Question:

לגרסה העברית לחצו כאן /Read this teshuva in Hebrew

I was locked out of my apartment this past Shabbat. My friend, also a frum Jew, is a locksmith. I asked him to use his picks to pick the lock on my door on Shabbat, but now I am wondering if it was permitted. Was he allowed to do this?

Answer:

There certainly is no Biblical or Rabbinic prohibition in the act of picking a lock – it is merely the manipulating of the inner mechanisms with some specialized tools. It could be argued that this is uvda di’chol, weekday