Why People Suck: Part 3,479 - Geting Your Eruv On

11/20/06 LA Times

"Members of the Pacific Jewish Center in Venice welcomed the California Coastal Commission's decision last week to grant their request to run fishing line between lampposts and sign poles through several miles of prime beachfront, creating an unbroken symbolic border.

The eruv boundary, which also will stretch inland through parts of Santa Monica and Los Angeles, eases certain Sabbath restrictions by allowing Orthodox Jews to consider themselves to be "at home" within its broad outlines."

Personally, and this is just my opinion here, it's more than a little pathetic to live a life ruled by a lot of Bronze Age and medieval superstitions in the first place. This is the 21st fucking century here, and Los Fucking Angeles. Surely we should at this point be able to separate out the living, divinely-derived sap of a religion's spiritual message from from the dead wood of that religion's petty, human-created, arbitrary rituals by this point. And recognize that these sorts of dead wood commandments have as much validity as other bogus superstitions against not walking under ladders or letting black cats cross our paths.

But if some humans can't manage to make that leap then they should at least be consistent. If some decides to reap the psychic benefits of closely following some ancient tradition (a sense of righteousness a sense of community, a feeling of superiority over the less spiritual and disciplined) then they should be willing to pay the burdens of that decision.

According to Wikipedia, observant Orthodox Jews are not allowed to do any work on the Sabbath, which includes carrying or pushing items outside their home. Meaning that Orthodox Jews going to church wouldn't be able to push a baby carriage or even carry their keys with them.

This eruv loophole lets them do this by transforming the streets and sidewalks within this magical fishing wire fence to be considered indoors, or more accurately, inside a single enclosed courtyard. Basically, according to this thinking, the eruv is the top of the doorway and the light and utility poles are the sides of the door. Anything inside is the same as being in a shared living quarters, so carrying things is okey-dokey.

Well.

Which I suppose is all well and good. And I almost admire the ingenuity of the loophole that has been created. But I have a couple, nagging question:

If there is indeed a God, and he really does (for his own inscrutable reasons) not want anyone carrying keys to church on Saturday, is he really going to be fooled by a fishing line strung between lightposts?