Jerusalem – Men residing in the charedi town of Kiryat Sefer have been prohibited by local rabbis from using electric razors to remove their facial hair.
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Ynet News reports (http://bit.ly/OqPmMx) that the use of electric razors has been banned because the device pulls the facial hair out by the roots, in violation of halacha. The rabbis have ordered that a refund be given to any customer who purchased a “non-kosher” electric razor from a store which chose to sell the razors despite the ban.
Local barbershops have received a list of prohibited haircuts, and the town court has ordered all barbers to review the Jewish laws relating to shaving. The rabbis indicated that only barbers who are deemed knowledgeable about the Jewish laws of shaving will be certified as “kosher.”
I remember when the Litvishe world and myself too used to shave. There was one shaver that was permitted because it was liken to scissors whilst the other were liken to razors. Don’t remember which it was though, forty years ago is a long time ago.
They’re not concerned with spousal abuse, but they worry about hair styles? Is this a joke?
what took so long?
Old news…The issur on shavers using Lift-and-Cut technology is at least 20 years old. The problem is solved by removing the lifters, according to knowledgeable poskim in the New York area. Personally, I don’t understand why the rabbonim of Kiryat Sefer chose to order all the residents to look like members of the Taliban when a relatively easy, halachically acceptable solution is at hand.
This must surely qualify as the chumra of the year.
And what will stop anyone from going out of kiryat Sefer to get a shave and a haircut ? Will they be put in cheirim?One more reason that we would never move to a place like this. There are chumras after chumras after chumras. When will it stop already? Pretty soon it will choke us all and slap us in the face. Dayeinu. Focus on teaching people to be mentchlechtik, to say please and thank you and excuse me. Teach people to hold the door for someone behind them even though(oh my gosh) it might be a woman! An my great great grandfather was fond of saying that there was once a yunger man who asked his rav if he should grow his beard as it was very sparse due to an illness. The rav said, Reb yid, after 120 Gut will not ask, Yid where is your beard, He will ask, Beard where is your Yid?
Why only Kiryat-Sefer?
Whichever razors are permissible, are good for everybody (Jewish), and the the prohibited ones are bad for everybody across the globe.
Frum Jews everywhere are usually informed of which brands are OK.
The scary thing about using the wrong shaver is that with every single shave the man is violating 5 “Lavs” (prohibitions) which technically makes him liable for 5 times “Maalkos” (lashes) before breakfast!
And only an ignoramus or a fool thinks that just because the Sanhedrin isn’t functioning these days Hashem let’s violators “get away with it”…
Ok lemee add to the list of stuff I’m NOT allowed to have (with in a few years I’ll have a book of stuff I’m not allowed to have and a paper of what I’m allowed to have)
so now barbers need a a farher and hechsher — when will it stop?
Rav Moshe,
We miss you!
True yeridus hadoros as contemporary rabbonim throw past decisions out the window and introduce a chasidic shulchan orech to the sheep that follow. By the way sheep, I shave every day and no shaver I have ever used pulls out hair by the root, but facts don’t matter when it comes to bring Chareidi.
It is NOT pulling the hair out by the roots that is ossur. It is pulling the hair UP THROUGH THE SCREEN so that the blades shave the hair directly against the skin like a razor.
Nonsense. Can these rabbis tell apart an electric shaver from an epilator that does rip out hair as designed for women to use on legs? If your electric shaver is ripping hair out by the root, it’s time to get a new shaver. All electric shavers are designed to give closer, cleaner cut with minimum irritation of razors, not wax your face.
These rabbonim don’t care about the piskei halachah of R Moshe or the overall acceptance of shaving by the chasam sofer. They don’t care about the fact that many fine litvish, Oberland, and Yekkish yidden shaved. They don’t care about many serious bnai torah who have compiled lists of acceptable shavers and ways of adjusting others. They just want a completely bearded town.
