About 400 years ago in Paris, Dr. Eliahu Montelatto, the French queen’s physician, was seen leaving home on Shabbat and riding in an ornate carriage with a kippah on his head. He did this publicly while traveling through the city to visit sick ministers at court, as he had done throughout his career.
The ride quickly reached his community, and some members were shocked. Montelatto described the critics in his diary as "lיצנים" who objected to his Sabbath carriage travel. According to the article, these were not outsiders but Jews and former converts from his own community, who saw his conduct as a convenient legal argument for violating Shabbat while remaining close to power.
Montelatto responded with a detailed halakhic and moral ruling, one of the most intricate of its time. He argued that the carriage and driver were owned by a non-Jew, so there was no issue of an animal resting on Shabbat. He then focused on the prohibition of carrying, citing the Talmudic principle that "the living carries itself" and the Mishnah that if a living person is carried on a bed, the bed is secondary. On that basis, he said the carriage was subordinate to the person inside it, and that Paris, enclosed by walls with locked gates, counted as a complete public domain under Torah law.
He further argued that the rabbinic ban on riding animals was only a decree meant to prevent one from cutting a branch, and that if the reason no longer applied, the decree did not stand. Because the horse was guided by prearranged straps, he said the concern was removed. He also added practical grounds for leniency, including mud in Paris harming his health, the need to visit sick officials for the sake of "peace and avoiding enmity," and the importance of public dignity.
The article, citing researcher Rabbi Mordechai Yakubovich, says Montelatto was not answering a purely legal challenge but a moral one from his own community. He had once demanded great sacrifice from others, and now had to justify himself not only legally but also politically and ethically.
