The halakhic question that arose in the karate course
The karate instructor required the trainee to bow at the beginning and end of the lesson, but is it permissible according to Halacha to bow to another besides Gd?
Rabbi Shai Tahan responds
Aryeh Zamir, in collaboration with Shuva Israel
24/01/2022
Monday, 24 January 2022, 09:59 Updated: 10:04
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According to Halacha, there is no prohibition on this.
Children practice karate (Photo: ShutterStock)
Many times, in our daily lives, halakhic questions and topical doubts float. Rabbi Shai Tahan, head of the Shaare Ezra Kollel and head of the Arazi Lebanon Teaching House, makes the laws accessible to us and answers questions asked in and out of the beit midrash. And today: Is it permissible to bow down?
Question:
My son started going to a karate course and I was surprised to see that the instructor required him to bow at the beginning and end of the lesson. Is it permissible according to Halacha to bow down after God?
ANSWER:
Your feeling is completely understandable because we are used to bowing only to the name and not to anyone else, but according to Halacha there is no prohibition in this, since bowing to the guide in a respectful way and not in receiving God, as our rabbis (Sanhedrin sa, b) demanded on the verse "Do not bow To them "(Exodus 20): For foreign work, the Torah forbade bowing, but you are allowed to bow to a person like you.
And indeed in ancient times, it was very common to bow to those who wanted to honor.
And we also found in the Torah in many places and such as in Jacob who bowed before Esau and my brother Joseph bowed before Joseph.
In another case, however, the course instructor is not a Jew and wears a necklace with a cross symbolizing foreign work around his neck - there is controversy as to whether it is permissible to bow to him even then.
Some wanted to learn to allow from the deed of our ancestor Abraham where it is said that he bowed to angels who seemed to him as foreign laborers working the dust of the earth, and while bowing to them their feet were dirty in the same dirt, and so we learned to bow to a man with foreign labor. D. C. Kana S.G.) aggravated not to bow down in the above case, and though some wanted to ease the cross that the Gentiles wear around their necks because it is given there only for beauty and not really worshiped it and according to the Rama (Judgment C. Kama, a): "The form of two and a half that is hung in the neck for remembrance is not called a photographer and is allowed," but since there are disagreements about it and foreign labor matters are very serious - it should be made worse to do so.
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