A wide-ranging halachic conversation on the laws of the Nine Days, touching on showering, music during workouts, and a pointed warning about the upcoming election season, has drawn attention after airing on Kikar HaShabbat's Davar Rishon program, in which host Moshe Manes interviewed Rabbi Yaakov Sinai.
Rabbi Sinai opened by addressing one of the most common points of confusion during the Nine Days, the period leading up to Tisha B'Av: whether bathing is permitted. He noted that according to the Gemara in Tractate Taanit, the prohibition on bathing applies strictly to Tisha B'Av itself, and that broader bathing restrictions during the surrounding days developed later as custom rather than Talmudic law. Sephardic practice, he explained, refrains from bathing only during the week in which Tisha B'Av falls, and even then the restriction applies only to hot water, with cold water bathing, including with soap, fully permitted since it is understood as removing sweat rather than for pleasure. Ashkenazi practice, following the Rema, is stricter, avoiding bathing from the start of the month of Av, including in cold water, with exceptions only for the face, hands and feet.
Rabbi Sinai then recounted a historical episode involving Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who once ruled on Israeli state radio that even Ashkenazim suffering severely from the heat, such as laborers or yeshiva students, could shower in cold water, since doing so was not for pleasure but simply to remove sweat. Shortly after the broadcast, Rabbi Sinai said, Rabbi Ovadia received a phone call at home from Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, the leading Ashkenazi halachic authority of his generation, who told him warmly that he was free to rule for Sephardim, but that Ashkenazim do not bathe during these days.
Rabbi Sinai said that over the years, modern conditions and Israel's heat led leading Ashkenazi poskin, including the author of Igrot Moshe and Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, to agree unanimously that when a person is sweating and uncomfortable, or after physical activity, Ashkenazim too may shower in cold or lukewarm water. He added a pointed line he attributed in spirit to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, saying that someone who is stringent on this point and refuses to shower when he smells unpleasant is, in Rabbi Sinai's words, acting improperly, since human dignity is significant and there is no room for stringency on this particular matter.
On the question of music, Rabbi Sinai addressed whether playing upbeat music during workouts, a common practice among observant athletes, is permitted during the Three Weeks. He drew a distinction between music intended for joy and dancing, which remains restricted, and music that serves another purpose entirely. He listed several permitted cases, including music played to keep a driver alert at night, music for someone suffering from depression or illness who needs encouragement, and music used during physical exercise for rhythm and motivation, which he said is fully permitted since it carries no intention of celebration.
Rabbi Sinai closed with a sharper message, addressing the rising social tension surrounding the draft protests and the start of the election season, which he warned opens a dangerous door to internal strife. He issued a forceful call against what he described as the disgraceful phenomenon of disparaging Torah scholars on social media and in the press. He cited the rabbinic teaching that Jerusalem was destroyed because its sages were demeaned, and said that during election seasons people convince themselves that anything goes, treating rabbis with contempt as though they do not understand what is happening or are being misled. He asked how ignorant a person would have to be to forfeit his entire share in the World to Come over politics.
