Good Evening Yamon Ki Yesepar;
Exodus 11:7: “But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that you may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.”
Do you know that among orthodox Jews today they will feed their dogs before they feed themselves. The Jews have a deep respect for dogs. This is because of this verse in Exodus.
You see the Jewish men who worked as slaves under the Egyptians numbered up to 600,000. In order to keep the slaves in line the Egyptians employed guard dogs. If any slave attempted to escape the dog would bark out a warning or even attack the slave.
What happened at the time of the Exodus is explained in Exodus 11:7. The Lord was going to show the difference between the Egyptians and Israel by the fact that dogs would not bark out a warning or attack the Jews when they sought their escape from the Egyptians. The Talmud teaches that the Jews were actually able to speak to the dogs and the dogs listened and followed their instructions.
In Genesis 1:26 God gave man dominion over the animals. There is a little debate over this word dominion here. Christians say the root word is radah which means to subdue. The sages teach the root is yadah which means to come down to. They believe the ability to speak to the dogs come from this understanding of yadah, that you come down to their level, their world. Be that as it may.
There is also a spiritual understanding here. The ancient sage Chazal, which is really the initials for three sages Chochmenu, Zichrona and Levaracha, teach that the Holy Scriptures were given without any vowels and thus you are allowed to assign each vowel as you wish according to the idea behind your dresh.
You see the word for dog is Kalev. This is a play on words. For Kalev also means “like a heart.” The pashat is that the dog would not wag his tongue or bark out a warning and thus the Jews could escape from slavery. The dresh is that like their heart was their tongue. The difference that God showed between the Egyptians and Israel is that their heart was like their tongue. What they said with their speech was what was in their heart. The Egyptians speech was filled with falsehood and unbelief. This led to their destruction. Israel’s speech was filled with truth and faith, this led to their deliverance. When one’s speech is filled with truth and faith, judgments are eliminated.
And thus the sages teach that to exercise yadah over a dog, one’s speech must be as ones heart. Well, I won’t try it on you local junk yard dog. But that stuff about one’s speech being filled with truth and faith – that is worth consideration.
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