some sort of pill like this. And a Rav, uh, Rav Menachem Nassan Auerbach, uh, of Yerushalayim writes to the Stei Chemed asking about these easy fast pills or the easy fast pills of their day. And the Stei Chemed writes back, and I wanna read it to you. So I'm gonna show you a little bit of background. You have the Stei Chemed on your screen, and he says, "Yeish laaker." We need to investigate. "Haden deigim kama nashen lases be'Erev Yom Kippur." A lot of people have the custom on Erev Yom Kippur to do all sorts of segulas sheinis. They do all sorts of segulas, and some of the things that they do are probably a little bit magical, and some of them are pseudo-medical. "Sheliya gish atzem." The idea is that they do different things, but they won't feel the effects of the fast once the fast comes. Uh, "Ve'acheini mischach mim eid leima shezeh, shezeh segula hi yesh bedooka menusa." And some of them have come out. They're smarter. They have better segulas that are more bedooka menusa, and that would be these pills that are mentioned in the teshuva. "Sheliya vayshum taveila

05:56 leila chila v'lelishtiya." That would be that there are pills that can make it so that you will, uh, you will not have any, excuse me, any urge for eating, any urge for drinking. "Ve'ani bedaas cheshash im yaaz lases ken, im, im, im yaaz lases ken." Sorry, it's a bad print. Uh, "I, myself, I, in my, uh, hu-humble opinion," says the Stei Chemed, "I'm worried. I'm not sure it's okay to do this." "Depashut hakara dekol hanefesh asher lasu nebe gameir." It says in the Torah, "Dekol hanefesh asher lasu nebe etzema yom hazeh nichras ameameha," that anybody who does not make themselves suffer on the day of Yom Kippur gets their soul cut off from the Jewish people. And that's where we learn the idea of fasting from. But the literal word in the Torah used for fasting is "seune," which means to suffer. So the Stei Chemed says, "I'm pretty sure the pshat in pasuk is that a person has to suffer on Yom Kippur." If you found a way not to feel any hunger pangs on Yom Kippur, you might, uh, not have fulfilled the mitzvah of Yom Kippur. "Hu chiyuv leyes be inoi." "That seems to me," says the, says the Stei Chemed, "You have a chiyuv to be suffering at some point over Yom Kippur. And if you have a magic pill that prevents your suffering on Yom Kippur, then you're not fulfilling Yom Kippur." "Ve'ech nas divar nagem lehasia inoi be yoma kodesh zeh." How can you do something to remove inoi,

06:56 to remove suffering on this holy day of Yom Kippur? I want to jump down to the bottom of this paragraph here. "Vechazinan dechama sh'nucha leheiseve inui hu mitzvah." We see from, he brings rise from Masecha Shabbos and other places, that the more a person does to suffer on Yom Kippur. And I will note, there's a Gemara in Masecha Yoma that you should be aware of that says that you can't come up with new ways to do inui. You can't decide that, uh, e-inui is defined as not eating, not drinking, not wearing shoes, not putting on lotions. You can't come-- You can't decide to poke yourself with a, with a needle the entire Yom Kippur and go, "I'm being mahader in inui." That doesn't work. Segufim, you're not allowed to make up your own Segufim on Yom Kippur. But in within the realm of the segu-- of the inui that is mentioned, of the suffering that's mentioned, or the unpleasantness that's mentioned in Shas, that's, that's from the Torah directly, "Chazinan dechama sh'nucha leheiseve," the more you do it, "hu mitzvah," it's more, more of a mitzvah. So the more, the more your fast bothers you, the bigger mitzvah it is. Which by the way, is a little bit heartening, just as a side note. If somebody's having a really hard fast, you should know that the Stei HaMed just said, "You did the mitzvah min ha-movchar." That if your fast is relatively easy, that's good. I mean, you did the fast, you're gonna suffer a

