# Using the toilet on Shabbat
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 4, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697 "2008-12-04T17:20:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@BrandonR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrandonR)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/1 "2008-12-04T17:20:49Z")
Does using a toilet on the Shabbat result in any problems for orthodox Jews? I know that they’re supposed to pre-tear toilet paper to use on the Shabbat (:eek:) but does the act of flushing amount to “labor”? Just wondering…
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/2 "2008-12-04T17:37:14Z")
You’re a day early…
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### Author:  [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/3 "2008-12-04T18:16:04Z")
No, flushing a toilet causes no problems as long as it’s not an automatic flush toilet.
Why are people so agog over pretorn toilet paper? Most of the Orthodox Jews I know have a box of tissues in the bathroom for this very purpose, but I wouldn’t think that the tissue would be such an alien device.
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### Author:  [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/4 "2008-12-04T18:31:26Z")
Why is tearing paper prohibited?
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### Author:  [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/5 "2008-12-04T18:36:52Z")
> [@GilaB](#):
>
> Why are people so agog over pretorn toilet paper? Most of the Orthodox Jews I know have a box of tissues in the bathroom for this very purpose, but I wouldn’t think that the tissue would be such an alien device.
Because being forbidden to tear paper is really really weird.
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### Author:  [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/6 "2008-12-04T19:13:14Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#):
>
> Why is tearing paper prohibited?
The rules of the Sabbath about rest from ‘work’ do not define it in the sense of ‘strenuous labor.’ (I remember my Catholic neighbors, who very occasionally helped us out with issues on the Sabbath, being amused at the sight of my father shlepping dozens of folding chairs in our backyard on a hot Shabbos afternoon, setting up for a community lecture my parents were hosting.) Instead, work is defined as creative labor. In this sense, destructive tearing isn’t prohibited, and if I happened to tear a tissue with the force of my mighty nose while blowing it, that’s not a problem at all, since I haven’t created anything through my ripping. Tearing toilet paper, on the other hand, creates a useful item, a short length of toilet paper that I could then use to wipe.
I grant that on the surface it’s really weird, I’ve just found that people here tend to fixate a bit on the TP issue, above and beyond other issues that to me might seem odder from the outside. Search isn’t working for me right now, or I’d give examples.
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### Author:  [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/7 "2008-12-04T19:14:47Z")
That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
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### Author:  [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/8 "2008-12-04T19:31:21Z")
> [@GilaB](#):
>
> The rules of the Sabbath about rest from ‘work’ do not define it in the sense of ‘strenuous labor.’ (I remember my Catholic neighbors, who very occasionally helped us out with issues on the Sabbath, being amused at the sight of my father shlepping dozens of folding chairs in our backyard on a hot Shabbos afternoon, setting up for a community lecture my parents were hosting.) Instead, work is defined as creative labor. In this sense, destructive tearing isn’t prohibited, and if I happened to tear a tissue with the force of my mighty nose while blowing it, that’s not a problem at all, since I haven’t created anything through my ripping. Tearing toilet paper, on the other hand, creates a useful item, a short length of toilet paper that I could then use to wipe.
>
> I grant that on the surface it’s really weird, I’ve just found that people here tend to fixate a bit on the TP issue, above and beyond other issues that to me might seem odder from the outside. Search isn’t working for me right now, or I’d give examples.
Interesting, thanks. I don’t think it’s weird. It’s different from what I’m used to, but presumably I do a lot of things that other people might think weird.
This has piqued my curiousity, though, if you don’t mind my asking further questions. Would flushing be impermissible if the toilet had one of those devices that color the water?
Getting off the bathroom topics, is it permissible to make a sandwich? Or should one limit oneself to eating food that has already been prepared?
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### Author:  [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/9 "2008-12-04T19:42:36Z")
**Tom** , I’m not sure how complicated a discussion of Sabbath laws you want, so let’s just say that yes, I could make a sandwich on Shabbos as long as it didn’t involve cooking it (no grilled cheese!). On weeks when I’ve been very overloaded and haven’t had much time to cook before Shabbos, we’ve eaten more salads (an uncooked item that I can make on the Sabbath) than we might otherwise 🙂 There have been entire volumes written on the laws of cooking and food prep on Shabbos, as it’s a complicated topic.
The little things that put dye in your water actually run up against a prohibition against dyeing.
> [@MOIDALIZE](#):
>
> That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
I do think that’s taking us well away from GQ territory, don’t you?
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/10 "2008-12-04T19:49:57Z")
But isn’t making a sandwich as much creating a useful item as tearing off a square of toilet paper?
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### Author:  [@Wiltshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wiltshire)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/11 "2008-12-04T19:50:48Z")
> [@GilaB](#):
>
> and if I happened to tear a tissue with the force of my mighty nose while blowing it, that’s not a problem at all, since I haven’t created anything through my ripping.
Snot?
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/12 "2008-12-04T20:02:57Z")
> [@MOIDALIZE](#):
>
> That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
Is it any more stupid than believing in a virgin birth, or resurrection, or someone dying for everyone else’s sins?
And then there’s circumcision . . .
