https://aish.com/reward-of-the-dogs/
The Torah relates that during the Plague of the First-born, the dogs that were in the vicinity of the Jewish people did not bark at all. The commentaries explain that this was something that is considered miraculous, because in general, dogs bark wildly when the Angel of Death is present. Moreover, the dogs that were among the Egyptians did bark constantly. The Midrash teaches that as a reward for this silence, for the entirety of history, if a Jew owns a piece of non-kosher meat, he should give it to a dog, rather than anyone else.
"The Midrash adds yet another reward to the dogs for their silence – the excrement of dogs is used to tan the hides of animals in preparation for making the parchment used to write Torah scrolls, mezuzot and Tefillin. Rabbi Yissachar Frand notes that he saw in the book, Darash Mordechai, that the author asked modern day scribes if this is still the case, and they confirmed that the essence of the chemicals uses to prepare animal hides for the parchment of Holy writings is indeed derived from dog excrement."
ReplyDeleteThere was always a funny smell, I could not quite put my finger on it...
"the excrement of dogs is used to tan the hides of animals in preparation for making the parchment used to write Torah scrolls, mezuzot and Tefillin."
ReplyDeleteSince this is quite absurd and disgusting, it is unlikely that this is a halachic requirement - rather the originator of this minhag was simply having a laugh on his colleagues, conning them to follow a nonsense idea