Q&A from the Bais HaVaad Halacha Hotline

Service Area

June 2, 2022

Q On a construction site, may I make a bracha in an area designated in the blueprints to become a bathroom?

A Prayers, brachos, and words of Torah may not be spoken in the presence of waste, as the Torah (Devarim 23:15) says, vehaya machanecha kadosh (and your camp shall be holy). It is sufficient to distance oneself four amos, provided that the odor doesn’t reach his location and the object is not visible. A mechitzah is also effective; see Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 79:1-2) for details.

A bathroom is a designated place of waste and so is subject to this halacha even when clean. To be considered a bathroom, a room must have been used for that purpose at least once (Shulchan Aruch O.C. 83:1), because of the halachic principle that hazmanah lav milsa hi (verbal designation is immaterial). But this only applies to the areas adjacent to a new bathroom; to daven or study inside it is degrading and forbidden (ibid.). Some even require a separation of four amos if there are no walls (Mishnah Brurah ibid. 7). So during construction, brachos should not be made inside the future bathroom but beside it (Mishnah Brurah ibid. 9). But contemporary poskim suggest that a blueprint alone isn’t hazmanah at all, and until the bathroom studs are erected one may daven in the room itself (Piskei Teshuvos ibid.).

Today’s bathrooms are viewed more leniently by the poskim because the waste is quickly flushed out of the room. But since this leniency is uncertain, one shouldn’t make a bracha in the room designated as the bathroom (see Chazon Ish O.C. 17:4).