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### Author:  [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/13 "2008-12-04T20:03:10Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#):
>
> But isn’t making a sandwich as much creating a useful item as tearing off a square of toilet paper?
As I said, food prep is a separate area within Jewish law from other stuff, with somewhat more complicated rules; you can cut up food and it’s not considered tearing a new item into being in the way we’ve been talking about for toilet paper. Given that I can cut a loaf of bread or a tomato into slices without it being considered creating a new thing, a sandwich is a pile of previously existing items, arranged in a new pattern, while tearing toilet paper is making a new useful item (a short length of toilet paper) out of a much-less-useful item (an entire roll of toilet paper). Getting into the gradual developments of Jewish law that resulted in the difference between food and toilet paper is more technical than I can do off the top of my head, although perhaps **Chaim** or **Zev** do a better job than I.
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### Author:  [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/14 "2008-12-04T20:04:53Z")
FWIW, at my last job there was a Orthodox college intern who claimed that he could not flush the toilet on the Sabbath. He said he had “trained” his dorm roommate to go in and flush for him afterwards. When I asked the other 4 Orthodox Jews who worked there, they all claimed he was crazy. Of course, this was also the kid whose father told him to wear a baseball cap over his yamulke while at college so he couldn’t be identified & targeted as a Jew. He went to Columbia University. In Manhattan. Quite a hotbed of anti-Semitism.
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### Author:  [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/15 "2008-12-04T20:05:23Z")
I wrote a Staff Report on the subject of Sabbath about a year and a half ago, but I am sadly unable to find it in the archives.
In a nutshell, **Indistinguishable** , making a sandwich (without cooking, as **GilaB** gave the example of grilled cheese) is not effecting permanent change in the items involved. They could be unassembled with relative ease. I should also add, before a deluge of questions on the subject follows (e.g., slicing salami, mashing eggs into egg salad) that the laws of food preparation tend to be complex, there are fine distinctions to be made in regards to activities that might seem at first glance to be similar in nature. Most things done to food that merely change the shape or size of it, especially for immediate consumption, are permitted. Slicing bread from a loaf or salami from a bullet is permitted, even though ripping toilet paper from a roll is not, because food and non-food are of different natures in a detailed analysis of the laws of Sabbath work.
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### Author:  [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/16 "2008-12-04T20:08:32Z")
> [@GilaB](#):
>
> The rules of the Sabbath about rest from ‘work’ do not define it in the sense of ‘strenuous labor.’ (I remember my Catholic neighbors, who very occasionally helped us out with issues on the Sabbath, being amused at the sight of my father shlepping dozens of folding chairs in our backyard on a hot Shabbos afternoon, setting up for a community lecture my parents were hosting.) Instead, work is defined as creative labor. In this sense, destructive tearing isn’t prohibited, and if I happened to tear a tissue with the force of my mighty nose while blowing it, that’s not a problem at all, since I haven’t created anything through my ripping. Tearing toilet paper, on the other hand, creates a useful item, a short length of toilet paper that I could then use to wipe.
Can you squeeze tooth paste onto a brush? How about creating a lather with soap?
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### Author:  [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/17 "2008-12-04T20:23:49Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#):
>
> But isn’t making a sandwich as much creating a useful item as tearing off a square of toilet paper?
I have to learn to type faster. Between **GilaB** and **cmkeller** , they wrote everything that I already typed, but didn’t see it until preview. Oh well.
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### Author:  [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/18 "2008-12-04T20:27:40Z")
> [@treis](#):
>
> Can you squeeze tooth paste onto a brush? How about creating a lather with soap?
Toothpaste - no. It’s considered [smoothing](http://www.ou.org/chagim/shabbat/thirtynine.htm#38). I either use a liquid toothpaste (made in Israel and marketed to an observant population specifically for Shabbos use) or a wet toothbrush followed by mouthwash. Growing up, I wasn’t entirely clear on why a non-Sabbath-observant person would use mouthwash ever, since the only time I used it was as a toothpaste replacement.
Lather - Here we run into an issue that always seems to come up in these discussions, which is, in short, that there’s no Jewish Pope. Different rabbis have ruled differently on the issue, meaning that while my rabbi says it’s fine to make a lather out of soap, I know there are those who say it’s not OK. (IIRC, they classify it as a kind of building.)
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/19 "2008-12-04T20:28:42Z")
Is it permissible to pre-tear the toilet paper into segments, prior to the sabbath?
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2008, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-the-toilet-on-shabbat/475697/20 "2008-12-04T20:29:13Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#):
>
> FWIW, at my last job there was a Orthodox college intern who claimed that he could not flush the toilet on the Sabbath. He said he had “trained” his dorm roommate to go in and flush for him afterwards. When I asked the other 4 Orthodox Jews who worked there, they all claimed he was crazy. Of course, this was also the kid whose father told him to wear a baseball cap over his yamulke while at college so he couldn’t be identified & targeted as a Jew. He went to Columbia University. In Manhattan. Quite a hotbed of anti-Semitism.
I thought that getting a non-Jew to do stuff you’re not allowed to do on the Sabbath for you was forbidden? That it’s not okay for an Orthodox Jew to get me to turn his oven on?
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