[Avodah] Mutzkeh: Sticks, Stones, and Pets

Wed Apr 2 05:17:32 PDT 2008

Recently, I've had some insights into Hilchos Muktzeh, and I'd like to share them, in case anyone would like to comment.

For a very long time, I've been very bothered by the status of pets as being muktzeh. To me, it had always seemed that a pet is comparable to a pebble which one designates to be a toy and is henceforth a legitimate kli shem'lachto l'heter. For example, if one is missing a which marker from his checker set or backgammon set, he can find a small rock of the appropriate size, shape, and color, and decide that from now on, it will be a checker or a backgammon piece; as long as he does this before Shabbos, the rock will *not* be muktzeh.

Why is an animal different? Why doesn't the same thing happen when one obtains an animal and designates it to be a plaything? Granted that it looks like and animal and acts like an animal, but my checker looks and acts like a rock, no? So why do so many poskim insist that the animal is still muktzeh despite my designation of it as a toy?

(I do concede that some poskim do not hold pets to be muktzeh; for example see Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, quoted in Shmiras Shabbos K'Hilchasa chap 27 footnote 96. But my question is addressed to the view of the stricter poskim: WHY do they hold a pet to be different than a stone/checkerpiece. For example, in Rabbi Yisroel Pinchos Bodner's "Halachos of Muktza", page zayin in the back, note 24, Rav Moshe Feinstein says, "All animals are muktzeh, even those which the children play with.")

Okay, let's set that question aside for a bit. We'll come back to it later.

My son Avi was recently in Eretz Yisrael, and asked me what he might bring back for me. At first I couldn't think of anything, but then I realized -- what better souvenir could there be than a piece of Eretz Yisrael itself? I figured a bag of dirt is not only messy, but also a bit morbid, reminding us of certain burial minhagim.

So instead I asked him for a few small rocks such as he might find on the street or in a field. Such rocks could be easily cleaned and brought back to New Jersey, and now whenever I want, I can look at them, give them a kiss, and remind myself of Eretz Yisrael. He brought me a few thin shards to keep in my wallet, and also some larger chunks that I figured I'd keep in my tallis bag.

But - would that be my weekday tallis bag, alongside my tefillin? Or maybe in my Shabbos tallis bag as well? And suddenly I started wondering about the muktzeh status of these stones. Being very much nogea b'davar, I wanted to say that these are no longer ordinary examples of "eitzim v'avanim" - the classic sticks and stones, muktzeh machmas gufo. Rather, they have now become something different, they have become *souvenirs*, objects which were prepared before Shabbos, designated for a specific purpose (handling, kissing, admiring). Aren't they exactly like the stone which is now a checker piece?

I started thinking about it, and certain ideas started to become clear to me. When something becomes a souvenir, it does not really acquire a new identity; it retains its old identity, but we make a bigger deal about it. The stone is still a stone. In fact, its being a stone is a major part of why it is so special to me. This is very different than the checker piece. The checker piece is still the size of a stone, the color of a stone, and the shape of a stone. But I no longer relate to its stone-ness. The material it is made of is irrelevant. It just happens to be a stone, but if some other object had been convenient when I needed a replacement checker piece, then I would have used the other thing.

That's why the checker piece is no longer muktzeh: Because although it *is* a stone, I no longer *relate* to it as a stone. But the stones my son brought back from Yerushlayim *are* stones, and I will always relate to them as stones, and so they remain muktzeh, no matter how much I might want to insist that they are "souvenirs".

So too for pets. Yes, one can easily argue that a pet is a sort of toy. But it never stops being an animal. Like my stones, it cannot get away from its identity - being a living animal is precisely what makes the pet such an enjoyable toy. In order for eitzim v'avanim to stop being muktzeh, one must give it a *new* identity, and that has not happened for a pet, which must remain muktzeh.

(And now I'm starting to wonder: If all the above makes sense, then perhaps, just maybe, if making an animal into a pet *is* good enough for RSZA, then maybe making a stone into a souvenir is also good enough for him....)

All comments welcome!

Akiva Miller
_____________________________________________________________
Save hundreds on getting a Web Design Degree. Click here.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2121/fc/REAK6aAYuuhnRCQhuEbpnTX5fkim66Vel0Sys8POMcYLrxobE74PdY/