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Is a can opener Muktzah on Shabbos?

The Schwartz family from Eretz Yisroel is visiting their friends, the Goldsteins. On Shabbos morning, Mrs. Schwartz is helping Mrs. Goldstein set the table for the Shabbos seudah (meal). “The cutlery?” Mrs. Schwartz asks. “Sure,” Mrs. Goldstein replies, opening her utensil drawer. She spends a hurried moment organizing the drawer that had been left messy in the Erev Shabbos rush. She drops a handful of colorful knives into a designated section, followed by a can opener… Mrs. Schwartz’s eyes widen at her friend’s action. “Here, let me do that!” she says, “My rav says it’s muttar (permissible) to open cans on Shabbos, but I remember that you don’t do that…isn’t the can opener muktzah for you?”

A hammer, which is used for building—a melachah (prohibited work on Shabbos)—is a keli shemelachto l’issur (a utensil designated for activity that is forbidden) and is muktzah (forbidden to move) on Shabbos. It may be moved if it is used for other purposes, specifically l’tzorech mekomo (its place is needed) or l’tzorech gufo (it is needed in itself) to perform permissible work, such as cracking open a coconut.

What about a utensil whose use is a machlokes (matter of dispute) among poski­m—for example, a can opener? Creating a keli (vessel) is assur (forbidden) on Shabbos, and some authorities extend this prohibition to include creating a functional keli by removing the top of a can.* Is a can opener therefore a keli shemelachto l’issur for someone—Mrs. Goldstein, in our example—who doesn’t use it on Shabbos?

Poskim posit that only a melachah that Mrs. Goldstein considers completely assur creates a situation where the utensil becomes keli shemelachto l’issur; there are, in fact, authorities who permit opening cans on Shabbos—Mrs. Schwartz’s rav for one—and this negates their muktzah status. Mrs. Goldstein recognizes that Mrs. Schwartz is following a more lenient psak (halachic decision), only she (Mrs. G.) chose to be machmir (stricter). In accepting this chumrah (strict interpretation), she is not necessarily also undertaking to be machmir in terms of muktzah. On the other hand, were Mrs. Goldstein to consider opening a can on Shabbos assur min hadin (expressly forbidden by law), the can opener would likewise be muktzah for her.

(Some poskim maintain that whether a keli is considered melachto l’issur or not depends on the owner of the utensil—Mrs. Goldstein’s can opener is muktzah, but Mrs. Schwartz’s Israeli one is not. But this is not the halachic consensus.)

*How Mrs. Goldstein might open cans on Shabbos can be found in Halachah #191.