Oct 7, 2008

Interesting Psak: Rollerblades on Yom Kippur


The metro newspaper 24 Dakot today reported on a psak by Rav Weiss from Kfar Ha'Roeh. Kfar Ha'Roeh is a religious yishuv near Hadera and Rav Weiss is the rav of it and is also a popular rav for kashrus and many other things in the National Zionist community (or at least used to be - I have not kept up with him and his standing in recent years).

Yom Kippur has come to be known as the Day of Bicycles, because many of the non-religious people refrain from driving on YK, but they go out in droves riding bicycles. As a matter of fact, there was an item the other day in the paper about the increase in sales of bicycles for Yom Kippur.

Rav Weiss wrote a psak, that he sent to the religious council of the area, along with being hung in the local shul, in which he added rollerblades to the list of things that should not be done on YK. The article quotes him as writing,"It seems there must have been a sale on them recently, and [the kids] ride them near the shul. When the small children come with the bikes with training wheels, that is something else. But from the age of chinuch, 9 and up, we should expect our children not to ride and shabbos and holidays with these various "rollerim". Obviously, by us we do not ride bicycles on Yom Kippur, and better to also not ride with the rollerblades."

3 comments:

  1. Do you know what the issue is? I don't let my son wear rollerblades outdoors on shabbat because it just doesn't feel right. But I thought the main issue with a bicycle is an air-filled tire that may need to be fixed. That wouldn't apply to roller blades.
    Any insights?

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  3. I do not know any more than what I wrote. Personally it seems obviously wrong anyway and not shabbesdige at least. I guess other people dont mind letting their kids use them on shabbos...

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