So now, playing their games some fine Jews will surrender and grow a beard. But what’s about the yichus problem of the older generation’s photos. Photoshopping a hat or changing a shirt color is easy. Beards are harder. The kinderlach will notice if the hair color changes over time are inconsistent. Guys either this is a brilliant campaign the get work for someone’s nephew who just learned photoshop or an exceptionally stupid new prohibition.
Es iz shver tzu zein a yid, especially with such rabbonim.
BH we have reliable poskim in the USA who have paskened that the lift n cut is muttar.
I’ve been to Kiryat Sefer – it’s a very holy community, but very insular.
While Reb Moshe Zatzal permitted it, the vast majority of Poskim in Eretz Yisroel prohibited electric shavers(Rabbis Vozner, Shach, Kaniyevsky, SZ Auerbach, etc.).
For Bnei Eretz Yisroel it’s not some far-fetched Chumrah.
I personally heard from Rav Moshe Tendler that he asked his father in law R” Moshe about these shavers as a number of merchants on the lower East Side brought these shavers to him – and the Psak was that the hair was being cut via a scissor action as the blade cuts the hair as it is being held up through the screen, as opposed to a single blade pulling the hair out of its root.
If an electric razor destroyed hair follicles I wouldn’t need to shave after more than twenty years of using one. Heck, even a regular razor doesn’t do that unless you actually shave off the dermis which would leave your face as one horrible wound.
But I suppose the Kosher Nostra has to come up with new ways of extorting money.
A proof that Lift and Cut is ok is because the gemara says misparayim k’ein taar is ok. (Scissors which works as well as razor blade is ok.) Now if there was a problem with L&C because it cuts below skin level, gemara should have said Bameh devarim amurim, kshelo mashach bsaaro, aval mashach bsaaro asur. I.e., if the lifting action of L&C was a problem, then while using a regular scissors, one would not be allowed to pull the hair tight with one hand, and snip with scissors using the other hand, since result may be below skin level. Since gemara makes no mention that pulling taut is a problem, it is clear that it is the instrument, not the result or length of hair, that is the determinant. A shaver cuts like a scissors, using the stationary blade (i.e. the screen) to immobilize the hair, while top blade shears off. A razor blade uses the skin to immobilize the hair, while the blade shears it off.
It is sad indeed, that despite Kiriat Sefer having pretty much the worst teenage dropout problem of any of the major chareidi towns in Eretz Yisroel, they find the time and energy to meddle in this type of stuff.
When will we stop this nonsence and comabt the real issues facing us yidden? Such as mixed dancing
This brilliant rabbonishe mind does not know physiology once the root is eliminated the growth of hair is eliminated
How will one know who shaves and who doesn’t? Aren’t we supposed to where the chareidi glasses?
Number 4 a beard is a Yiddishe Zach since time immemorial. It is very sad you are so ignorant you see it as belonging to the yishmaelim. What you mean is ‘looking Jewish’
Face it, folks! Yiddishkeit is about sacrificing for Hashem, not about living according to a limited set of laws set out in some ancient book. The guiding principle is that everything is assur unless a gadol haDor specifically matirs it. And no one can be a Gadol without an untrimmed beard, very short hair and a very long jacket. It’s a plus if he doesn’t admit to knowing English or Ivrit. Remember to ask a shailah before you read this (or any other) post!
I can’t see what is new about this psak (or takono) of the rabbonim of Kiryas Seifer. The ossur of “lift and cut” goes back at least as far as I can remember, to the late 1980s, and I am sure even earlier: when did first “lift and shave” Norelco-Phillipses come out? I am afraid I was too young to know.
And it’s NOT, like some uninformed posters here stated, because it pulls hairs by the root – pulling hairs by the root is mutar! although somewhat painful. It is clearly because the hair is pulled, and in turn pulls the skin, to where this hair will be shaved off by the cutter at or even below the skin level (hence Rav Schwab’s opinion is indisputably the one of the chochom, but yohid).
