What's an Eruv?

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Eruv

An Eruv (Hebrew: ערוב‎ 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 the Jewish Sabbath which would otherwise be forbidden by Torah law (Halacha). Without an eruv, Torah-observant Jews would be unable to carry keys or tissues in their pockets or push baby carriages on the 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 other 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 the Jewish sabbath. The legal aggregation is set up to have effect on the Sabbath day 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 (Hebrew: ערוב חצרות‎), an "aggregation of courtyards," to distinguish it from other types of rabbinically-ordained mixture procedures which 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" which creates and denotes the boundaries of a symbolic "walled courtyard" in which a halakhicly (religiously) valid property aggregation can take place, rather than to the aggregation or legal status of the properties.

Activities prohibited even within an eruv

Though a valid eruv enables people to carry or move most items outdoors on Shabbat, all other Shabbat restrictions still apply. These prohibitions include:

    * Objects that are muktzah may not be handled anywhere on Shabbat, indoors or outdoors.
    * Opening an umbrella is analogous to erecting a tent, which falls under the category of construction.[2] Since umbrellas may not be opened, they are muktzah and may not be handled.
    * To protect the sanctity of Shabbat, one may not perform typical weekday activities (uvdin d'chol). The precise scope of this prohibition is subject to a wide range of rabbinic opinion.
    * One may not carry or move items in preparation for a post-Shabbat activity (hakhana), unless one has a legitimate use for them on Shabbat itself.
    * Sports involve several issues. Many authorities consider balls muktzah; others do not.[3] Sports that generally result in holes or ruts being carved into the playing surface may only be played on surfaces that are not subject to such damage. Exercise of any kind is forbidden on Shabbat unless it is done solely for the pleasure of the activity itself, rather than for health or some other reason.[4]

Controversies

The installation of eruvin has been a matter of contention in many neighbourhoods around the world, classic examples are the London Borough of Barnet; Outremont, Quebec; Tenafly, New Jersey and Westhampton Beach, New York .

Because it is a property-owner as the owner of the public streets and sidewalks and the utility poles on which symbolic boundaries are to be strung, some authorities have interpreted Jewish law as requiring the local governmental entity to participate in the Jewish-law aggregation of property 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 generally 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 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".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruv