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Roads and the Torah

Started by SP Cook, July 12, 2011, 07:43:33 AM

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SP Cook

You just never know what problems road construction might cause.:

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0711/la_eruv.php3

QuoteLike just about everybody else, Orthodox Jews in Los Angeles have their issues with the 405 Freeway widening project. Unlike most people, however, their primary concern is not necessarily the impending closure of a stretch of the freeway on the July 16-17 weekend.

Their problem is that the 405 construction project keeps messing up their eruv.

Some explanation is probably in order.

An eruv is a ritual enclosure surrounding a neighborhood. It can be a fence, a wall, a piece of string – or a freeway. And it must be unbroken.

In effect, it creates an entire zone that is considered communal.

It allows observant Jews to perform certain actions on the Sabbath – carry a tray of food or push a baby stroller, for example – that Jewish law prohibits in public on that day.

Some eruvs can be fairly small, enclosing a tight-knit Jewish neighborhood. Brooklyn, for instance, is checkered with relatively small ones. It is perhaps not surprising that Los Angeles, the city that practically invented urban sprawl, is home to one of the largest eruvs anywhere, a vast enclosure 40 miles in circumference, surrounding much of the Westside and spilling over into the San Fernando Valley.

Its boundaries are, roughly, Western Avenue on the east, the 101 Freeway on the north, the 10 on the south and – yes – the 405 on the west. In portions, such as along Western, the boundary consists of fishing line strung along the tops of utility poles. It's hard to spot, even if you know it's there.

But for much of its length, the eruv consists of freeway fences or the freeways themselves.

"We always look for the simplest possible path," said Howard Witkin, an insurance executive who volunteers as an eruv administrator.

Ever since the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and California Department of Transportation began work in late 2009 to widen the 405 to 10 lanes, maintaining the eruv has been anything but simple.

The freeway widening has meant that seemingly permanent structures such as fences and freeway walls are constantly being breached, torn down or moved. The volunteers who inspect the eruv weekly and maintain it as needed have suddenly found their workload multiply.



mgk920

IIRC, several of the cut-and-cover tunnels on I-696 in north suburban Detroit, MI were built in deference to the same Jewish tradition.

Mike

agentsteel53

#2
put up a temporary eruv on some city streets while 405 is under repair?  

I don't know what level of integrity the talmud calls for, but if a fishing line will do to mark the boundary in some places, surely someone can go out and string the line across some temporary boundaries in an hour or two on the Friday morning before the 405 comes down, and then restore it to its previous alignment on Monday morning.
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

Zmapper

So, what would happen if someone climbed up on a latter and cut the string? I'm not Jewish so I wouldn't know what could happen.

agentsteel53

Quote from: Zmapper on July 12, 2011, 02:26:56 PM
So, what would happen if someone climbed up on a latter and cut the string? I'm not Jewish so I wouldn't know what could happen.

they'd be fucking with a dude who has demonstrated a fondness for locusts, floods, plagues, etc...

in short: "go ahead, try it!"
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

formulanone

#5
I don't want to start a flame war, but it's stuff like this that made me question my faith in Judaism (as well as any other faith) in the first place, many decades ago. It's not really about tradition, but their excuse for creating a loophole within their own faith.  And that's as far as I'm going with this statement.

Alps

@ formulanone: The definition of eruv was created by rabbis, not the Torah. I'd be happy to have a discussion offline but I bet we'd be agreeing within 10 seconds. Still, if you feel your faith at all shaken, drop me a line.

Desert Man

#7
Ethnic communities, religious groups and racial neighborhoods are easily identifiable in urban cities or areas where they tend to live in...used symbols of their cultures to assist newcomers who want to live in an area they want to raise their family and establish roots among neighbors alike themselves. The San Diego freeway reconstruction project should take note and respect the eruvs, not to interfere with them and if the eruv must be relocated for convenience reasons, have the Hasidic/Orthodox jewish congregations remove the eruv (a public freeway is a different situation) and place the eruv designation in another area to easily connect with another eruv pole in their housing tract or business strip.

Get your kicks...on Route 99! Like to turn 66 upside down. The other historic Main street of America.



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