Q&A: Muktzeh Due to Financial Loss
Muktzeh Due to Financial Loss
Question
Muktzeh due to financial loss—the definition of the item is something that you are really careful with and won’t use for any other purpose, and therefore it is forbidden to move it even for its own use or for the use of its place. I have two questions:
A) Doesn’t the very fact that you want to move it for its own use or for the use of its place remove its status as muktzeh due to financial loss? After all, the fact that you want to use it for something like its own use or its place shows that it’s not so important to you, so perhaps one could say that the definition of muktzeh due to financial loss is simply something that you wouldn’t move regardless of the law. In other words, the moment you want to move it, it is no longer muktzeh due to financial loss; rather, in practice you just don’t move it.
B) This is somewhat repeating section A: can one say that since nowadays people are no longer as careful with their money as they once were, this law does not really apply anymore?
Answer
A. According to that, there would be no prohibition of muktzeh due to financial loss at all. Either way: if you want to move it, then it is no longer muktzeh and it would be permitted to move it. The prohibition is determined by people’s general attitude and/or by what you had in mind at the beginning of the Sabbath. If afterward you want to move it, it is already muktzeh.
B. This law does exist with respect to things that are considered set aside in our thinking today. Delicate and expensive glassware, perhaps. It cannot be abolished categorically without distinction, but there is room to examine each item individually whether it is indeed of that kind nowadays.
For example, pets are a phenomenon that exists today, and therefore their laws are different from the law in the Talmudic text (they are not muktzeh).