22 December 2004 (Wednesday)
question
Yes - besides - why are you biting your nails in the first place?
calcium deficiency, maybe?
BS"D
I don't know if you're breaking your fast, but you're swallowing tum'ah :(
Ouch. Never thought of that. It's a better reason to stop biting my nails than any other I've heard.
Also, congratulations on being the one-hundreth comment on devarim.com!
Inadvisable, yes; breaking your fast, I doubt it.
Reasons for not biting one's nails would include Aviel's rationale, and the fact that habitual nailbiters almost inevitably end up doing it on Shabbos also, when it's assur. (As a habitual nailbiter, I can attest to not having been immune to this.)
That said, even assuming you're going with actual nail consumption (rather than chewing on them and spitting them out), I can think of two reasons for doubting it wouldn't affect one's fasting status. The main one is that nails are probably considered inedible from a halachic standpoint. More bedieved, even if you were chewing on nails that had been unbitten for months, it's highly unlikely you'd consume anywhere near a k'zayis. Under the former rationale, you haven't broken your fast at all; in the latter, there's been a partial violation, but you certainly need to keep fasting.
(As always, I'm the furthest thing from a posek; consult your local rabbi.)