Back then in early 1990s, I knew about some “old-fashioned” electric shavers that did not lift hairs and were thus mutar, but they were quickly disappearing from the market. I also learned how to modify certain models of the Norelco Phillips to make them mutar (it’s very easy). And, when it is bmaaseh to my sons, I will look into this again.
But back to my first question: what is new about any of it? And why was it necessary to make new takonos? Thanks.
This is not new news. In Nisan of 5768, the greatest poskim and roshei yeshiva of our generation issued a Psak Din that all shaving machines which leave the face smooth are halachically equivalent to a razor (not because the uproot the hair, but rather) because they do not leave over any hair. The Psak Din cites that this was the opinion of the Chofetz Chaim (in whose time shaving machines were invented), the Chazon Ish, the Steipler Gaon, Rav Schach, etc. The Psak Din was signed by 34 poskim and roshei yeshiva, including Rav Elyashiv zt’l (who wrote that today’s electric shavers are much more severe than the hand machines prohibited by the Chofetz Chaim), Rav Noson Tzvi Finkel zt’l, Rav Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz zt’l, Rav Aharon Leib Steinman shlita, Rav Shmuel Halevi Wosner shlita (who attested that this was the opinion of the Chazon Ish), Rav Nisan Karelitz shlita, Rav Chaim Kanievsky shlita, Rav Shmuel Auerbach shlita (Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach zt’l wrote that all close cutting shavers are an “issur chomer”).
For an English translation of the Psak Din see http://koshershaver.info/pdf/Kol_Koreh_(English)2.pdf or see KTAV’s “The Beard in Jewish Law”.
Regarding numerous comments concerning the opinion of Rav Moshe Feinstein zt’l, see the halachic ruling of his son, Horav Dovid Feinstein, Shlita, quoted in The Laws of Pesach: A Digest (Rav Blumenkrantz zt’l), 5771 edition, pg. 421:
“There is no widely available shaver that can be purchased and used as is”
See also Meged Givos Olam (vol. I pg. 96) where Rav Michel Shurkin, wrote that Rav Moshe Feinstein zt’l intentionally never published a teshuva in Igros Moshe permitting electric shavers, because Rav Moshe Feinstein zt’l held that the “tzura” (traditional, proper appearance) of a Jew is only with a beard.
But there is a published teshuva regarding this issue from Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky zt’l . In his sefer Emes L’Yaakov on Shulchan Aruch (Y.D. 181) Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky zt’l wrote that there is no “mesorah” from the rabbonim in America that can be relied upon to permit the use of electric shavers. To quote Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky zt’l: “Regarding [the prohibition of using] machines for shaving [the beard], this is not just a chumra [halachic strictness] but a substantive [halachic] issue…in fact, I do not know whether the great Torah authorities (Gedolim) of America [ever] explicitly permitted them; it is possible that they kept silent because no one asked them [their opinion], and they avoided the issue, knowing that their words would not be heeded…it is difficult to rely on [any] tradition [to be lenient].”
If I can add one more point to the previous. (Sorry for belaboring.)
Let’s assume for arguments sake that if one created a scissors as before, which is super thin and super sharp, and that if one pulled the hair very tight such that it may cut below skin level, that the halacha would be that it is asur. It would of course then follow that L&C which does the same thing is also asur.
However, were such a scissors to be asur, I contend that Chazal would have been gozer on all scissors, since where do you draw the line, and if one inadvertently used a scissors that was too sharp, or pulled hair too tight he would violate 5 lavin! How could chazal have taken such a chance? It is like yomru kol haserikin asurin vserikei baytus mutarin, or gezeira haalaah atu achilah, or basar oaf mishum basar beheima, or any of the thousands of other cases where a person can make a mistake, and chazal forbid a permissible act or item. If one can confuse basar oaf with basar beheima, how much more so could one confuse a regular scissors with a too sharp model, or light hair-pulling with too taut pulling.
Ella mai, all scissors across the board are permissible. Since the Lift and Cut is merely a sharp scissors (works via two blades, i.e. cutter and screen), it follows that it too is permissible.