SPORTS ON SABBATH IN COMMUNITY CENTERS

QUESTION:

A controversy has arisen in our community as to whether the Jewish community center should or should not open its swimming pool on Saturday. It serves Jews and non-Jews who pay a fee and use its facilities. However, the board is entirely Jewish. At present the center is closed on Saturday. What is the standpoint of the Halacha on the question of sports and athletic recreation being allowed on the Sabbath? (Question from Rabbi Abner L. Bergman, Salt Lake City, Utah.)

ANSWER:

THE QUESTION asked here is a delicate one. It concerns the Jewish community center, which involves the religious mood and sensibilities of the entire community. The center constitutes an important unifying factor in the community, and a decision either way on the question asked is likely to offend one segment of the community or another and lead to divisiveness. If the facilities are opened on the Sabbath, then more Orthodox-minded members will be offended. If the facilities remain completely closed on the Sabbath, there may well be growing protests on the part of those who are not strict in their Sabbath observance. They will claim to be deprived of the facilities they are entitled to use on the day when they are, perhaps, free from business occupations. And besides that, there are Christian members who pay their dues and help maintain the institution, and their rights are to be considered also. For all these reasons the situation is delicate, and if the community is to remain united, it must be handled with great care.

Furthermore, the situation is complicated by the fact that the question is a difficult one from the Halachic point of view. Inasmuch as there is considerable disagreement on the question of these recreations on the Sabbath in the legal literature, perhaps the best thing, therefore, would be to indicate the various opinions in the Halacha, and thereby, perhaps, the community may be guided to a proper decision.

The question is asked here specifically about the swimming pool, as to whether it should be made available for use on the Sabbath. However, there are other and equally important questions implied. What about the handball courts, and the gymnasium for basketball? Should or should not these be made available?

Let us discuss first the stricter question of playing ball on the Sabbath. Basically, playing with a ball on the Sabbath and holidays is clearly forbidden. Joseph Caro, in the Shulchan Aruch, Orah Hayyim 308:45, definitely says it is forbidden to play ball on Sabbath and Yom Tov. But Isserles comments that many authorities permit it and that it is the established custom to permit it. The permissibility is based upon the state ment of the Tosfos in Beza 12a (near the bottom of the page), who speaks of the fact that it is an established custom to play ball on the holidays (by the way, he uses the word pelota for “ball,” the word which is still used for the “ball” in Jai Alai). The discussion there indicates that the basic question is the prohibition of carrying an object (in this case, the ball) from private to public premises on the Sabbath. If, for example, they were playing in a backyard and the ball were carried over into the street, this would be forbidden. Another objection, of course, is that the ball is played on soft ground, and a furrow or a hole might be created in the earth, which is forbidden on the Sabbath. It is, therefore, evident that if it is played in an enclosed court indoors and on a hard floor, there is no longer any objection to ball playing on the Sabbath. That is why Isserles says that the permissibility is by now an established custom.

Now as to swimming on the Sabbath, this seems to have a weaker basis for prohibition. First of all, of all the possible recreational and athletic sports, only swimming is, in general, recommended in the Talmud. In fact, teaching his son to swim is counted as one of the obligations of a father (b. Kiddushin 29a).

Nevertheless, the Mishnah specifically forbids swimming, together with dancing and horseback riding, on the holidays (and therefore all the more on the Sabbath; Mishnah Beza 5:2). The prohibition against swimming is analogous to the prohibition against dancing. Dancing was prohibited primarily as a caution against the danger of needing to repair the musical instrument if it happens to break. Repairing it is an act which is forbidden on the Sabbath. In an analogous fashion, the prohibition against swimming was incidental to the possible danger that water wings to buoy up a learner might be constructed on Sabbath and holidays (b. Beza 36b). (The phrase we have translated as “water wings” is chavis shel shayetin, literally, “the bottle for swimmers.”) However, just as dancing is now permitted by setting aside the possibility of needing to repair the musical instrument, so on that basis, too, the caution against the danger of making water wings may also be set aside. But with regard to swimming there are additional objections besides the above-mentioned cautionary one. If one swam in a river, he might splash water onto the land and also create a ridge of earth. That is why one of the Gaonim, in a responsum cited by Jacob Mann in Texts and Studies, Vol. I, p. 557, rebuked the people for swimming in the rivers of Babylon on Sabbath. However, if the swimming is done in a pool with a rim which allows the splashed water to fall back into the pool, there is no objection to it on the Sabbath. (Orah Hayyim 339:2).

It will be noticed that the general tendency of the law with regard to these recreational and athletic activities is to begin with strict prohibition, but then gradually to accept the lenient observances of the people. Perhaps the older strictness is a heritage that goes back to the Maccabean era, when athletic contests and gymnasia were characteristic of the pagan Greeks and were imitated by young Greek-loving Jewish aristocrats. It was against this Hellenism that the Maccabeans waged their battle. There is, therefore, to be found in the earlier lore a general dislike for all such sportive activities. Besides, they were deemed to be a distraction from the more serious duties of observing the Sabbath with spiritual benefits of study, etc. However, as has been stated, it is clear that the prohibitions gradually weakened, and by now it can no longer be said that it is prohibited to play ball on the Sabbath in an enclosed court, or to swim in an enclosed pool. These may still be objected to as frivolous on the Sabbath, but they cannot be prohibited as forbidden.

Because of all these variations in the mood of the law, the present problem must be approached cautiously. Finally, however, this must be said: if the community center does decide to open these facilities on the Sabbath, it cannot be justly accused of violating the traditional law.