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I see this sentiment a lot when it comes to Jewish customs, especially when it comes to eruvs, I don't really get it. Why do you consider it "tricking" God, ins

I see this sentiment a lot when it comes to Jewish customs, especially when it comes to eruvs, I don't really get it. Why do you consider it "tricking" God, instead of just following the rules?

throwaway2849 1y ago
If your parents said come home by 6:00 PM and instead of coming home you put a wire around the city to “make it your home” and stay out, you’re tricking your parents.
- azernik 1y ago
  G-d is not your parents, and set and worded His rules with omniscience that your parents do not have.
  - pnut 1y ago
    Is character substitution a clever rule hack also?
    - azernik 1y ago
      No. As an extension of the rule about not taking his name in vain, and rules about preserving written instances of the name, observant Jews try not to refer to him explicitly. There's a bit of a dysphemism treadmill involved, but oh well.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
lmm 1y ago
Because under any normal circumstances we'd call this a trick? Like, imagine someone under house arrest trying to argue they were allowed to go all around Manhattan because of this wire - we'd quite rightly jail them for contempt.
- shermantanktop 1y ago
  Sure, after determining that the offered definition of “house” using the wire didn’t apply. That’s not a trick, that’s the system at work. The legal system and morality and all areas of any complexity require judgment and decision making. It might satisfy a certain type of person to have explicit, highly detailed mechanistic rules for human conduct, with no exceptions. But even where that’s been tried, 50 years passes, and now someone has the job of interpreting how those rules apply to modern life.
  - lmm 1y ago
    > after determining that the offered definition of “house” using the wire didn’t apply. That’s not a trick, that’s the system at work. > The legal system and morality and all areas of any complexity require judgment and decision making. I don't think it requires much real judgement to say that a wire does not make a home and that whole area is not a single big home. This is not some finely balanced call that requires the greatest legal minds. Judges can and do strike or ignore definitions that pervert the meaning of a statute too far from the plain reading, and they're right to do so. In areas of law - or of everyday life - that we take seriously, we would not tolerate such a twisted reading of a rule.
    - gizmo686 1y ago
      This has been litigated well over a thousand years ago. To put it in modern legal terms, the legitimacy of an Eruv is a super precedent. It is discussed in depth in the Talmud, which is the clearest source of Jewish law. Even in modern law, courts can and do come up with some fairly peculiar readings at times. Particularly with old laws or the constitution itself which can, at times, be vague at best when applied in a modern context. The rules that the Eruv is a loophole for do not even come from God. They come from the specific interpretation that has developed about those relatively vague laws. There is an old "joke" in Judaism that God has no place in interpreting Jewish law. I put joke in quotes because the Oven of Akhnai is itself part of the Talmud and is generally read as establishing that exact principle. This type of "trick" is foundational to both Judaism and every common law system.

I see this sentiment a lot when it comes to Jewish customs, especially when it comes to eruvs, I don't really get it. Why do you consider it "tricking" God, instead of just following the rules?

throwaway2849 1y ago

If your parents said come home by 6:00 PM and instead of coming home you put a wire around the city to “make it your home” and stay out, you’re tricking your parents.

azernik 1y ago
G-d is not your parents, and set and worded His rules with omniscience that your parents do not have.
- pnut 1y ago
  Is character substitution a clever rule hack also?
  - azernik 1y ago
    No. As an extension of the rule about not taking his name in vain, and rules about preserving written instances of the name, observant Jews try not to refer to him explicitly. There's a bit of a dysphemism treadmill involved, but oh well.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

lmm 1y ago

Because under any normal circumstances we'd call this a trick? Like, imagine someone under house arrest trying to argue they were allowed to go all around Manhattan because of this wire - we'd quite rightly jail them for contempt.

shermantanktop 1y ago
Sure, after determining that the offered definition of “house” using the wire didn’t apply. That’s not a trick, that’s the system at work. The legal system and morality and all areas of any complexity require judgment and decision making. It might satisfy a certain type of person to have explicit, highly detailed mechanistic rules for human conduct, with no exceptions. But even where that’s been tried, 50 years passes, and now someone has the job of interpreting how those rules apply to modern life.
- lmm 1y ago
  > after determining that the offered definition of “house” using the wire didn’t apply. That’s not a trick, that’s the system at work. > The legal system and morality and all areas of any complexity require judgment and decision making. I don't think it requires much real judgement to say that a wire does not make a home and that whole area is not a single big home. This is not some finely balanced call that requires the greatest legal minds. Judges can and do strike or ignore definitions that pervert the meaning of a statute too far from the plain reading, and they're right to do so. In areas of law - or of everyday life - that we take seriously, we would not tolerate such a twisted reading of a rule.
  - gizmo686 1y ago
    This has been litigated well over a thousand years ago. To put it in modern legal terms, the legitimacy of an Eruv is a super precedent. It is discussed in depth in the Talmud, which is the clearest source of Jewish law. Even in modern law, courts can and do come up with some fairly peculiar readings at times. Particularly with old laws or the constitution itself which can, at times, be vague at best when applied in a modern context. The rules that the Eruv is a loophole for do not even come from God. They come from the specific interpretation that has developed about those relatively vague laws. There is an old "joke" in Judaism that God has no place in interpreting Jewish law. I put joke in quotes because the Oven of Akhnai is itself part of the Talmud and is generally read as establishing that exact principle. This type of "trick" is foundational to both Judaism and every common law system.