בס"ד
דבר תורה
יש לי הרבה דודים מחו"ל ולכן אני אעביר את דבר התורה שלי באנגלית.
Are Seeing Eye Dogs מוקצה or not?
You might be wondering why I chose this topic. Well here’s the answer, at the beginning I wanted to do my speech on dogs in the תנ"ך but there is nothing really interesting about dogs in the תנ"ך. I want my dogs to be sled dogs next Purim so to get them ready I’ve been putting on them a dog pack my parents bought in Alaska many years ago. So then 2 Shabbesses ago my mother and I went to pick up my sister, Shoshana, from her friend. I wanted to take our dog, Goldie, on the walk with the dog pack. My mom said that it’s probably מוקצה so we didn’t take the dog pack with us. Then an idea came to my head how do blind people use their Seeing Eye dogs on Shabbat? My mom didn’t know but she said “why don’t I ask the rav”. On the walk I said how about I do my דבר תורה on “are Seeing Eye dogs מוקצה or not?” So that’s the answer to why I chose this topic. Now here are the problems and the answers to are Seeing Eye dogs מוקצה on Shabbat.
1. Touching an animal - because animals are מוקצה on Shabbat since they have no use on Shabbat.
2. Carrying the leash outside the eruv because even if you’re allowed to take the dog for a walk you’re not allowed to take the leash it’s not part of the dog.
3. The animal is working. Animals aren’t allowed to work on Shabbat as it says in the torah “...לא תעשה כל מלאכה אתה ובנך ובתך ...ובהמתך וגרך...”
So then I went to our Rav, Rav Yoni, and asked him the Questions. We looked them up in a few books and found these answers:
You are allowed to touch a pet but not an animal because, animals have no use on Shabbat but pets do: they are for play and fun. Just like sand has no use on a regular day so קל וחומר not on Shabbat, but if you take sand and put it aside in a sand box then it’s not מוקצה because it has a use. You put aside also the pet and there for they are not מוקצה.
The leash is not considered as a טלטול because it’s there to protect the people from the dog. It’s counted as if it’s part of the dog.
The dog is not doing any of the לט' מלאכות האסורות בשבת there for it’s not called working.
So now the answer is clear. Seeing Eye dogs aren’t מוקצה, because they are helping the blind and aren’t doing any of the לט' מלאכות האסורות בשבת.
Just like I like my dogs I like my family and I’d like to thank them for coming to share my Simchah with me!! Thank you for coming.