Eruvim

A few years before I became an involuntary eremite (an OAP who goes to church and can only afford to live in a hut), my daily grind consisted in producing a digest of everything in the non-tabloid press that had a bearing on local government, and then disseminating same, in order to add enormously to the workload of council officers and elected representatives while helping the afforested areas of the world to diminish rapidly in extent. Or, in the words of a relative-by-marriage in Oz, to add to the "number of bloody useless electrons whizzing round the universe" (ie e-mail and the Internet, which he thinks are a serious risk to sanity as well as public health, on account of all those dodgy little electrons.)

But during this unhappy period of a few years before, I came across a curious item in the Manchester Evening News. There was a proposal to construct an eruv in a predominantly Jewish area of north Manchester/Salford. I hadn't a clue what an eruv was, and dictionaries were not much help. And the world-wide web was in its infancy.

When I did find out a little about eruvs (or eruvim, the correct plural in Hebrew) I was fascinated. Like most of us who aren't Jewish, I knew absolutely nothing about Jewish religious practices, or Mosaic law or Halakha (a sort of statute law, continuously developing and becoming more complex, but deriving from the Mosaic law of the Pentateuch, and fundamental to Jewish life.) I'd been a guest at a wedding in a Hindu temple; I'd been in a Russian Orthodox church; I'd sung in (but been denied Communion in) Roman Catholic cathedrals in Germany and Italy; I'd even paid £5.50 to be allowed entry into that big stone place in Canterbury where Archbishop Becket was murdered; but I'd never, and still haven't, been into a synagogue. Ironic, really, considering that every Sunday the First Lesson comes from the Old Testament, emphasising a continuity of religious observance that we don't usually allow in to the conscious mind.

So here, for the sake of enlightenment, and to open a small window into a very different and very ancient world, is a piece about eruvs filched (and greatly edited) from a BBC broadcast in 2005 - copyright notice at the end.

What is an Eruv?

An eruv is an area within which observant Jews can carry or push objects on the Sabbath (which lasts from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday), without violating a Jewish law that prohibits carrying or pushing anything except within the home.

There are over 200 eruvs in the world.

An eruv must be 'completely enclosed'. The area is not enclosed by building a special wall round it - most of it is enclosed by existing natural boundaries like railway lines or walls. What matters is that the area is completely enclosed by boundaries that conform to Jewish law.

What does an eruv allow people to do?

An eruv extends the boundaries of the home to include an area which would otherwise be onsidered public space. The result is that within an eruv Orthodox Jews can follow the same rules on the Sabbath as if they were in their homes.


Jewish law says that Jews must not carry any item, no matter how small or for whatever purpose in a Reshus HaRabim (public domain - outside their home) on the Sabbath, even if they are allowed to carry them within their home.

Pushing things is also forbidden - so families with small children (who would need prams and pushchairs) or the physically disabled (who would use wheelchairs) are effectively housebound. They can't even go to the synagogue to fulfil their religious duties on the Sabbath.

But both carrying and pushing are allowed inside an eruv, because an eruv is regarded as being within the home domain. So in an eruv Jews can:

-carry house keys (but not car or office keys)
-carry a handkerchief
-carry food or drink for use during the Sabbath
-carry prayer shawls
-carry books - normally a Jew can't even carry a prayer book on the Sabbath
-carry essential medicines - for example, diabetic Jews can now carry their
insulin with them
-carry extra clothes such as a raincoat
-carry nappies
-carry reading glasses
-push a pram or wheelchair
-use a walking frame or crutches

An eruv therefore makes it easier for Jews to follow the spirit of the Sabbath by making it enjoyable and fulfilling, without breaking the rules that keep it holy.

What doesn't an eruv allow?

An eruv doesn't permit Orthodox Jews to carry things that cannot be moved at all on the Sabbath, such as mobile phones or pens or wallets, or carry things for use after the Sabbath.

Nor does an eruv permit Jews to do things that break the spirit of the Sabbath - such as going shopping or swimming, riding a bicycle or playing football in the park, or gardening.

Making and using an eruv


An eruv is created using physical features, like walls and hedges, railway lines and roads, to completely enclose an area of land. The open spaces between the existing features are filled in by erecting poles with nylon fishing line (or wire) strung in between. The poles and lines are regarded as forming doorways in the boundary - the poles are the sides of the door and the lines are the lintel across the top.

The flimsier parts of the boundary are inspected every week to check that the boundary is intact and that none of the fishing line or poles has fallen down.

Maintaining and checking an eruv is thus quite expensive

How does an eruv work?

In ancient times the rabbis decided that if several houses were built round a closed courtyard, then they could be considered a single giant house, and so things could be carried between them. The continuous boundary of an eruv effectively turns a large area into a sort of imaginary courtyard within which anyone is allowed to carry objects or push prams or wheelchairs; activities which would otherwise be forbidden on the Sabbath.

So an eruv converts an area in which there were once many individual Jewish homes into one big home, shared by one big Jewish family.

There are certain things that may invalidate an eruv:
- It isn't valid if it encloses 600,000 or more people (Jewish or non-Jewish)
- The poles must be reasonably vertical, the lines tight
- Some say the lines must go across the top of the poles (as the lintel of a door goes over the top of the side pieces)

There is nothing to stop non-Jews entering the eruv area either on the Sabbath or during other times.

(etc)

Published on BBC Religion & Ethics: 2005-02-08
This article can be found on the Internet at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/living/eruv_1.shtml