07:51 little, and that's fine. But somebody who says, "Oh, I had a really bad fast. I had a terrible headache. It was really bothering me," says the Stei HaMed, "You just did the mitzvah even better." "Leheisevehu mitzvah." The wor-the worse it is, the better. "Ve ein na'aseh latchila b'kum va'aseh lehatzer klit." How can you get up and actively try to remove some of the suffering of our ti-- of your tiness? The idea of fasting on Yom Kippur is that it shouldn't be pleasant. And as a matter of fact, the more unpleasant it is, the bigger mitzvah it is. And here people are coming up with pills that are trying to make your fast more pleasant. Seems to be the opposite of what we would do. I'm gonna jump all the way. It's a very long Stei HaMed. I know it's a very long Stei HaMed. It's very long, uh, not relative to him, but it's very long for us. It's five pages here. On the fifth page, at the very, very end, we're gonna jump to the conclusion. He says, "Ulam." His conclusion is, "La'aseh segulah sh'le hagishu klal le'inui b'etzem hayom." If you can find some segulah, whether it's magic, whether it's a pill, whatever it might be, if you have some magic ability to make sure that you feel no pain whatsoever, no suffering whatsoever, "b'etzem hayom hakodesh," on that, on that holy day of Yom Kippur, "al dati," it's my opinion. "Al dati, ein hai emet, al dati, ein hai emet." I, I

08:46 think it's a bad idea. "She-ain ha-rik la'aseh," and I think you should not do this thing. "Lo mitsad midas chassidis, v'lo mitsad lehaseer et zmus shel yom hakodesh." Uh, he doesn't say, "Al pi halacha, it's asur." He certainly doesn't say that a person's violating their fast, and he does not conclude that this is-- that this would be a violation of inui that would cause karas. He doesn't say it's asur, but he does say, "I don't think it's appropriate." "Lo mitsad midas chassidis." I think it's not a midas chassidis. "V'lo mitsad lehaseer et zmus shel yom hakipurim." I think it also removes sort of the gravity of Yom Kippur. So you have the Stei HaMed not saying asur, but the Stei HaMed is saying, "I don't like it." As far as these pills are concerned, the Stei HaMed says, "I'm not happy with them. It's not a midas chassidis. It removes the gravity of the day. I'm not saying it's asur, but I'm not a fan." And then he writes, "Va'atsapni s'bazli bashem, v'teretz hakodesha asher yechaver datei." Uh, he says to Rav, uh, Menachem Nathan Arabach, "I'd like you to write back and tell me what you think." "L'dina halacha l'maisa." So the Stei HaMed is not actually ruling on this. He's saying, "It's my feeling that this is a bad idea. I don't like it as midas chassidis. I don't like the idea of taking a pill to remove the inui of the fast. It seems to me the entire point of the day

09:42 is to suffer, and eating something before Yom Kippur that would cause you not to suffer seems counterproductive to me. But halacha l'maisa, I'm leaving it as something that's not necessarily asur." Now, you should know that the Stei HaMed is really the only posek who expresses any doubt that these pills are okay. Uh, the Chael Kas Yakiv, which we're going to see inside very briefly, and then we're going to have to conclude, as well as the Abiya Eimer and other sources, they all-- ba-basically, all achranim are okay with people taking these pills, uh, which reflects the shiita of our Rebbe, who activi-actively in a letter tells someone that they can talk to their doctor about taking the pills. The bottom line is that you can take these. You should know, though, that the Stei HaMed is the, is the voice that everybody mentions as the dissent. That in all these shailas and tshovas that talk about taking a pill before Yom Kippur to make the fast easy, the Stei HaMed always comes up as being the one voice to caution you maybe not to if you can avoid it, because the Stei HaMed doesn't like it. Anyway, we're looking in the Chael Kas Yakiv. And the Chael Kas Yakiv says, "V'daveh sheilosi," somebody asked me, uh, "Zeh leshem tzior reifim pulim," they have kedurim, they have these pills. "Asher heim bayalim asher i-- asher im bayalim echad b'tchilas hayom," if you dri-- if you take one of these pills at the beginning of the day, "ein

