Q: Recently Chacham Ovadya said that it’s ossur to smoke. How could it be ossur if even big Gedolim from the last generation smoked?
A: There’s a Chacham Sefardi Reb Ovadya Yosef who issued a ban on smoking. All of a sudden, he said you shouldn’t smoke. Now people say, “Where does it say smoking is ossur? In my yeshiva, didn’t my rebbe smoke? When there was a chosson, they handed out cigarettes to everybody.”
The answer is, they didn’t see. They didn’t see how dangerous it was.
So you’ll ask, how could Hakodosh Boruch Hu allow such a thing, it could be dangerous and people didn’t see. So in the olden days, there was an excuse, שומר פתאים השם – Hashem protects the fools. Certain things you can’t expect. When people didn’t know and they said that certain things you should do according to what they thought was beneficial, so there’s an excuse there.
Let’s say King Louis the XIV when he was very sick, so they melted pearls and poured it down his throat. It helped to kill him. He could afford that expensive medicine. A poor man couldn’t afford such a medicine. He was a king, so they melted the pearls and poured it down his throat and that finished him off.
Now suppose in those days, a rich frum Jew would ask a question, “Should I take the melted pearl remedy?” “What do you say?” he would ask his chacham. And the chacham would say, “ורפא ירפא מכאן שנתנה רשות לרופא לרפא. He has permission. He has permission.” He’s not a malach. He tells you to do according to what he thinks is right. And therefore when a physician melted pearl and poured it down his throat, in those days it was a mitzvah. A mitzvah. In some cases, it was even mutar to melt them on Shabbos; it was pikuach nefesh. He’s mechalel Shabbos to make a fire and melt the pearls and pour it down his throat. Actually it’s not a healing at all. It could kill him. But according to the mitzvah that he thought he was doing, he’s mechuyev to do it. He’s mechuyev to do it. He has the duty to melt the pearls on Shabbos.
That’s good up til a certain time in history. But today anybody who does that is me’abed es atzmo, he’s taking his own life, because today we know it’s suicide to drink melted pearls. So the שומר פתאים השם doesn’t apply anymore.
So the Chacham Ovadya Yosef said, “Today you’re not pesa’im anymore. Everybody knows how dangerous it is to smoke.” And therefore he was able to see with his eyes of a chacham that it’s important to warn people against the danger of smoking. And therefore he saw what others don’t see.
