Is A Person Required To Say Asher Yatzar Every Time If Using The Bathroom Excessively Due To An Illness

Daily Halacha Podcast - Daily Halacha By Rabbi Eli J. Mansour

If a person has a medical condition and must use the bathroom often, would he have recite the Beracha of Asher Yatzar (the Beracha recited after performing one's bodily functions) each time he leaves the bathroom? This question arises in situations, for example, where a patient requires a colonoscopy and is given a certain type of drink a day beforehand makes him go the bathroom often in order to clear his system. More commonly, this issue is relevant for anyone taking laxatives who visits the bathroom very frequently during that period. One view, cited in the work Halachot Ketanot, maintains that one recites the Beracha only when his system is completely cleared out. Since the patient knows that he will soon need to use the bathroom again, he should not recite Asher Yatzar until after the completion of the entire process. However, both the Chid"a (Rav Chayim Yosef David Azulai, 1724-1806) and Rav Chayim Palachi (Rabbi of Izmir, Turkey, 19th century) disagree. In their view, so long as a person does not feel the need to use the bathroom right after performing his bodily functions, he recites Asher Yatzar. Even if one knows that he will soon have to return to the bathroom, since at the moment he exited the bathroom he does not feel the need to perform his bodily functions, he recites the Beracha. Halacha indeed follows this position of the Chid"a and Rav Chayim Palachi. Therefore, in the situations described above, one recites Asher Yatzar each time he leaves the bathroom, provided that at that moment he does not feel the need to use the bathroom again. If one leaves the bathroom and immediately feels that he must use it again, then he returns to the bathroom and recites the Beracha afterward, when he no longer feels any need to perform his bodily functions.