It's Nittel Nacht; Let's Tear Toilet Paper!

JustHavingFun

Mon, Dec 24 2018, 10:13 pm

'Tis that time of the year! Who here has heard of the activity of tearing toilet paper for the year on the night before the red & green holiday?

Do you have any anecdotes of your family doing so?
Any other ways of "celebrating" the day off work? I used go to a movie and have Chinese food like tons of American Jews!

amother

Apricot

Mon, Dec 24 2018, 10:24 pm

Never heard of this. Sounds odd. What is the reason/source?

dankbar

Mon, Dec 24 2018, 10:29 pm

Seems like a just a time filler because you can't learn Torah. Practical to use on shabbos when you can't tear

Sunny Days

Mon, Dec 24 2018, 11:08 pm

Not everyone 'celebrates' nittel today.
never heard about the toilet paper tearing! sounds fun!
it can be done in a game like spider web!
Can we play spider web here??
name the poster who _____ & throw the toilet paper (yarn) to her (a pm) and so on?

amother

Apricot

Mon, Dec 24 2018, 11:11 pm

dankbar wrote:

Seems like a just a time filler because you can't learn Torah. Practical to use on shabbos when you can't tear

The op sounds like she is talking about women, not men. Are the ladies in her life generally learning torah every night?

Sunny Days

Mon, Dec 24 2018, 11:14 pm

The way I celebrated every single legal holiday was by organizing my home or stocking my freezer. nowadays I don't get off legal holidays so it's a little more tricky to get these things done...
Presidents week was the best. we got 2 or 3 days off & depending on the hebrew calendar I would either get a major head start on pesach cleaning or focus on getting purim ready.

dankbar

Mon, Dec 24 2018, 11:39 pm

Are playing the game here?

studying_torah

Mon, Dec 24 2018, 11:43 pm

I thought nittel was January 6th or 7th?

amother

Babyblue

Mon, Dec 24 2018, 11:49 pm

Why can't the men learn tonight? Our yeshiva still had night seder...I'm confused.

amother

Hotpink

Mon, Dec 24 2018, 11:54 pm

I didn’t know people still observed this! LOL

Edited to add: I didn’t mean to offend anyone. I’m not laughing at anyone for doing it- I’m pleasantly surprised it still occurs and feel silly for not knowing that! Hence the laugh. No harm meant.

amother

Papaya

Mon, Dec 24 2018, 11:57 pm

amother wrote:

I didn’t know people still observed this! LOL

Chabad does. (Its not nice to laugh at other people's traditions).

amother

Teal

Mon, Dec 24 2018, 11:59 pm

Different communities and kehillos celebrate Nittel on different days.

amother

Hotpink

Mon, Dec 24 2018, 11:59 pm

amother wrote:

Chabad does. (Its not nice to laugh at other people's traditions).

I was laughing at myself, for not knowing this was a modern day custom

DrMom

Tue, Dec 25 2018, 1:40 am

dankbar wrote:

Seems like a just a time filler because you can't learn Torah. Practical to use on shabbos when you can't tear

We learn Torah just as we would on any other day. It's a Xtian holioday, nothing to do with us. It's not 9 Av.

Iymnok

Tue, Dec 25 2018, 1:48 am

As we were going to bed, Dh asked if I wanted to play chess, "it’s nittel, it’s the minhag!"

JustHavingFun

Tue, Dec 25 2018, 2:49 am

I saw this on the Ben Olam Haba (ben@halachafortoday.com) email dated 20 December 2018, a question from a reader.

The practice does not appear to be limited to women (as someone commented above).

Reader's Question:

Have any recent poskim commented on the customs of Nittel Nacht (the custom of not learning Torah on the Christian holiday of Xmas)? If most Jews in fact observed this custom, and no Torah was studied for part or all of the night, couldn't this put the entire universe in jeopardy, since without a moment of Torah study the world would disappear?

Answer:

There is much debate about this minhag and many Poskim reject it, but it clearly has many sources in the Poskim who do indeed rule this way, most relating to the danger in days of old of Jews being seen in the streets that night or even having a candle lit in their homes, thus resulting in no learning that night. Another reason, cited in the name of Rav Nosson Adler Zatzal, the Chasam Sofer's Rebbi, is that this night was established as a time of mourning for all the persecutions of the Jewish nation due to the birth being celebrated on this day by the Christians, and thus just as on Tisha B'Av it is forbidden to learn, so to this night. See Sefer Nitei Gavriel Page 388 footnote 4. See also Ta'amei Haminhagim page 500 for other reasons.

Though those who follow the teachings of Chasidus follow this, it is rejected by Lithuanian Jewry, Sephardic Jewry and basically all others. The Chazon Ish was against it and virtually all Yeshivos today maintain regular learning on this day. See Shu"t Teshuvos V'Hanhagos Vol. 1 Siman 551 and Shu"t Yabia Omer Vol. 7, Yoreh Deah Siman 20 for more. See also Orchos Rabbeinu, from the Steipler, Vol. 1 page 193

Regarding your second question, being that it isn't the same date and time in all parts of the world, and given that many people don't have this custom or lived in parts of the world where there was no threat, learning Torah was never brought to a total halt. If it ever halted, the world would indeed cease to exist. (Many Tzadikim indeed would be careful to learn Torah at times when most of the world was busy with other things, such as on Purim, Motzei Yom Kippur and other such times).

***

A reader submitted the following:

the Nitei Gavriel records a story about one of the previous Belzer rebbes ztz'l who was asked this same question by a priest(!)

The rebbe responded by saying "minhag yisroel Torah hee". That observing minhagim is like Learning Torah, and this night the world is able to exist Due to the fact that the Jews are NOT learning, thereby observing the minhag.

mo5

Tue, Dec 25 2018, 8:32 am

studying_torah wrote:

I thought nittel was January 6th or 7th?

Depends where people live. That’s when the Eastern Orthodox celebrate

amother

Rose

Tue, Dec 25 2018, 8:35 am

OP was probably referring to an old 'custom'. Before toilet paper was readily available, many men and bachurim, who were unable to learn on nittel, would cut toilet paper for the year in that spare time. A war survivor actually mentioned this to DS yesterday. He said they would cut up old newspapers for this purpose.

Orchid

Tue, Dec 25 2018, 8:49 am

Isn't this where we usually have a thread about no having relations on that night and other imamothers sputter in protest that they have never ever heard of such a thing and whyever would the 2 be linked and it turns out it's a chassidishe minhag which explains why half the imamothers heard of it and not the other half? Or should I just read up old threads? That's usually how I spend my xmas.

amother

Seafoam

Tue, Dec 25 2018, 8:53 am

We play chess and teach the boys how to see buttons. We save all the shirts missing buttons for nittel nacht.