7 ms·

There's one of these in North London as well. I know a fair number of Jewish people there, some more practicing than others. And this is indeed why they have th

There's one of these in North London as well. I know a fair number of Jewish people there, some more practicing than others. And this is indeed why they have the Eruv, it's to allow them to do some stuff that would otherwise be forbidden. Another one of these sidesteps was that you can't turn on the TV on the sabbath, but there's nothing stopping you from visiting your friend who happens to have the Spurs game on. I'll be a little bemused if I die and it turns out there's an afterlife, and in fact it was all a game of rules that you could play with like that.

daveFNbuck 7y ago
> but there's nothing stopping you from visiting your friend who happens to have the Spurs game on Your friend doesn't have to just happen to have the game on. You can even invite your friend over to your house to watch the game. You just can't be the one to operate the TV, as using electric appliances is considered work. It's amazing how much extra effort is required to consider yourself resting on Saturday. People will also take the stairs to avoid the work of elevators and walk to temple to avoid the work of driving.
- JasonFruit 7y ago
  Part of that's a translation problem. "Work" doesn't really express the same concept as melakha, which is more specifically human kinds of work than expenditure of brute force.
  - davemel37 7y ago
    My understand of Melakha is creative effort not brute force.(i.e. six days G-d created and the seventh he rested (from that creative effort))
    - JasonFruit 7y ago
      If I have said that God is essentially human in His creative work, then I'm certain you could line up rabbis on either side.
    - cik 7y ago
      Melacha is the 39 base categories of avodah (translated, but not literally work) that went into the construction of the temple. The talmud then expands upon how we learn about and understand these - including their sources and the discussions in Mesechet Shabbat (the Sabbath Tractate). Over the years Rabbis have clarified and expand these definitions to understand how they relate to the current generation and modern world. This is a long conversation.
      - davemel37 7y ago
        This is sort of correct - its not the temple rather the Mishkan (tabernacle)... The commandment of Shabbos is six days you should "Taaseh Melacha" and rest on the seventh day... later by the building of the Tabernacle, it connects mentions shabbat out of place and is interpreted to mean, dont build the mishkan on shabbat...and to interpret work as related to creating a tabernacle...https://www.etzion.org.il/en/mishkan-and-shabbat https://www.etzion.org.il/en/mishkan-and-shabbat Ultimately, the general idea is "we create during the week and on sabbath, separate ourselves from that creative energy and just enjoy our handiwork, just as the creator of the world did... this is why even plucking a blade of grass would be forbidden..anything that creates either through adding or removing things is in the framework of how Shabbat laws are interpreted... As I understand it in my lay background.
- davemel37 7y ago
  While all rules in Judaism are debated endlessly and have a multitude of opinions... My understanding is that most stringent Halacha followers would agree one SHOULD not watch a spurs game on Shabbos...and there are clearly several rules around separating the day from others that may even make it a prohibition(not that I havent watched my share of sports games on Shabbos.) I just think its worth pointing out that its rare youll find a rabbi that says you Should watch the game.
- monkeynotes 7y ago
  NYC has a bunch of these so that elevators are ok to use on Shabbat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat_elevator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat_elevator
davemel37 7y ago
The only thing an eruv makes permissible is carrying an item from one domain to another. (I.e. a personal house to the public street to a public synagogue.) It's not so much a hack as a way of making the boundry of the two separate domains part of the same domain. The same way, a row of houses can also be a block or a group of streets can also be a neighborhood...there were laws around moving things from one boundry to another, but all boundries are fictions, so its not really doing anything thats tricking anybody...its not really different than buying your neighbors house and putting a big fence around both properties... I think this is actually why an eruv needs permission from the city or mayor. Its actually a legal boundry in this context... The point about watching the game...thats not really permissible according to many Rabbis, its just an excuse your friend made because its much worse to take an action that completes an electrical circuit (similar to biblical prohibition of lighting a fire) than to just look at something happening...but there is clear guidance about what you are allowed to even read or look at on Shabbos. This is just human nature...we all do the best we can with who we are at any given moment...the Eruv though is a very different mechanism.
- gowld 7y ago
  I'm fairly sure that television and electricity are not mentioned in the Torah. It's all a game that Jews play to hone their intellect and prepare them for careers in law.
- jaclaz 7y ago
