A. What was forbidden, and why
It is a mitzvah to wash one’s clothes before the festival. By the letter of the law, it would have been permitted to launder on Chol HaMoed for the needs of the festival itself. Even so, the Sages forbade it. The reason: they were concerned that a person would rely on Chol HaMoed, put off the laundry, and enter the festival dirty.
This is exactly the reason for the prohibition of cutting hair on Chol HaMoed. A person is busy with preparations for the festival. If he knows he can get a haircut on Chol HaMoed, he will put it off, and enter the festival unkempt. So it was instituted that he cut his hair specifically before the festival.
An important point follows: the prohibition of laundering is not a “prohibition of labor” in itself. It is a preventive enactment. Its purpose is to secure one result: that a person enters the festival clean and dignified.
B. The proof: the prohibition is on effort, not on laundering
The Gemara reports in the name of Rabbi Yochanan that it is permitted to launder linen garments on Chol HaMoed. Rashi explains: with linen garments “the trouble is not great”: they do not involve much effort. This is how almost all the poskim rule.1
Here lies the proof. If the enactment forbade the act of laundering itself, why were linen garments permitted? They are laundered too! We must conclude that the enactment did not forbid “laundering” as an abstract concept. It forbade the effort. It is the effort that leads a person to put off the work and enter the festival dirty. Where there is no effort, as with linen garments, the concern does not exist. And where there is no concern, there is no prohibition.
This is the foundation of the whole discussion: the true definition of the enactment is effort, not laundering.
C. Further support: children’s clothes, and our clothes today
The clothes of babies and small children get dirty all the time. Even if they are washed before the festival, they will get dirty again. So it is permitted to wash them on Chol HaMoed in order to wear them during the festival. Here there is no “putting off work.” There is a need that recurs in any case.
Maimonides gave exactly this reason for permitting linen garments: they “always need washing.” Even if one washes them before the festival, one will need to wash them again during it. In other words, when the need to wash recurs frequently, washing in advance achieves nothing, and so there is no prohibition.
This is exactly our situation today. Everyone changes shirt and trousers almost every day. Our clothes need frequent washing, just like the clothes of a child who gets dirty every day. So there is clear ground to compare adults’ clothes today to small children’s clothes, and to linen garments according to Maimonides.
D. A second path: a decree does not apply to what did not exist
So far we have shown one thing: had the washing machine existed in the days of the Sages, they would probably not have forbidden it. The whole reason for the decree is effort, and here there is no effort.
And another argument, from a different, formal angle. A decree applies only to what its authors had before their eyes when they made it. An existing decree cannot be applied to a device that did not exist when it was decreed.
An example of this rule: glass vessels require immersion (tevilat kelim). The reason: they resemble metal vessels, which, if broken, can be melted down and remade. Yet many Acharonim wrote that plastic vessels are exempt from immersion, even though in their nature they resemble glass vessels. They did not examine the resemblance or compare reasons. Their reason is purely formal: plastic vessels did not exist in the time of the Sages, and the decree was not said about them.
The same rule applies here. The Sages’ decree on laundering was said about “laundering” as it was in their time: scrubbing by hand, with effort and labor. A washing machine is a device that did not exist in that reality. So by the very structure of the decree, it is not included in what was forbidden, without even entering the question of what the Sages would have decided had they known it.
There are thus two independent lines of proof:
The substantive line (sections B–C): the machine lacks what the decree came to prevent.
The formal line (this section): the decree never applied to this device.
Each of them, on its own, is enough to take the washing machine out of the decree.
E. The test of reality
One can also check this from the outcome. Suppose for a moment that there were no dispute at all, and all the poskim permitted laundering on Chol HaMoed without any reservation. Would we see people arriving at synagogue on the eve of the festival dirty, with stains on their clothes? Of course not.
In other words: the purpose the enactment came to secure, that no one enter the festival dirty, is fulfilled today anyway, even without the prohibition. This confirms once more that the enactment has served its purpose. In today’s reality, there is no longer any reason for it.
F. A further consideration: shalom bayit
Beyond the halakhic analysis, it is fitting to add a practical and moral consideration. Leniency in laundering, where it has a halakhic basis as explained, promotes peace in the home (shalom bayit) and lightens the burden on the wife.
G. Practical conclusion
Four foundations come together here. Two of them are independent, and each is enough on its own. Two more strengthen them:
The original reason is effort, not laundering. This is proven by the permission for linen garments. Our clothes today need frequent washing, just like linen garments and small children’s clothes according to Maimonides.
The formal path. Even if we cannot know how the Sages would have ruled had they known the machine, their decree was said only about laundering as it was in their time. A washing machine, a device that did not exist at all, is not included in the decree from the outset.
The test of reality. The purpose the enactment came to achieve is fulfilled today anyway, even without the prohibition.
Shalom bayit. Moral and practical support for leniency.
From all this, it seems that the original decree does not apply at all to today’s reality.
Sources
The prohibition of laundering and haircuts on Chol HaMoed, and its reason: Moed Katan 14a; Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 534:1.
The permission for linen garments: Moed Katan 18a, in the name of Rabbi Yochanan; Rashi, ibid. 18b, s.v. dela nefisha tircha.
Linen garments “always need washing”: Maimonides, Laws of Yom Tov 7:21.
Plastic vessels exempt from immersion because they did not exist in the time of the Sages: many Acharonim.
Notes
- 1.Some say that Abaye and Rava disagree with Rabbi Yochanan.