New Article: Rabbi Eli Mansour on Playing Ball and Riding a Bike on Shabbat: Sephardi Only When He Wants to Be!
David Shasha
Rabbi Eli Mansour on Playing Ball and Riding a Bike on Shabbat: Sephardi Only When He Wants to Be!
It has been some time since we checked in with Rabbi Eli Mansour, one of the most popular Ashkenazi-Haredi rabbis in the Brooklyn Sephardic community.
We will recall his deep attachment to the Ashkenazi Orthodox tradition when it comes to things like eating Egg Matzoh on Passover, praying at graves, and when we should begin Shabbat when sundown gets late:
In these and many other situations Rabbi Mansour has strongly recommended adopting Ashkenazi stringencies.
I have even provided a discussion of his strongly Anti-Maimonidean tendencies:
The post he sent out last Sunday discussed playing ball on Shabbat:
http://www.dailyhalacha.com/displayRead.asp?readID=2335
This is not the place to get into the many complexities of the legal issue, but it is more than worthwhile to note that in this case the Ashkenazi tradition on the matter is more lenient than that of the Shulhan ‘Arukh.
So Rabbi Mansour goes with the Sephardic tradition!
The basic point to understand here is that Rabbi Mansour prefers the stringent method in all cases. Having grown up in the Brooklyn Sephardic community, he knows very well that playing ball on Shabbat was common practice, and largely remains so today.
What we are seeing is the ongoing Haredi revolution in the Syrian-Sephardic community spearheaded by Lakewood types like Mansour who have basically rejected the traditional Sephardic flexibility when it comes to dealing with ritual law in the Modern period.
After I finished writing this note on Sunday, the very next day Rabbi Mansour was at it again, and this time he fired off a real doozy on riding a bicycle on Shabbat:
http://www.dailyhalacha.com/displayRead.asp?readID=2337
This is how he opens the discussion:
The Ben Ish Hai (Rav Yosef Haim of Baghdad, 1833-1909), in his work Rab Pe’alim, devotes a thorough responsum to the issue of riding bicycles on Shabbat in a place with an Erub. After a long, exhaustive analysis, the Ben Ish Hai concludes that bicycle riding is permitted on Shabbat, and he therefore allowed riding bicycles in his city, Baghdad, which had an Erub.
Being the master of PILPUL that he is, Mansour already knows that he is going to forbid riding a bike on Shabbat, so the balance of the discussion will be similar to a mystery where we already know who did it, but do not know how they did it!
He then quotes his hero the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, but still does not get what he wants:
There is some confusion among many people regarding the position of Hacham Ovadia Yosef on this subject, and this edition of Daily Halacha seeks to clarify his stance and dispel misconceptions. In a responsum in his work Yabia Omer (vol. 10, Orah Haim 54:12), the Hacham cites a Halachic authority who claimed that bicycle riding is forbidden on Shabbat because it makes furrows in the ground, violating the Shabbat prohibition of plowing. Hacham Ovadia dismisses this rationale, noting that making grooves would be, at most, a Rabbinic prohibition, and in a situation where one has no intention whatsoever to make these grooves, and has no interest at all in doing so, it would be permissible. Even in a situation where the grooves would inevitably result from riding, it would still be allowed. Hacham Ovadia then cites a different argument advanced to forbid bicycle riding on Shabbat, namely, the concern that something might break and one would then be tempted to fix the bicycle on Shabbat, in violation of Halacha. However, Hacham Ovadia dismisses this reason, as well, noting that we are not authorized to enact safeguards that were not established by Hazal. If this were a reason to forbid bicycle riding, then we would not stop there, and we would forbid wearing eyeglasses in case they break, and forbid wearing shoes in case the lace tears. He thus concludes that this concern is not grounds to forbid bicycle riding on Shabbat.
There is already a hint here that he will be ruling against bike-riding as he quotes from Rabbi Yosef’s responsum which appears to permit it, but we are strongly warned against having any “misconceptions” in the matter.
This becomes clear in the following paragraph:
One who reads this responsum may, indeed, have the impression that Hacham Ovadia permits bicycle riding on Shabbat as a practical matter. However, before reaching this conclusion, we must consider his comments on the subject in other contexts.
Mansour is the inverse of the classic Sephardic legal decisor: Where our rabbis went to great lengths to find ways to accommodate Modern trends, Mansour and his generation of Ashkenazified Sephardim go to great lengths to find ways to create as many obstacles and prohibitions for the community as they can.
He then brings in the late rabbi’s son as witness:
And lest one contend that the Hacham’s intent was merely to advise against bicycle riding on Shabbat as a measure of stringency, as opposed to strict Halacha, the question was posed to his son, Rabbi Abraham Yosef, as to what his father’s position is. Rabbi Abraham answered in no uncertain terms that Hacham Ovadia forbids bicycle riding on Shabbat, and he referred to the aforementioned responsum as the source.