  >... its much worse to take an action that completes an electrical circuit (similar to biblical prohibition of lighting a fire) than to just look at something happening...but there is clear guidance about what you are allowed to even read or look at on Shabbos. Knowing very little of the "rules" and on the way they are followed, I have always been intrigued by this thingy here (Halachic switch): http://www.kosherswitch.com/live/ http://www.kosherswitch.com/live/
  - antsar 7y ago
    Excerpt for the lazy: > When you slide the on/off button, you’re moving an isolated piece of plastic. It is purely mechanical, and is not attached to anything electrical (electro-mechanically isolated). This is done at a time when you see a green Status Light, which provides 100% assurance that the relevant components within the switch are inactive. Subsequently, after a random interval, the device will activate and determine the position of the plastic by flashing an internal light pulse. The attached light fixture will be triggered only after the switch overcomes two failure probability processes – one prior to this light pulse and one after it. Halachically, your action is simply the movement of an isolated piece of plastic with no implications of causation.
lotsofpulp 7y ago
> I'll be a little bemused if I die and it turns out there's an afterlife, and in fact it was all a game of rules that you could play with like that. That’s the point. In a society, it’s advantageous for the few if most are busy following the rules. Once a critical mass of people break the rules, it’s chaos. But breaking the rules here and there, under the guise of plausible deniability, allows a small group to benefit greatly.
benchaney 7y ago
An Eruv isn’t really a loophole. The rule is that you are allowed to carry indoors, or in a walled city. In ancient times the walls of the city basically denoted the extent of the community. Cities aren’t walled anymore for practical reasons, but the principle that you ought to be able to carry within the community is still valid. Instead of getting rid of it, rabbis determined the smallest possible wall that still counts, and that is constructed in order to allow carrying. It’s purpose isn’t to undermine the spirit of the rule, but allow it to continue even as the world changed. The TV hack is basically an urban legend. I’ve never met anyone who actually uses it, and it definitely violates several rules.
- LeifCarrotson 7y ago
  I'm curious about the city wall classification. If, in ancient times, a small section of the wall fell (analogous to an Eruv wire break), would the area typically contained by the wall no longer be considered a walled city/community? The article writes "When a group of rabbis in the ’80s took a boat around Manhattan to create a map, they realized that most of the wire was gone." and the other article [1] describes the condition of the wire as "intact on every Shabbat except one 2010 snowstorm" and worthy of a Twitter feed to check the weekly status. I don't imagine that a chipped stone on top of Jerusalem's wall in 600 BC would have made the walled city not walled for the purposes of an Eruv. Manhattan is an island, wouldn't it be enough for the community to declare the shoreline the border of the city? (Or maybe I'm trying to apply logic in a place where it's superseded by authority...) [1]: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/eruv-manhattan-invisible-wire-jewish-symbolic-religious-home https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/eruv-manhattan-invisib...
  - monkeynotes 7y ago
    Indeed, at what point do you consider an actual wall interrupted. How much of the rubble counts as a wall? Would a spider web spanning a gap count?
  - shliachtx 7y ago
    Not to worry, this is all discussed. Technically, the string makes it a series of doorways which together make up a wall. An actual wall would not have this issue, as having a majority of the wall up would be enough to deem any opening a doorway/gap in the wall.
xwowsersx 7y ago
That's not how it works. The law cannot legislate perfection. There is the substance of the law itself then there is the spirit of the law. For example, highway signs have a speed limit, e.g. "60 MPH". The purpose of the law is safety, but the signs don't say "drive safely". Same applies here, a person can technically not violate any of the rules of the Sabbath and still not be in line with the "spirit" of it. From the standpoint of what you call the "afterlife", there's no difference. This same idea applies to all the laws, as Nachmanides (1194–1270) explains, there is an idea of "someone who is digusting/perverse within the framework of the laws" (hard to translate from the Hebrew) - the idea being that it's possible to not violate any of the laws from a technical standpoint, but still be a terrible person. It's not a game in the way you describe it, it's simply the feature of legal systems, namely that perfection cannot itself be legislated even if it is the purpose of the law.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
Story: my father—a non-practicing jew—was staying in a ski lodge with his friend Steve, and orthodox jew. Steve couldn't go skiing on the sabbath, so he had to stay behind in the lodge that day. Apparently, if someone is technically jewish, you can't tell them to break sabbath rules. So before my father left for the day, Steve kept telling him about all the great stuff playing on TV. My father did not get the hint.

