Required Eating on Yom Kippur?

The Kiddush in the Shul

On Yom Kippur morning of 1848, the shul in Vilna was filled with congregants dressed in white kittels, holding their machzorim, ready for a day of solemn prayer. At some point during davening, he ascended to the bimah. To the astonished mispallelim, he proceeded to recite kiddush! Rav Yisrael felt that it was so crucial for everyone to eat; therefore, this public display was necessary.

It is so astonishing that Rav Yisrael would abolish the fast of Yom Kippur wholesale, leaving some to question the story’s veracity. Moreover, some argue that certain facts simply don’t make sense.

For starters, the Magen Avraham (OC 618) rules that even a sick person does not recite kiddush on Yom Kippur. Chazal would never have enacted an obligation to recite kiddush if it could not be performed in the vast majority of circumstances. They would not have enacted an obligation of kiddush just for sick people. A counterargument, which historically checks out, is that in 1848, Yom Kippur fell on Shabbos. Rebbe Akiva Eiger, in his comments on Shulchan Aruch, suggests that when Yom Kippur coincides with Shabbos, there may be an obligation of kiddush. Obviously, for healthy people, kiddush would not be an obligation on that day. However, for those who are sick, it is different. The obligation of kiddush on Shabbos exists every week. Since they are eating on this Shabbos, which happens to coincide with Yom Kippur, the obligation would extend to this day as well.

Still, there is another major issue. To fulfill the obligation of kiddush, one must consume a requisite shiur. The accepted halacha is that if one is forced to eat on Yom Kippur, he should not consume a shiur that, if done without permission, would make him liable to kareis. Therefore, individuals who are infirm and need to eat on Yom Kippur consume less than a shiur of food every nine minutes. Even if Rav Yisrael Salanter ate on Yom Kippur, he would not have eaten a full shiur in the proper amount of time to fulfill the obligation of kiddush. Therefore, he would not have recited kiddush since, in any event, he would not have fulfilled his obligation.

Still, one can possibly counter this argument that the shiur to fulfill the obligation of kiddush and the shiur for eating on Yom Kippur are not the same. The shiur for kiddush is food the volume of an olive. The shiur for Yom Kippur is the volume of a plump date. Perhaps he ate enough to fulfill the obligation of kiddush but not sufficient to violate Yom Kippur more severely.

The main facts of the story are corroborated in many sources. The story is recorded in Tenuas HaMussar. Rav Moshe, zt”l, cites it in a teshuva. HaRav Yaakov Kamenetzky, zt”l, reported that he heard the story from HaRav Dovid Leibowitz, zt”l, who was a great-nephew of the Chofetz Chaim. Rav Dovid said he heard the story directly from the Chofetz Chaim. The Chofetz Chaim was a young boy davening in the shul in Vilna when the incident took place. Sadly, the Chofetz Chaim’s father would pass away on Simchas Torah of that year, another victim of the epidemic. Rav Yaakov said Rav Yisrael went up to the bimah with tea and cake. Therefore, it’s possible that Rav Yisrael did not actually recite kiddush, thereby answering the objections raised above. HaRav Nosson Kamenetzky theorized that when it was initially reported that Rav Yisrael made kiddush, it was a colloquial use of the term. He brought a small amount of food and drink up to the bimah.

Nevertheless, it is pretty extraordinary that Rebbe Yisrael permitted healthy individuals to break their fast. Some say there was more to the story. (HaRav Elyashiv said over this version in shiur.) Rav Yisrael instructed everyone to take an oath, forbidding themselves from consuming a date’s volume of food from right before Yom Kippur until after Yom Kippur. The Gemara implies that in this scenario, since consuming food on Yom Kippur would already be forbidden under pain of an oath, the Yom Kippur prohibition would not take effect. One prohibition cannot be layered on an identical prohibition that covers the same food for the same people. As explained above, consuming even less than the requisite shiur on Yom Kippur is still biblically forbidden. However, the Chiddushei HaRan states that the same logic cannot be applied to an oath. If someone utters an oath not to eat an olive’s worth of bread, he is permitted to eat half an olive’s worth. This ingenious solution, of making an oath before Yom Kippur, would allow one to eat half a shiur on Yom Kippur without violating a Torah precept! The Yom Kippur prohibition cannot take effect because there was already an existing prohibition of an oath. Moreover, one can eat less than a shiur of food that is prohibited by an oath. It is worth noting that some sages who were required to eat on Yom Kippur utilized this device.

Still, Rav Elyashiv warned that it cannot be used to permit healthy individuals to eat less than a shiur on Yom Kippur. After all, the Chiddushei HaRan retracted his position and concluded that the Rambam was right. (Ran on the Rif in Mesechta Shavuos.) The Rambam ruled that one is not allowed to eat half a shiur of food prohibited by an oath, the same way one may not consume half a shiur on Yom Kippur. Therefore, one would still violate a prohibition by eating less than a shiur. However, the technique is still beneficial because instead of violating a kareis prohibition under duress, one is only violating a negative precept under duress. Moreover, some opinions concur with the Chiddush HaRan’s view. Therefore, perhaps this technique strengthened Rebbe Yisrael’s position, allowing everyone to eat on Yom Kippur.

Rav Asher Weiss remarked that there is no need to question the story regarding whether Rave Yisrael would have permitted even healthy people to eat less than a shiur. This exact ruling is already found in the Teshuvos of the Chasam Sofer. Even if some details of the story are unclear, we have a clear ruling in this matter from the Chasam Sofer. True, that psak was and still is controversial, but it’s no longer surprising that a great gadol like Rav Yisrael would rule the same way as the Chasam Sofer.

Rav Nosson Kamenetzky further theorized that Rav Yisrael knew that sick people would only eat if the healthy people ate, too. Therefore, he decreed that everyone should eat, ensuring that the sick people who needed to break their fast under the principle of pikuach nefesh did so. He cited a halacha that if a dangerously ill person refuses to eat unless ten healthy people eat with him, they may all break their fast.

Please do not derive any halachic conclusions from this article. The purpose of this article is to engender discussion.