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From Julia Neuberger, Senior Rabbi at the west London Synagogue:

My colleague Jonathan has written a book about all the things he has learned from his dog. which has really touched a nerve. So my congregation is organising a book launch, with both Jonathan and his dog, Mitzpah, there. One of the organisers suggested we invited people to bring their dogs too! I was mildly nervous of this. How would we stop them fighting? Or marking out their territory  so that our synagogue hall would smell, and need a massive clean up? So I discussed it with Jonathan, who ruled it out for just those reasons. Yet some churches hold pets’ services, and manage, and we also know, with an epidemic of loneliness sweeping the country, that a dog can be a man’s- or a woman’s- best friend.

So, though sadly we won’t invite the dogs, it’s got me thinking. In a society where increasingly people live alone, where people often speak to no-one for days on end, the faithful companions, dogs and cats, become hugely important. It’s not so much what they teach us, though that will no doubt be a great deal. It is what we learn about our human need for touch and companionship from those animals, and how we can rethink the lack of touch in human encounters. Dying people often say they find a hand held or a back stroked the most comforting, the best of care. Yet we restrict how much health professionals touch their patients. Older people touch and stroke their dogs and cats, yet sadly for obvious health reasons, they cannot take them into hospital. Bible stories are full of human touching, for vows, for comfort, and in reconciliation, like Jacob and Esau embracing after a long enmity. We human beings, like our cats and dogs, are animals. We need to touch each other – appropriately of course! And touch removes loneliness, at least in the short term. So there’s much to learn from those Biblical brothers- and we should probably do more hugging, more hand holding, but, these days, only with consent!