10:45 tzdim le'hav kal hayom," you won't be hungry the entire day. So the question is whether you can take these on Erev Yom Kippur. "Pulim, kedurim, nasim, ev and kazer." I'm gonna explain this later, so let's not read it right now. Anyway, he says they wanna know on whether on Erev Yom Kippur, "lifnei eirev," on Erev Yom Kippur, "heim moti livleya, kador kazeh beErev Yom Kippur, lifnei eirev." The Chael Kas Yakiv is being asked whether on Erev Yom Kippur, as the evening is coming in, you can take these pills, and that way on Yom Kippur, you will not suffer so much. Remember, the Stei HaMed was really only upset with you losing the pain of eating entirely. So, uh, these pills promise to take away some of it. Maybe he'd be okay with it. I don't know. Anyway, we're going over, over here. Next page. Says, "V'tavenda le sheila, le she-le sheila seino anal." Now, after a short introduction, page or so of an introduction, the Chael Kas Yakiv says, "Let's begin answering the question." "Livleya kador kazeh beErev Yom Kippur, b'day lashkit rav beErev Yom Kippur," talking about swallowing one of these pills on Erev Yom Kippur in order to, uh, make it more, ma-ma-make you less hungry on Yom Kippur itself. Um, "Mipach shebekol pam nimuk arin, echad sheb'torah kador zeh meyaal neged arev, ara avi." Says the way that this is-- a-apparently works according to the doctors he talked to, is that the digestion of this pill is very slow. So over time,

11:44 the stomach continues to digest it. Every time it digests it, you get a feeling of satiation. "Hineh ledati, pshat l'muter." So he says, "According to my opinion, it's pashet that this is allowed." Why? "Ata anu tzrichim laduna al ha-na'as me'ev sheyesh lemizev yom ha'kipurim." We certainly do have to at least have a discussion about whether our stomach is benefiting from something on Yom Kippur, and maybe this is something of a lack of spirit of Yom Kippur. "Mikom ochim, haremeisa achilis shelei nas beErev Yom Kippur." Let's be clear, the action of eating happened on Erev Yom Kippur. "V'lei Yom Kippur atzmei." When did you take this pill? You took this pill on Erev Yom Kippur. "Lim ken lifeni hastait." He says, "In my humble opinion," "Ze dodi mamish lemish uchov savaya beErev Yom Kippur." What is the entire thing that we do on Erev Yom Kippur? On Erev Yom Kippur, we eat a bunch of meals, and we eat a bunch of meals so that we're not hungry on Yom Kippur. Meaning, on Erev Yom Kippur this year, on Friday, we're going to eat a ton, and we're going to eat a ton because we're hoping not to be so hungry the next day. How is that really different from taking a pill on Friday so you won't be hungry the next day? That's what he says. "V'reitz lecha lach echach samach la sheicha." You're gonna eat on Erev Yom Kippur, very close to sunset. "Eid machol," additional food. "B'kavan sheyachil im ruba." The idea being

12:43 I'm gonna eat a lot of food. "Ve yisha memela, ve yisha memela gam bizman ha'ikol yes." And I'm hoping that it will take longer for the food to digest. "V'kol zeh shema kalena misakaleinu arev." And I'm hoping that as long as I'm digesting the food, I won't be hungry. There's a Gemara in Masechet Brachos, uh, that-- Nun Gimel that says that as long as you're digesting, you don't get hungry. So the- Chalki Jacob is saying, "I don't really see a difference between you taking a pill on Erev Yom Kippur to not be hungry and you taking a meatball on Erev Yom Kippur to not be hungry." The idea is that these pills take a while to digest. Uh, I don't have time to read this whole section inside here, but here he goes into what the science apparently is. He asked a doctor exactly how it works. The doctor told him that it breaks down over time slowly, or that there's sort of a shell over it, some sort of membrane that prevents it from breaking down quickly. And he says, "This isn't a problem for me as far as I'm concerned at all." Let's go to the very end of the Chilva. "Vimishum sheisa bekavana, um, bechtesh layispol harav veketz veze inoy." W-we, we-- Excuse me. "Uvyom haKippurim inoy kesiv kmo she'er, uh, koventeirasei." Now, in response to the Stei Chamed, in response to the person who would ask the Chalki Jacob the question as well, what about the inoy of Yom Kippur? Doesn't