daveFNbuck 7y ago

> but there's nothing stopping you from visiting your friend who happens to have the Spurs game on Your friend doesn't have to just happen to have the game on. You can even invite your friend over to your house to watch the game. You just can't be the one to operate the TV, as using electric appliances is considered work. It's amazing how much extra effort is required to consider yourself resting on Saturday. People will also take the stairs to avoid the work of elevators and walk to temple to avoid the work of driving.

JasonFruit 7y ago
Part of that's a translation problem. "Work" doesn't really express the same concept as melakha, which is more specifically human kinds of work than expenditure of brute force.
- davemel37 7y ago
  My understand of Melakha is creative effort not brute force.(i.e. six days G-d created and the seventh he rested (from that creative effort))
  - JasonFruit 7y ago
    If I have said that God is essentially human in His creative work, then I'm certain you could line up rabbis on either side.
  - cik 7y ago
    Melacha is the 39 base categories of avodah (translated, but not literally work) that went into the construction of the temple. The talmud then expands upon how we learn about and understand these - including their sources and the discussions in Mesechet Shabbat (the Sabbath Tractate). Over the years Rabbis have clarified and expand these definitions to understand how they relate to the current generation and modern world. This is a long conversation.
    - davemel37 7y ago
      This is sort of correct - its not the temple rather the Mishkan (tabernacle)... The commandment of Shabbos is six days you should "Taaseh Melacha" and rest on the seventh day... later by the building of the Tabernacle, it connects mentions shabbat out of place and is interpreted to mean, dont build the mishkan on shabbat...and to interpret work as related to creating a tabernacle...https://www.etzion.org.il/en/mishkan-and-shabbat https://www.etzion.org.il/en/mishkan-and-shabbat Ultimately, the general idea is "we create during the week and on sabbath, separate ourselves from that creative energy and just enjoy our handiwork, just as the creator of the world did... this is why even plucking a blade of grass would be forbidden..anything that creates either through adding or removing things is in the framework of how Shabbat laws are interpreted... As I understand it in my lay background.
davemel37 7y ago
While all rules in Judaism are debated endlessly and have a multitude of opinions... My understanding is that most stringent Halacha followers would agree one SHOULD not watch a spurs game on Shabbos...and there are clearly several rules around separating the day from others that may even make it a prohibition(not that I havent watched my share of sports games on Shabbos.) I just think its worth pointing out that its rare youll find a rabbi that says you Should watch the game.
monkeynotes 7y ago
NYC has a bunch of these so that elevators are ok to use on Shabbat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat_elevator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat_elevator

davemel37 7y ago

The only thing an eruv makes permissible is carrying an item from one domain to another. (I.e. a personal house to the public street to a public synagogue.) It's not so much a hack as a way of making the boundry of the two separate domains part of the same domain. The same way, a row of houses can also be a block or a group of streets can also be a neighborhood...there were laws around moving things from one boundry to another, but all boundries are fictions, so its not really doing anything thats tricking anybody...its not really different than buying your neighbors house and putting a big fence around both properties... I think this is actually why an eruv needs permission from the city or mayor. Its actually a legal boundry in this context... The point about watching the game...thats not really permissible according to many Rabbis, its just an excuse your friend made because its much worse to take an action that completes an electrical circuit (similar to biblical prohibition of lighting a fire) than to just look at something happening...but there is clear guidance about what you are allowed to even read or look at on Shabbos. This is just human nature...we all do the best we can with who we are at any given moment...the Eruv though is a very different mechanism.

