One detail about an eruv
Mar. 24th, 2011 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuOver on Facebook I posted a link to Wyatt Cenac's brilliant piece on the Hamptons eruv. But I wanted to clarify one thing, because I can't stand the way most people talk about an eruv.
The wrong explanation of an eruv: Jews aren't allowed to carry things on the Sabbath. But if they put up an eruv, they can break that rule! (Or "An eruv is a loophole that lets them evade that rule.")
The right explanation of an eruv: Jews aren't allowed to carry things in an unenclosed area on the Sabbath. An eruv is the smallest physical boundary marker that can turn an open area into an enclosed area, within which we are permitted ab initio to carry things.
(And to drive home the point that an eruv is an actual boundary marker, and not just symbolic, every inch of every eruv is physically checked every week for damage that would render it discontiguous, and if it can't be repaired in time then "the eruv is down" and we are not permitted to carry. This happened in Boston after the big snowstorm a few months back.)
The wrong explanation of an eruv: Jews aren't allowed to carry things on the Sabbath. But if they put up an eruv, they can break that rule! (Or "An eruv is a loophole that lets them evade that rule.")
The right explanation of an eruv: Jews aren't allowed to carry things in an unenclosed area on the Sabbath. An eruv is the smallest physical boundary marker that can turn an open area into an enclosed area, within which we are permitted ab initio to carry things.
(And to drive home the point that an eruv is an actual boundary marker, and not just symbolic, every inch of every eruv is physically checked every week for damage that would render it discontiguous, and if it can't be repaired in time then "the eruv is down" and we are not permitted to carry. This happened in Boston after the big snowstorm a few months back.)