13:41 this reduce the suffering? So he's answering the Stei Chamed's question. "Ma bakach." I don't care. "Adiraba, lashon Rashi beyuma." Rashi would imply in Yuma that "lashone kulamer chaskan atzmo betisha kidesh etuch alisanis basara." Rashi's lashon in Maseches Yoma is that a person should prepare themselves on Erev Yom Kippur so that they're able to fast on the tenth day. "Uvrash shana," in Daftes, says, "Kol mivarech kol de mafish mechi lashtai vishtiya tfei adif." The more you eat and drink, the better. "Ka mor." And he says, "What I'm getting from these Gemaras, from this Gemara and this Rashi is," "Dechol inyan rak ba naz meav. Baru de moter kevan de nasa kol me'erev Yom HaKippurim." The Echal Kas Yakov says, "I'm not concerned about inoy on Yom Kippur regarding what you eat on Erev Yom Kippur." The entire point of eating on Erev Yom Kippur is to have less pain on Yom Kippur itself. The problem is reducing your inoy on Yom Kippur. When you reduce your suffering on Erev Yom Kippur, that's just called eating in preparation for a fast, and I see no difference between a pill and regular food. "Achen ladaiti," therefore, in the Echal Kas Yakov's opinion. "Ein latzel adim bari mitam acher." But he says, "I still think it shouldn't be allowed for healthy people for a different reason." And he ends, says, "For a different reason is," "Mi arve leich shekedurim nasa betachla sakashas. Bli ez achashas tedova zisar." These pills back then were not manufactured by, uh, by, by Hamisha

14:45 companies. They were manufactured by general pharmaceutical companies. And the Echal Kas Yakov says, "I'm not sure they're kosher." So if a person's healthy, I'm not sure I'm okay with you eating these easy fast pills. "Gish davar negel chelo" when it comes to a sick person, especially w-during a fast, we're not so worried. Uh, I'm willing to have them take the pill if they're not feeling well. "Aval veadim bari," but if a healthy person just wants an easier fast, "ve'achli yispol alav," they just don't wanna feel hungry. "Tzarach leiv barish, ein shom chashas tedova zisar." You gotta promise me it's not going to be, uh, forbidden to eat. You gotta make sure it's kosher. "Kein li lifeni astaiti." So the Echal Kas Yakov says, "I'm totally fine with you taking these pills on Erev Yom Kippur to make sure you're not hungry, as long as they're very kosher." And certainly, in the stores where you go nowadays to get these pills, if you go to, like, Evergreen, where they have them sold at the checkout line, these pills are, uh, are, uh, under, like, four hundred ashkachas. So it's an entirely different discussion, and the Echal Kas Yakov wouldn't have a problem. As I mentioned earlier, I can't get the Abiya Omer on hebrewbooks.com or on any of the websites that are easy for me to show you. But, uh, it happens to be the Abiya Omer also comes out leaning on this, which is a big Sfardi Pesach. So as far as I know, across

15:39 the board, when it comes to contemporary poskim, they are okay with you taking pills on Erev Yom Kippur in order to make your fast easier. And going back to our letter, that is exactly the Deba Shitta as of Tav Shin Yud Tes. Despite the Stei Chamed, which does sound like he would like us to be strict, the Rebbe doesn't seem to take that into very serious account. Maybe for a healthy person, he would, unclear from the letter. But the Rebbe, in this letter, as we read, does specifically recommend to somebody having a difficult fast or having a difficult time fasting that they should consider taking pills on Erev Yom Kippur in order to reduce the amount of the urge that they have to eat, at least for a few hours. "Vulai eid yeser." Everybody should have a healthy and relatively easy fast.