Featured Post
Free The Hostages! Bring Them Home!
(this is a featured post and will stay at the top for the foreseeable future.. scroll down for new posts) -------------------------------...
Dec 9, 2025
Interesting Psak: Fantasy Footbal coaches should not be witnesses
I have always been a fan and follower of various sports and teams, and when possible have also been pretty active in participaing in a variety of sports activities over the years... but I never got into the fatasy sports like Fantasy Football.. it just never interested me. I like sports but fantasy sports never seemed like being involved in sports.
And I guess it is a good thing. Until now I was not aware there was a halachic discussion about Fantasy Football and that it is such a big issue and debate in the frum community.
I just saw an article in JewishLink in which Rav Haim Jachter relates to some other articles on the issue and himself paskens that people who play Fantasy Football are not technically passul to be an eid, a witness, but such people should not be chosen lechatchila to be a witness.
Rav Jachter refers to recent public positions offered by Rav Yehuda Avner (probably not the aide to several Prime Ministers and auther) and Rav Rothwacs, so it seems to be a hot topic right now for whatever reason.
The issue is really about gambling and addiction, not fantasy football per se, but fantasy football is the manifestation of the gambling addiction that is currently under scrutiny in the frum community.
Rav Jachter refers to several poskim over the years that have taken strong positions against any form of gambling and the strong addiction that follows such involvement. You can read the articleif that interests you.
Besides for the psak of preferably not taking someone involved in Fantasy Football as a witness, the more interesting conclusion from the article to me is that sports is good clean fun, both competing in sports activities and also ffollowing sports and teams.
I am used to rabbis talking about sports, especially following sports while playing sports has the redeeming factor of health and fitness, as narishkeit, as something to keep the goyim busy and off the streets, as being a big waste of time. In this article he refers to Rav Avner who complains that novody just watches sports nowadays (I do) but people watching sports feel they need to place a bet on the game to make it mroe exciting... and then Rav Jachter himself wanes nostalgic about his growing up enjoying sports with his sister and father and not understanding how his mother did not and calls it a reasonable and often necessary outlet, a happy diversion, but then explains it should not become a sick obsession with people wasting lots of time on especially with fantasy sports that causes them to spend many housr watching games and keeping up with whats going on so they can construct their teams and whatnot...
so the psak is interesting, and the rabbinic nod to sports is refreshing
------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------
Labels:
interesting psak,
sports
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment