North Shore Eruv
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- Duration: 6:11
- Published: 2008-11-25
- Uploaded: 2010-08-24
- Author: NVVProduction
About the proposed North Shore Eruv
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An Eruv ( mixture, also transliterated as Eiruv or Erub, plural: Eruvin) is an enclosure around a home or community. It enables the carrying of objects out of doors for Jews on Jewish Sabbath that would otherwise be forbidden by Torah law (Halakha). Without an eruv, Torah-observant Jews would be unable to carry keys or tissues in their pockets or push baby carriages on Jewish Sabbath thus making it difficult for many to leave home.
The enclosure must be made of walls or doorways at least ten tefachim in height. A tefach is approximately 10 cm (4 inches) in length for a total of approximately 1 m (40 inches). In public areas where it is impractical to put up walls, doorways are constructed out of wire and posts. It is these doorways, which often serve no practical purpose, that are usually referred to as an Eruv.
If the properties enclosed are owned by more than one person, then all the properties must be combined by the acquisition or rental of some right to the properties and the designation of a meal that is shared by all property owners. The designation of the meal is called an Eruv Chatzeiros (combining of courtyards) and it is from this that the term Eruv is derived.
A community Eruv refers to the legal aggregation or "mixture" under Jewish religious property law of separate parcels of property meeting certain requirements into a single parcel held in common by all the holders of the original parcels, which enables Jews who observe the traditional rules concerning Shabbat to carry children and belongings anywhere within the jointly held property without transgressing the prohibition against carrying a burden across a property line on Jewish Sabbath. The legal aggregation is set up to have effect on Sabbath only; on other days of the week, including Yom Tov (with the exception of Yom Kippur), ordinary property ownership applies. A valid aggregation has a number of requirements including an agreement among the property-holders and an aggregation ritual.
One of the requirements of a valid aggregation is that all the parcels must lie within a chatzer, or walled courtyard. For this reason, this type of aggregation is more properly known as an eruv chatzerot (), an "aggregation of courtyards," to distinguish it from other types of rabbinically-ordained mixture procedures that also have the name eruv.
In modern times, when housing is not typically organized into walled courtyards, rabbinic interpretation has permitted this requirement to be met by creating a continuous wall or fence, real or symbolic, surrounding the area to be aggregated. The fence is required to have certain properties and consist of structural elements such as walls or doorframes. When the fence is symbolic, the structural elements are often symbolic "doorframes" made of wire, with two vertical wires (often connected to utility poles) and one horizontal wire on top connecting them (often using utility wires). The use of symbolic elements permits an eruv to make use of utility poles and the like to enclose an entire neighborhood of a modern city within the legal aggregation. In contemporary Jewish discourse, "an eruv" frequently refers to this symbolic "fence" that creates and denotes the boundaries of a symbolic "walled courtyard" in which a halakhicly (from "halakha," meaning the body of Jewish religious law) valid property aggregation can take place, rather than to the aggregation or legal status of the properties.
There is no explicit Biblical source that prohibits carrying on Sabbath. However, the Rabbis of the Talmud find two sources of the prohibition. "Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day" (Ex. 16:29). This verse is in the context of collecting the Manna bread. The Rabbis said, "Let no man go out of his place with a receptacle in his hand." According to this, the Manna cannot be collected on Sabbath because it cannot be carried into the Israelites' homes.
Second, "So the people were restrained from bringing" (Ex. 36:6). This verse explains that the Israelites refrained from bringing further materials for the construction of the Tabernacle. The Rabbis say that this event occurred on Sabbath, and not just because no more supplies were needed, but also because the people were not allowed to carry those supplies to the Levite camp. The Rabbis derive the prohibited actions of Sabbath from the actions that were performed to construct the Tabernacle. Based on this, one explanation is that since this verse is written in context of the Tabernacle, it is appropriate to derive further that the people ceased to carry on Sabbath.
According to Torah law as understood by the Talmud, this prohibition encompasses three actions:
#Moving an object from an enclosed area (such as a private home, public building, or fenced-in area) to a major thoroughfare, #moving an object from a major thoroughfare to an enclosed area, or #moving an object more than four cubits within a major thoroughfare.
To prevent confusion over exactly what constitutes a major thoroughfare, the rabbis expanded the ban to any area that was not fenced or walled in.
An additional, rabbinic prohibition, which Jewish tradition ascribes to the religious court of King Solomon, forbids carrying in any area that was shared by the occupants of more than one dwelling, even if surrounded by fences or walls. But, in this case of areas surrounded by walls, carrying was allowed through the use of an eruv. The eruv consists of a food item - in general bread - that is shared by all dwellers. By means of this shared meal, all the dwellers are considered as if they were living in a common dwelling, thus exempting them from the added prohibition.
The prohibition against carrying on Sabbath received special mention in the prophecy of Jeremiah, who warned the people of Jerusalem to "beware for your souls and carry no burden on the Sabbath day" (Jeremiah 17:21).
The Radak, a medieval Jewish commentator on the Prophets, opined that the reason Jeremiah referred to carrying a burden through the gates of the city is that Jerusalem had an eruv and its walls formed the boundary, so carrying within the city was permitted. Since umbrellas may not be opened, they are muktzah and may not be handled.
