Zombie Future

joshmohrer:

(via david: This Jewish wire apparently surrounds most of Manhattan!)

Mind blowing! I’ve long suspected that the big yellow rope that crosses avenue A near 4th or 5th street is part of an Eruv of some sort, but figured it was just my brain taking a really peculiar route to solve a simpler mystery.  I guess I was right!

An Eruv is basically a loop-hole in Jewish law; on Shabbat (the Sabbath), some Jews don’t carry things (in addition to not using electricity, money, cars, etc.) as this is perceived as work. Shabbat is the day of rest, so no work allowed. But the question of practicality arose, that is, does it really make sense to not allow people to lift their plate of food, or books, or toothbrush, or whatever. So they decided that it was okay to carry things within your home or community. How do we define that? With some kind of fence or enclosure. I doubt anyone ever intended for an Eruv to cover hundreds of thousands of people, but it doesn’t say it can’t, so it can.

I remember my days at Jewish summer camp as a super-geek going around with the camp Rabbi checking to see that the Eruv is intact. I’m sure this Manhattan Eruv has a similar body of people that check on it every week to make sure it’s unbroken.

I now realize that, by a matter of just a half of one block that we don’t live within the Eruv. Honey, pack your bags. We’re moving across the street!

This is really interesting. I remember someone tell me that something similar was done using telephone poles that run along the perimeter of Squirrel Hill, my old neighborhood in Pittsburgh.

(via jstn)