But here is the “money shot” of the discussion which gives away the game and shows us just how pusillanimous and subservient Mansour is to the Ashkenazim and their radical “consensus”:
It is worthwhile to
mention that both Hacham Ovadia and Rav Eliezer Waldenberg (1915-2006), in his
Sitz Eliezer (vol. 7, Siman 30), cite a passage from the work She’elat Yaakob
that establishes in the strongest of terms that bicycle riding is forbidden on
Shabbat (listen to audio recording for precise citation). The author writes
that no serious Halachic scholar would ever imagine permitting bicycle riding
on Shabbat, adding a prayer that anyone who does so should perform Teshuba. Of
course, the Ben Ish Hai was a towering Sage equal in stature to all other
Rabbis combined, and certainly nobody would question his credentials as a
Halachic authority. Clearly, however, the consensus of Halachic authorities
does not follow his ruling on this subject.
We should also note that the Ben Ish Hai issued his ruling for the Jewish
community of Baghdad, where it was customary to ride bicycles
on Shabbat. It is questionable whether the Ben Ish Hai would apply his ruling
in our circumstances nowadays, when we live among Ashkenazic Jews who does not
allow bicycle riding on Shabbat. Riding bicycles in our neighborhood would
likely offend the sensitivities of our Ashkenazic neighbors, and it is possible
that even the Ben Ish Hai would not permit bicycle riding under such
circumstances. Indeed, it is told that a Rabbi named Rabbi Sassoon, who lived
in England, followed the Ben Ish Hai’s ruling, but he did not allow his
children to ride their bicycles in the yard even though there was an Eruv,
because their neighbors were Ashkenazim, and he did not wish to offend
them.
A careful reader will note the brief mention of a “Rabbi Sassoon” – apparently Rabbi Suleiman Sassoon, who is known in the Brooklyn Syrian Jewish community as the teacher of Mansour’s nemesis Rabbi Moshe Shamah. Rabbi Shamah is well-known for permitting bike-riding on Shabbat, and Mansour’s ruling is directed against the Modern Orthodox sector of the community that permits the practice.
But more than this is the confluence between Ashkenazim and Sephardim that is determinative of the law. Mansour insists that there is now a “consensus” in the Ashkenazi community that Sephardim must not break.
In his words we must not “offend the sensitivities of our Ashkenazic neighbors” and, more than this, he then reverses in deeply offensive PILPUL fashion the original ruling of the revered Ben Ish Hai in early 20th century Baghdad, saying that if the great sage knew of the wondrous Ashkenazim of today he would never have permitted bike-riding in the first place.
Hocus pocus, presto change-o!
“Da’as Torah” is certainly alive and well.
The vicious attack on the Ben Ish Hai is clothed in the usual fake piety that feigns respect when in truth it seeks to delegitimize his authority and make light of his “Modern” views. Such was often the case with the rulings of Ovadia Yosef who frequently diverged from his predecessor’s rulings and their “Modern” spirit.
The final part of the article is truly hallucinatory:
Case in point, many
years ago I heard people saying that Hacham Yaakob Kassin ZT"L permitted
bicycle riding on Shabbat even in places without an Erub, because the bicycle
is considered an accessory, such that it is not being carried, just as one may
wear a tie and other garments. This rumor sounded strange, so I phoned the
Hacham and asked him to clarify his opinion. He assured me that he never issued
such a ruling and would never permit bicycle riding on Shabbat.
It hopefully goes without saying that we in no way intend to insult or offend
any individuals in the community. We do not judge and we respect each person’s
individual decisions. Our intention here is to clarify the position of Hacham
Ovadia Yosef on this matter, and to demonstrate that he unequivocally forbade
bicycle riding on Shabbat.
Having not made any substantial legal point as to why bike-riding is prohibited, relying completely on scuttlebutt and unproven assertions in his rejection of the Ben Ish Hai’s ruling, Mansour now deals with the common practice in Brooklyn and needs to figure out a way to reject it.
So he recounts a “rumor” that Rabbi Jacob Kassin permitted the common practice of the community, but reassures us that this was never the case. Looming behind all this is the unnamed figure of Hakham Matloub Abadi who was replaced as the primary legal authority of the community by Kassin who was elevated by the vile Isaac Shalom. Abadi’s disciples rode bikes on Shabbat. And while it is true that Rabbi Abadi never wrote a specific legal responsum in this case, it is widely known that he approved of the practice. So his name is left out of the article and Rabbi Kassin’s legally unsubstantiated view is prominently featured.
After reading Mansour’s presentation we see no formal legal argument presented; rather, we get unproven assertions from rabbinical authorities which do not provide the standard legal reasoning based on the 39 categories of work that are prohibited on Shabbat. He never tells us which of these 39 categories are applicable to the case of bike-riding.
It is a classic example of PILPUL which begins with an unquestioned prohibition based on Ashkenazi practice which is seen as inviolable.
It is worthwhile to end our discussion with the idea that Mansour sees Ashkenazi practice as inviolable, but not Sephardi practice. We must follow them, but they do not have to follow us. It is something that we have seen repeatedly when dealing with self-hating Sephardim from all sides of the political spectrum.
Ashkenazi Haredim indeed do not ride bikes on Shabbat, but Mansour does admit the Brooklyn Syrians have always done so. In his view it is only the Ashkenazi practice that it is to be respected; the Sephardi practice, because it is lenient and “Modern,” is to be rejected.
David Shasha