As the property-owner is the owner of the public streets, sidewalks and the utility poles on which symbolic boundaries are to be strung, some authorities have interpreted Jewish law as requiring the local governmental to participate in the process as one of the property owners by agreeing to creation of the eruv, and to give permission for the construction of a symbolic boundary on its property. In addition, because municipal law and the rules of utility companies, in general, prohibit third parties from stringing attachments to utility poles and wires, the creation of an eruv has often necessitated obtaining permissions, easements, and exceptions to various local ordinances. These requirements that government give active permission for an eruv have given rise to both political and legal controversy.
In the suburb of St. Ives in Sydney the local Rabbi stated on national television words to the effect of "If the residents of St. Ives do not want an Eriv constructed around the suburb then we need to look at their motivations for not wanting people of the Jewish faith in the community, we call that racism".
In the Elstree and Borehamwood neighbourhoods of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, a petition was circulated in 2007 condemning the proposed eruv on the grounds that it would constitute the establishment of a "Jewish state".
In Tenafly Eruv Association v. Borough of Tenafly, 309 F.3d 144, Judge Ambro, writing for the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals, held that Eruv Association members had no intrinsic right to add attachments to telephone poles on Borough property and that the Borough, if it wished, could enact a general, neutral ordinance against all attachments to utility poles that could be enforced against the eruv. However, Judge Ambro held that in this case the Borough had not enacted a genuinely general or neutral ordinance because it permitted a wide variety of attachments to utility poles for non-religious purposes, including posting signs and other items. Because it permitted attachments to utility poles for secular purposes, the court held, it could not selectively exclude attachments for religious purposes. The United States Supreme Court declined to hear the case. It was subsequently cited as precedent by a number of other Federal courts deciding disputes between an eruv association and a local government.
In Outremont, a neighbourhood in Montreal, Canada, the city adopted a policy of removing eruv wires. The Hasidic community obtained an injunction preventing such action by the city authorities.
In general, secular law has dealt with whether and to what extent government can permit or assist the erection and maintenance of boundary demarcations on public property. It has not dealt with the nature of the aggregation agreement or recognized an eruv as having legal effect or as implementing a meaningful change in real property ownership or tenancy with respect to secular law. For purposes of accident liability, trespass, insurance, and other secular matters occurring on Shabbat, secular law, treats the properties within an eruv as continuing to be separate parcels.
One of the oldest halakhic disputes in the United States revolves around the issue of an eruv in Manhattan (which is an island bordering an estuary that is connected to the Atlantic Ocean), in New York City. Some halakhic opinions refer to an island's reinforced walls against an ocean as contributing to and forming an eruv, and this view had been relied upon by rabbis in the early part of the twentieth century. In the 1950s, a proposal by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher to establish an eruv in Manhattan gained the support of many prominent rabbis, including Rabbis Yosef Eliyahu Henkin, Dovid Lifshitz, and Ephraim Oshry, and the Kopishnitzer, Novominsker and Radziner Rebbes. Other authorities, such as Rabbis Aharon Kotler and Moshe Feinstein, raised objections, and a major controversy ensued. In the end the opponents Agudas Horabonim issued a declaration opposing it.
In June 2007, the East Side portion of the internal Manhattan Eruv was completed, offering an eruv within Manhattan to Orthodox Jews living on the East, Upper East, and Upper West Sides. There are also two eruvin in Manhattan's Washington Heights, one covering the Yeshiva University area and another that is part of Mount Sinai Jewish Center covering the Fort Washington area.
Another ongoing dispute is the status of two inter-connected eruvin in Brooklyn: The Flatbush eruv and the Boro Park eruv. The Boro Park eruv was built and Not accepted by most of the Hasidic community and rejected by all of the non-Hasidic "Lithuanian yeshiva" communities. The Flatbush eruv was originally built with the support of the Modern Orthodox community and was later enhanced with the support of some local non-Modern Orthodox yeshiva families. It was totally rejected by the many "Lithuanian yeshiva" communities led by the rosh yeshivas ("deans") of the large yeshivas Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, Mir yeshiva, and Yeshiva Torah Vodaas that are based in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. In the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, there is some dispute over the making of an eruv, with Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe of Williamsburg leading the opposition to an eruv.
An eruv techumin (Hebrew: עירוב תחומין "mixed borders") for traveling enables a Jew to travel on Shabbat or a Jewish holiday. He prepares a food prior to Shabbat or the holiday on which he plans to travel farther than is normally allowed on such days. Orthodox Judaism prohibits motorized transportation, although the presence of an eruv for carrying permits certain types of non-motorized transport, such as strollers and wheelchairs, for people unable to walk.
Reform, Reconstructionist, and other more liberal branches of Judaism do not call for observance of the underlying traditional rules against carrying, and hence the issue of an eruv is not relevant.
Textual resources
Category:Shabbat innovations Category:Hebrew words and phrases Category:Jewish courts and civil law Category:Laws of Shabbat Category:Orthodox Judaism
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