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What shaver do you use?
After shave?
Do you shave at all?
Trim? What Number?
Women if you can understand this then I give up
I use a cordless shaver from the Blumenkranz list (from a few years ago). It has a weak battery, so I have to plug it in almost always to get a good shave. Otherwise it starts to pull instead of cut. Ouch!
BTW, women can use their own shavers.
I know there’s something called lift and cut. The joys of having brothers 🙂
gosh – we are mothers, wives, and sisters, you know –
anyway here’s a site that has all the info you need.
basically the recommended shaver is an ADAPTED norelco rotary lift and cut-remove lifts-see video on how you could do yourself or they have a list of people who can do it for you.
dunno
Stay out woman, stay out
Alright, alright. I’m leaving!
I don’t shave. Ever.
Charlie, you post like a clean-shaven man.
How bout you Pashuteh Yid?
^MONIS^
At any rate, the lift and cut issue is very complex. What I don’t understand is that the gemara says misparayim k’ein taar is ok on the beard. What are the potential problems with lift and cut, and shavers in general?
1) Very close
2) Very sharp
3) Lift and Cut supposedly may cut at skin level
1) As we know, the screen prevents blades in a normal shaver from getting directly at the skin. Therefore it is not mashchis according to the view of Rashi and many poskim, that as long as there is any distance to the root, it is OK.
2) The gemara does not give any shiur on how sharp a scissors can be. It should have said that if one sharpens the scissors too much, it is assur. But it does not. It says scissors are OK.
3) Lift and Cut supposedly pulls hair out of skin, and then cuts. Aftre it drops back, it is supposedly below skin level. Even if we accept the manufacturer’s hype which is probably not true to begin with, let us examine. Does the gemara say that if one pulls the hair out very hard, and cuts with a scissors that it is assur. (Bameh devorim amurim shelo mashach bsaar, aval mashach bsaar asur afilu bisparayim k’ein taar.) Since the gemara does not say this, it implies that I can pull hair as hard as I want, and still cut with scissors.)
The Rabbi Blumenkrantz book has a paragraph which I completely don’t understand regarding the action of a shaver. The gemara says that one should cut with a scissors so that the upper blade moves, while the lower blade is stationary. If he moves the lower blade, then it is equivalent to a razor making direct contact with skin. Rabbi Blumenkrantz seems to say that the upper part of a shaver is the screen, while the lower is the moving blades. However, clearly this does not seem to be the case. The part against the skin is always called the lower, while the part away from the skin is the upper. Since the screen is stationary, while the blades move, it is exactly analogous to a permitted scissors.
So PY does not understand the distinction between lift and cut and all others. Having read the sources on KosherShavers.Com it is not clear that it is asur. He says Reb Moshe was very reluctant to be matir. What does that mean? Was he matir or not?
As a friend once said, “I would grow a beard, but I don’t have the time.”
Note re shavers:
Lift and cut could be non-kosher ie cut too short. My roommate in yeshiva took a new shaver to a rav who tested it on the back of his hand and said its ok. But another bachur who purchased the identical shaver was told by the same rav that its not kosher. The rav said EACH SHAVERNEEDS TESTING SEPARATELY!!
charliehall – “I don’t shave. Ever.”
because……….?
Rav Yosef Sholom Elyashiv maintains that no one should shave, period, but on the flip side many say you can…it’s very confusing.
http://koshershaver.info/pdf/A-Burning-Question-(Elyashiv)1.pdf.pdf
PY: when the lift-and-cut pulls the hair up it pulls some skin with it, just try to pull a hair w/o skin. The concern is that the skin could be pulled high enough to make contact with the blade.
The concern with other shavers is that the screen today is so thin as to be halachically insignificant and the shave is close enough to be classified as hashchasa. I’m not agreeing with this second opinion, just explaining it.
PY: Rav Blumenkranz was concerned that the screen itself is sharp enough to cut, and it is the lower blade. This is NOT my experience.
Hello99, thanks for your thoughts. However, I don’t think skin can fit through the tiny openings in the screen. And if it did, it would probably bleed.
My son took his shaver apart and did something to all the shaving heads, cutting certain parts off. His Rov told him that this would make his shaver permissible for use. The lift and cut, ostensibly cuts the hair “below” the skin line, almost like plucking at the root. Since it potentially can destroy the root, that is not allwoed, or so I was told.
oomis1105-“destroying” the beard is not prohibited. For ex. you can use ON THE SKIN, acid to shave. This actually was (maybe still is ) used by many israeli yeshiva bochurim . “Mishi” was the brand name. only ‘destruction” by a knife is prohibited. I don’t know what your son did, but “lift and cut” does NOT reach the skin-otherwise, you would have lots of skin cuts and this does not happen. I am pretty sure that “lift and cut” is just a manufacturers hype to sell he shaver and maintain that it is as good a razor. i hesitate to tread upon delicate ground, but it would be easy for women to check whether such a razor is as good as a real razor.