gowld 7y ago
I'm fairly sure that television and electricity are not mentioned in the Torah. It's all a game that Jews play to hone their intellect and prepare them for careers in law.
jaclaz 7y ago
>... its much worse to take an action that completes an electrical circuit (similar to biblical prohibition of lighting a fire) than to just look at something happening...but there is clear guidance about what you are allowed to even read or look at on Shabbos. Knowing very little of the "rules" and on the way they are followed, I have always been intrigued by this thingy here (Halachic switch): http://www.kosherswitch.com/live/ http://www.kosherswitch.com/live/
- antsar 7y ago
  Excerpt for the lazy: > When you slide the on/off button, you’re moving an isolated piece of plastic. It is purely mechanical, and is not attached to anything electrical (electro-mechanically isolated). This is done at a time when you see a green Status Light, which provides 100% assurance that the relevant components within the switch are inactive. Subsequently, after a random interval, the device will activate and determine the position of the plastic by flashing an internal light pulse. The attached light fixture will be triggered only after the switch overcomes two failure probability processes – one prior to this light pulse and one after it. Halachically, your action is simply the movement of an isolated piece of plastic with no implications of causation.

lotsofpulp 7y ago

> I'll be a little bemused if I die and it turns out there's an afterlife, and in fact it was all a game of rules that you could play with like that. That’s the point. In a society, it’s advantageous for the few if most are busy following the rules. Once a critical mass of people break the rules, it’s chaos. But breaking the rules here and there, under the guise of plausible deniability, allows a small group to benefit greatly.

benchaney 7y ago

An Eruv isn’t really a loophole. The rule is that you are allowed to carry indoors, or in a walled city. In ancient times the walls of the city basically denoted the extent of the community. Cities aren’t walled anymore for practical reasons, but the principle that you ought to be able to carry within the community is still valid. Instead of getting rid of it, rabbis determined the smallest possible wall that still counts, and that is constructed in order to allow carrying. It’s purpose isn’t to undermine the spirit of the rule, but allow it to continue even as the world changed. The TV hack is basically an urban legend. I’ve never met anyone who actually uses it, and it definitely violates several rules.

LeifCarrotson 7y ago
I'm curious about the city wall classification. If, in ancient times, a small section of the wall fell (analogous to an Eruv wire break), would the area typically contained by the wall no longer be considered a walled city/community? The article writes "When a group of rabbis in the ’80s took a boat around Manhattan to create a map, they realized that most of the wire was gone." and the other article [1] describes the condition of the wire as "intact on every Shabbat except one 2010 snowstorm" and worthy of a Twitter feed to check the weekly status. I don't imagine that a chipped stone on top of Jerusalem's wall in 600 BC would have made the walled city not walled for the purposes of an Eruv. Manhattan is an island, wouldn't it be enough for the community to declare the shoreline the border of the city? (Or maybe I'm trying to apply logic in a place where it's superseded by authority...) [1]: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/eruv-manhattan-invisible-wire-jewish-symbolic-religious-home https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/eruv-manhattan-invisib...
- monkeynotes 7y ago
  Indeed, at what point do you consider an actual wall interrupted. How much of the rubble counts as a wall? Would a spider web spanning a gap count?
- shliachtx 7y ago
  Not to worry, this is all discussed. Technically, the string makes it a series of doorways which together make up a wall. An actual wall would not have this issue, as having a majority of the wall up would be enough to deem any opening a doorway/gap in the wall.

xwowsersx 7y ago

That's not how it works. The law cannot legislate perfection. There is the substance of the law itself then there is the spirit of the law. For example, highway signs have a speed limit, e.g. "60 MPH". The purpose of the law is safety, but the signs don't say "drive safely". Same applies here, a person can technically not violate any of the rules of the Sabbath and still not be in line with the "spirit" of it. From the standpoint of what you call the "afterlife", there's no difference. This same idea applies to all the laws, as Nachmanides (1194–1270) explains, there is an idea of "someone who is digusting/perverse within the framework of the laws" (hard to translate from the Hebrew) - the idea being that it's possible to not violate any of the laws from a technical standpoint, but still be a terrible person. It's not a game in the way you describe it, it's simply the feature of legal systems, namely that perfection cannot itself be legislated even if it is the purpose of the law.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

Story: my father—a non-practicing jew—was staying in a ski lodge with his friend Steve, and orthodox jew. Steve couldn't go skiing on the sabbath, so he had to stay behind in the lodge that day. Apparently, if someone is technically jewish, you can't tell them to break sabbath rules. So before my father left for the day, Steve kept telling him about all the great stuff playing on TV. My father did not get the hint.