Since the Talmudic daf yomi readings are deep into the Jewish practice of eruv*, this post provides a range of useful links. You are welcome to add links through the comments page.
To my readers: Due to my temporary break from new posts, a few readers kindly suggested that I leave at least a note about the status of this blog. It is my intention to improve and add to this Quicksilver blog, but I am currently pulled away to other compelling work. Apologies for not mentioning this break before. I will try to add some new posts between now and mid-January, when I hope to resume on a more regular basis. (If anyone would like to offer a guest post that fits within the scope of this blog, you would be most welcome. Send me an email.) Now, back to Eruvin:
Links about eruv (draft):
For a general guide to the topic of eruv and a long list of websites for eruvim in various communities, see Wikipedia's eruv article.
Fine explanation about eruvs and Boro Park (Brooklyn) by Rav Yehonatan Chipman
Another fine eruv site, from Univ. of Maryland.
Eruvin in Modern Metropolitan Areas, a 1995 book by Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer, which can be read on-line and downloaded for a minimal price. And here YGB discusses eruv in the context of a piece on rabbinic authority.
Here's the link to my theoretical and other comments on an eruv story by Rabbi Gil Student at Hirhurim. My post offered these links as background on the Flatbush eruv controversy: Technical Jewish legal analysis at Hirhurim here (w/in-depth comments) and by R. Yisroel Hirsch. Analysis supporting the eruv here (HT here w/comments). Non-technical discussions by Gedanken (and again). R. Micha Berger at Avodah. The bitterness. Steven Weiss on the Manhattan eruv.
Eruv Online is a blog that promotes eruv. The posts usually assume a high level of knowledge but the blog opens with a crisp social critique: "
Eruvin is different then other halachic issues in one significant aspect. Eruvin more than any other issue vests a certain amount of centralized power to the baal ha’machsher [the authority who certifies the eruv as valid -- Kaspit]. People publicly carrying in a rav’s eruv is a clear sign of the posek’s influence and support in the community, unlike relying on the rav’s hechsher on food, which is a more private matter. Consequently, there are people who find it incumbent upon themselves not to allow an eruv to be established, and insist that their rav’s opinion is the only one that can be followed. If one were to follow the history of eruvin in cities where there was no central governing rav or Bais Din, they would find that machlokas [controversy -- K] often erupted as a result of this desire for dominance in community affairs [Krakow 1888, St. Louis 1895, Odessa 1900, New York 1905 to the present, Manchester 1906, Frankfurt am Main 1914, and London 1932 to the present]. Otherwise, eruvin would generate the same level of reaction as say a mikveh [Jewish ritual bath -- Kaspit] where every individual just follows the p’sak of his own rav.
I do think eruv has a range of interesting halakhic and cultural-political features, which I hope will be discussed here.
Kol tuv,
Kaspit
* An eruv is a ritually designated enclosure, a symbolic wall or fence that marks off an area in which some sabbath prohibitions on carrying do not apply. An eruv is an example of a legal fiction in Jewish law.
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