So maybe the problem with lift and cut is that it will pluck the hair with the root.
“i hesitate to tread upon delicate ground, but it would be easy for women to check whether such a razor is as good as a real razor. “
In my experience, there is no electric shaver that comes close to a razor. I once borrowed my husband’s Lift and Cut and there was no way it compared.
The oilam is very involved in Shemiras Haloshon From the great Chofets Chaim and they totally forget about the sefer that he wrote that he asured shaving period he screamed cried but nobody cares
“oomis1105-“destroying” the beard is not prohibited. For ex. you can use ON THE SKIN, acid to shave. This actually was (maybe still is ) used by many israeli yeshiva bochurim . “Mishi” was the brand name. only ‘destruction” by a knife is prohibited. I don’t know what your son did, but “lift and cut” does NOT reach the skin-otherwise, you would have lots of skin cuts and this does not happen. “
ROB, I didn’t say destroy the “beard,” I said destroy the ROOT. Those are two different things. My son had a Norelco shaver, and his rebbie told him that it potentially can destroy the root of the beard, the way it is designed because it plucks the root, and that the action of cutting as this SPECIFIC shaver cuts, is one that is not permissible without modifying the shaver’s blades. Whether or not this is hal;achically so, I cannot say, but once the rebbie mentioned it to him, he followed his advice as to how to modify it.
“because……….? “
Why is it a shilah?
“Charlie, you post like a clean-shaven man. “
How so?
oomis1105- I fail to see the difference between the beard (hair) and the actual root. Where do you find such a difference mentioned? Clearly, shaving with a razor would be prohibited, yet the roots are no touched.
The prohibition is simple; you cannot cut your beard to the point of ‘destruction’ (in other words, close to the skin) with a knife. simple.
OK, this actually IS something perhaps women know better. If a woman plucks her eyebrows to shape them, the bulb end of the root under the skin comes out with the tweezer. Sometimes the hair never grows back after repeated plucking. That is because the root has been damaged and it dies. Thus there cannot be any hair growing from that root. The shaver that pushes the skin back and pulls at the hair before cutting it, can pluck at the hair, and works more like a straight razor/tweeezer combination, so it potentially can destroy the hair. As I said, this is how the specific shaver’s methodology was explained to my son by his rebbie in E”Y and then to me by my son.
edited
Charlie -I also envisioned you as clean-shaved. Now I envision you with a mid-length white beard squared.
I had a full beard until this past channukah. I used my old (pre beard) non-lift and cut blade shaver but it broke so I got a lift-and-cut. As per my rabbis instructions, I did not take the lifter off because there is no real issue.
full disclusure: My rabbi has a full, untrimmed beard.
What is interesting is that one is allowed to use a tweezers on the beard and pull out the hair and the root entirely. Melaket vRahitni are the terms used, I seem to recall. The reason is that that is not called shaving.
The issur is only when one shaves down to the root with a single blade. Let us think about it for a second. In order to cut, there has to be a back pressure keeping the hair still for the blade to work. If one uses a razor blade, the back pressure is supplied by the pores of the skin keeping the hair from moving backward while the blade cuts it. Therefore the cut is at skin level. When using a shaver, the back pressure is supplied by the screen which props the hair up so the blades can cut. It does not reach to the skin. That is why it is a scissors-like action which is OK.
I think the only problem is the rishonim who say that one does not need to go all the way to the root to be a problem. I do not remember. The sources are on koshershaver.com. I commend him for being intellectually honest and bringing the sources for both sides. One can really gain an understanding of the sugya if he reads the Hebrew footnotes on the bottom.
BTW, if anybody knows of a printed tshuvah from Reb Moshe, please post the source. It is not clear to me if it is by word of mouth, or written bfeirush. He certainly alludes to a heter in a printed tshuva about a sheitel, which I have mentioned elsewhere. He says that if one forbids a sheitel because it looks like hair, one would have to forbid a shaver, since one may think he shaved with a blade. But they are both OK.
One interesting source on koshershaver.com which I did not look into is that we know a Nazir must shave his head with a razor blade. He shows that if one used any other instrument, and even was able to get the hair just as short, he would still not fulfill the requirement. So one sees that a razor blade in halacha is the only device which is considered true giluach.
pashute Yid- If my memory serves me right- there is an “inyian” of “aseh doche lo saaseh” with a nozir, specifically if he has a “negah”. I do not remember whether the gemoro uses the same reasoning for the total shave (with a razor)as the “aseh” of shaving would supersede the “lav’ of not using a razor. If the gemoro does not use-or need- this reasoning then how can we extrapolate that shaving with a razor is what is forbidden? I’ll try to do the research later…
ROB, let me know what you find. I do not have the sources in front of me now.
oomis: there is no problem destroying (or plucking) the root of a beard hair unless it is done with a blade.
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