Shaping Community: Poetics and Politics of the Eruv. (original) (raw)
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The Non-Territoriality of an Eruv: Ritual Bearings in Jewish Urban Life
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in the Journal of Architecture and Urbanism, Issue 3, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3846/20297955.2017.1355279 This paper considers the definition and meaning of an eruv 1 as " territoriality without sovereignty " in Jewish tradition (Fonrobert 2005). It begins by exploring the origin and development of the term eruv itself, as well as its applications in different urban settings. It distinguishes between, on the one hand, the " enclosure " of the eruv that is made up of various natural and artificial structures that define its perimeter and, on the other hand, the " ritual community " created by the symbolic collection of bread that is known as eruvei chatzeirot. It suggests that much of the controversy, including legal issues of separation of church and state, as well as emotional issues such as the charge of " ghetto-ization, " surrounding urban eruvin (plural of eruv) may be connected to the identification of the area demarcated by an eruv as a " territoriality. " It argues that the enclosure of an eruv is not in itself religious in nature but rather makes up a completely arbitrary and generic " space, " and that it is only through and on account of the eruvei chatzeirot that this space becomes meaningful as a purely symbolic " place " one day a week (on the Sabbath). In the course of this analysis, it considers the one " weekday " on which an eruv may be significant – the Jewish holiday of Purim – and how on that day it may be a tool by which the area defined as part of a given city may be extended. The Biblical and Talmudic Origins of Eruv The study of the eruv in the ritual life of cities reveals a complex and little understood aspect of Jewish tradition that has a particular bearing on the way urban spaces in contemporary cities are used and occupied. In describing the laws of the Jewish Sabbath, Scripture (Exodus 16:29) forbids a person situated in a public domain (reshut ha-rabbim) to carry or convey objects any further than four cubits (Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 48a). The Biblical context is the manna that sustained the Israelites in the desert. The verses explain that manna would not fall on the Sabbath so that the Israelites not have to collect, carry, and transport it that day. R. Samson Raphael Hirsch posits that the explicit Biblical ban on the inappropriate transportation of an object (most of the laws of the Sabbath are not explicit in the Bible but were transmitted orally) was necessary so as to underline that transporting an object is no less a creative activity than the other 38 forms of activity proscribed on the Sabbath (Hirsch 2005: 284-287). 2 As the public domain in the desert was an open expanse, one of the criteria of a reshut ha-rabbim is that it not be enclosed, which is defined as being surrounded three or more walls.
The Intangible Boundaries of the Jewish 'Eruv'
Jewish rulings on ‘Eruv’ were established within the religious framework prohibiting labor on the Sabbath. On the seventh day of rest, according to Judaism, objects cannot be carried from one place to another except in zones deemed private. In order to overcome these prohibitions, religious texts permitted the demarcation of Eruv boundaries that expand the boundaries of the private zone into the public on the Sabbath, allowing many of the daily activities to become possible. Eruv boundaries - the ‘walls’ it defines and the ‘openings’ within it - are primarily conceptual, agreed upon by consent, experienced through recognition and not the senses, and relevant to only one community living among many. By allowing for the performance of daily activities on the day of rest, the Eruv binds the working of the body and the concept of privacy to the notion of sacred time. These abstract boundaries allow one to speak of a phenomenological spatial experience that is mostly independent of physicality; instead, the non-materiality of making places is contingent on boundaries of space, time, and human performance whose power is comparable to those of tangible boundaries within the urban landscape. While debate over the Eruv has raised arguments pertaining to its demographic and urban implications, much of the intensity and fervor of opponents has taken place on ideological and symbolic levels, thus expanding the range of discourses that deal with the nature of urban boundaries. Addressing arguments by contenders of the Eruv, this study will examine the characteristics of these ‘belief’ boundaries through the later writings of Martin Heidegger on the nature of place, as these define place as gathering, as human activity, and as a revelation of truth.
The Suburban Eruv: Orthodoxy on the Edge
2014
You can tie off an area using poles and strings and call it an eruv, then pretend on the Sabbath that this eruv you've drawn … is your house. That way you can get around the Sabbath ban on carrying in a public space … -Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman 's Union. 1 Each week, Orthodox rabbis, paid employees, and community volunteers take to streets and freeways throughout the United States and Canada to look at utility poles and lengths of string and wire. The orange safety vests and ball caps they wear are juxtaposed against traditional visual cues associated with observant Jews: beards, tztizit, and side locks ( ).
Contextualizing “The Contemporary Eruv”
2018
The construction of eruvin – symbolic boundaries demarcating communal space that enable traditionally observant Jews to carry in public domains on the Sabbath – poses a unique problem at the intersection of religious and secular life. The application of the ancient doctrines of eruv to modern urban spaces has proven to be controversial in rabbinic circles, and in many respects the attendant Jewish law questions remain unsettled. At the same time, controversy over the construction of eruvin in modern metropolitan areas has metastasized to impact a much broader field of inquiry that includes law, politics, sociology, architecture, and aesthetics. My research in this area – which began with the publication of my book, The Contemporary Eruv: Eruvin in Modern Metropolitan Areas, and continues in this commentary and my recent essay, The Non-Territoriality of an Eruv: Ritual Bearings in Jewish Urban Life – touches on all these areas of inquiry. This commentary provides a broad overview of ...
The Theoretical Symbolism of Eruvin: A Model of Dual-Identity and Sacred Space
2012
Eruvin are an innovative solution to the logistical "problem" of carrying on the weekly Sabbath. Boundaries that symbolically extend the walls of private homes into the public sphere, eruvin allow Orthodox Jews to carry objects outside of their homes on the Sabbath, a seemingly simple act that would otherwise be prohibited. Constructed according to intricate Rabbinic specifications, eruvin use existing architectural elements such as walls, train tracks, roadways and telephone wires, as well as natural features like rivers to create a continuous boundary. This paper will examine the theoretical
Conversations: An Online Journal of the Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion, 2015
An eruv enhances the Sabbath by facilitating carrying. Jewish law does not normally allow the carrying of objects in public spaces or between private and public spaces on the Sabbath, a prohibition based upon the biblical imperative to "do no work" on that day. This rule can make some simple activities complex. A visit to a synagogue, for example, could involve leaving one's door unlocked or wearing the key as a decoration. To push a stroller, or a wheelchair, is proscribed. Children may not carry their toys outside to play. If, however, the inhabitants of private dwellings constructed around a common shared courtyard form a partnership allowing them to regard themselves as living together in one home, then during the Sabbath they may carry throughout the courtyard as if in their own homes. Both the proscription and its amelioration are Talmudic.
Reshaping the City: The Eruv as Stealth Architecture
Resistance and the City: Challenging Urban Space, 2018
The eruv, or Sabbath boundary, is a distinctive spatial practice of Judaism that resembles stealth architecture in the urban fabric. Its primary purpose is to allow orthodox Jews to carry small objects outside of their homes on the Sabbath, a practice otherwise forbidden by the Talmudic interpretation of the commandment to " do no work " on that day. Materially, the eruv border consists of an almost invisible brico-lage made of materials such as wires and utility poles found on the street. It is a minimalist work of architecture whose simple line surrounds and delimitates the complexity of urban space while it defines the human community that inhabits its space. The material borders of the eruv have increasingly inspired artistic and literary responses, but also legal ones, which sometimes proceed for years. An investigation of the mate-riality of this invisible urban boundary and the metaphorical activity that accumulates around it has a wealth of implications for the uneasy relations between modern religious spatial practices and the urban contexts to which they seek to adjust and within which they take shape.