The Mission
The time has come for our community to look to the future. We need to continue what was started decades ago and catapult it for generations to come. While building an eruv is what is being asked, what is being proposed is building a community. History has shown, Jewish families move to areas with eruvim. While there is a long list of reasons religious families desire to live within an eruv, the simplest one to relate to is the ability for parents and children to come to shul on Shabbat.
In a community that does not have an eruv, you will rarely see young families in shul on Shabbat. The custom is to not push a stroller or carry the child outside your home without an eruv. Meaning, until the child is capable of walking to shul, they are not able to attend on Shabbat.
The consequences of not having a community with an eruv are easily visible:
- Few women and children attending services on Shabbat
- Children not getting together for Jewish Programing
- Children not making lifelong connections with other Jewish Children
- Fathers not wanting to leave their family to go to shul
- Families moving to other areas that offer an eruv
While many may not have a need or desire for an eruv, we all have the desire to build our Jewish Community, fill our shuls and continue the mission well beyond our generation.
Who, What, Where?
What Is it?
The literal meaning of the word eruv is blending or intermingling, but that really does not tell us much. The concept of an eruv goes back to the principle of Shabbat rest. Under Jewish law on Shabbat, it is forbidden to carry anything—regardless of its weight, size or purpose—from a "private" domain into a "public" one or vice versa, or more than four cubits (approximately 6 feet) within a public domain. Private and public do not refer to ownership, rather to the nature of the area. An enclosed area is considered a private domain, whereas an open area is considered public for the purposes of these laws.
Practically, it is forbidden to carry something, such as a tallit bag or a prayer book from one's home along the street and to a synagogue or to push a baby carriage from home to a synagogue, or to another home, on Shabbat.
It became obvious even in ancient times, that on Shabbat, as on other days, there are certain things people wish to carry. People also want to get together with their friends after synagogue and take things with them—including their babies. They want to get together to learn, to socialize and to be a community.
Given the design of many communities in the past, many neighborhoods or even cities were walled. As such, the whole area was regarded as "private," and carrying allowed. That, however, wasn’t always the case. And today, it is an obvious impracticality to build walls throughout portions of cities, crossing over or through streets and walkways, in order to place one's home and synagogue within the same "private" domain.
The Answer Is the Eruv
The answer is a technical enclosure which surrounds both private and hitherto public domains and thus creates a large private domain in which carrying is permitted on Shabbat. Colloquially this is known as an eruv. The eruv is usually large enough to include entire neighborhoods with homes, apartments and synagogues, making it possible to carry on Shabbat, since one is never leaving one's domain.
It is technical, because theoretically the eruv should be a wall. However, a wall can be a wall even if it has many doorways creating large open spaces. This means that a wall does not have to be solid. Therefore, the eruv enclosure may be created by telephone poles, for example, which act as the vertical part of a door post in a wall, with the existing cables strung between the poles acting as the lintel of the doorframe. As such, the entire "wall" is actually a series of "doorways." Added to that there may be existing natural boundaries and fences.
The construction and upkeep of an eruv must be rabbinically supervised and inspected on a weekly basis.
Ongoing Supervision Fund
The eruv is checked on a weekly basis and repaired, as need, and in accordance with Jewish Law. To help keep our mission and community growing, please consider donating to the fund.
Thank You To Everyone Who Has Contributed
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