I write in response to the tendentious advertisement on page 4 of your July 27, 2023 issue headlined with the rhetorical question: “Is ANY Shaving Machine Kosher?” The ad does not leave the reader in suspense as it immediately quotes a “CLEAR HALACHIC RULING” of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, zt”l, that the Chazon Ish prohibited EVERY [shaving] machine and quotes further that “ALL the gedolim of our generation” ruled similarly. Lastly, the ad touts (in Hebrew) a massive 1,227 sefer by Rabbi Moshe Nissan Wiener which “brings, clarifies and sheds white light on all the relevant opinions” (and presumably agrees with the “take no hostages” approach of the ad about the absolute (and unanimous) prohibition to use a “shaving machine.”

The advertisement may be offensive to many male readers who shave with electric razors based on rabbinic rulings of people whom Rabbi Kanievsky, zt”l, (as quoted) could not have regarded as gedolim of our generation but whose halachic advice is followed by those readers. Its claim that there is no such thing as a kosher shaving machine flies in the face of articles by rabbinic authorities which have appeared only in the last few months in The Jewish Link.

I have not invested time or money in “Hadras Ponim Zaken,” but I am sure that if one needs 1,227 pages to deal with such an obvious violation of Halacha, it is quite likely that there are chinks in the armor here—and perhaps, as we could have deduced from reading The Jewish Link earlier this year, the real question may be: Is any shaving machine NOT kosher?

I would like to throw my own monkey wrench into this thicket. In a series of teshuvos (Mahadura Tinyana, Orach Chaim 99-101), the Noda Biyehuda (who otherwise earns the sobriquet of a gadol) begrudgingly permits shaving with a razor on Chol Hamoed in the “foreign lands where, in our great sins, they destroy the beard.” The Noda Biyehuda does not explain clearly why it is halachically preferable to permit someone who shaves with a razor year-round to shave his stubble of a few days with a razor on Chol Hamoed rather than refrain from shaving then (in fact, in another teshuva, Mahadura Tinyana Yoreh Deah 80, he refuses to accept the suggestion that shaving with a razor is acceptable). If someone eats non-kosher meat year round and is willing to refrain from doing so on Chol Hamoed, the Noda Biyehuda would certainly not have encouraged the transgressor to continue doing so on Chol Hamoed. Why did he treat shaving differently than eating non-kosher meat?

The Chasam Sofer in his teshuvos (Orach Chaim 154), while rejecting the Noda Biyehuda on other grounds, explains the rationale of the Noda Biyehuda. In order to violate the Torah’s prohibition of destroying one’s beard with a razor, one of the elements of the crime is that there be a “beard.” The definition of halachically recognizable grown hair which is subject to the prohibition of beard destruction (without regard to the definition of the device used) is a complicated halachic issue based on various definitions of a Mishna in Niddah and rishonim and achronim who interpret it. But, putting aside the nuances, if stubble of a few days does not reach the threshold of halachically cognizable hair growth (whatever that threshold is), then use of a razor to remove that growth, would not be a prohibited act.

By this rationale, says the Chasam Sofer, it would be better to allow someone who uses a razor year-round to remove stubble below the threshold on Chol Hamoed than it would be to allow that stubble to grow uncut on Chol Hamoed and to thereby cross the threshold after a chag of eight or nine days since, after such a long period of growth, it would violate the Torah for that grown-in beard to be removed by razor.

So, gentlemen, I suggest with my tongue in my machine-shaven cheek: Perhaps if no shaving machine is kosher it would be better to follow the ruling of the Gadol of Yampol and Prague (the Noda Biyehuda) and remove our stubble (early and often) with a razor.

Aaron Friedman
Teaneck