Boundaries
March 8, 2010
Defining Reform | Jewish Living
(2 comments)
by Larry Kaufman
(Also posted at LarryKaufman.wordpress.com)
In Talmud class yesterday at Beth Emet, Rabbi Knobel was talking about a mishnah that involved the drawing of boundary lines, and I shared the story of Yankel, who was given his choice, as boundary lines were being set, of whether he wanted the line drawn so as to put his farm in Poland or in Russia. Without hesitation, he chose Poland, a choice for which his wife afterwards berated him. (So what else is new?) The Poles are even worse anti-Semites than the Russians, she scolded. Why did you choose Poland? To which Yankel replied, I was trying to spare you the rigors of the Russian winter!
 Lo and behold, just a day after this discussion about boundaries, the New York Times ran a story about the problems created for Orthodox Jewish communities in the Northeast as their recent blizzards damaged eruvim, the strung-wire constructs built around many Jewish communities to extend for their inhabitants the boundaries of "their place," adding geography to the realm in which they are permitted to carry on Shabbat - a permission perhaps most visible to the outside or skeptical Reform eye when we see the line-up of strollers outside the Orthodox synagogue on Saturday morning. No strollers? It probably signifies that the word has gone out that a section of the eruv has fallen down, and until all the king's horses and all the rebbe's men have put humpty-eruv together again, the walls of your actual home set the limit on where you can carry, or where you can push a stroller.
In the days when Jews lived in walled cities, or behind ghetto walls, the Times tells us, the extended carrying zone came with the territory; and in the U.S. the eruv was almost unknown before the 1970's. The Orthodox community for the most part coped, and carried. Over the last forty years, though, the general posture within Orthodoxy has been to find dormant restrictions to impose on its adherents, new ways to be zealous about avoiding the possibility of the possibility of breaking a Torah law. After all, the creation and enforcement of these legal fictions gives employment to hundreds of roshei Yeshiva (heads of Orthodox seminaries), mashgichim (kashrut supervisors), and other black-hatted, black-suited functionaries, who are imposing these chumrot (severities) upon the willing - so we, the unwilling, have no reason to object, and can mostly be content to ignore.
One of the difficulties of establishing an eruv, a community boundary, the Times points out, is that the typical eruv involves creating the boundary by co-opting existing structures, like telephone poles and El structures, and stringing unobtrusive wires to create the symbolic enclosure. This typically involves getting permission from the local municipal authorities, who have no real reason to withhold the permission, except their fear of local opinion:
"With the boom has come some opposition -- not, as Jews once feared, from intolerant gentiles, but from fellow Jews. Some Orthodox leaders maintain that urban eruvim are too large and populous to be legitimate. Less observant Jews in Tenafly, N.J., and Westhampton Beach, N.Y., have fought their installation, under the erroneous assumption that an eruv would coerce them in some way."
The Times, with its journalistic predilection to getting (or giving) only part of the story,* neglects to mention that opposition also comes from Orthodox leaders who want the original "no carry" law to be observed faithfully, and who decry the legal fiction route to permit the impermissible.
A well-known maxim in the more liberal sectors of Orthodoxy concedes that, where there is a rabbinic will, there's a halachic way. In fact, the eruv, and other such legal fictions, can be construed as a response to this principle. Reform Judaism, in contrast, following the principle that the halacha is for guidance, not governance, avoids the creation of legal fictions by ignoring those aspects of the received body of Jewish law that no longer make sense, something we can do because we don't start from the premise that the Torah is God-given and thus immutable.
So - the blizzards knocked down eruvim, and the mothers who normally brought their toddlers to shul in their strollers were forced to stay home. But they were so forced by their own interpretation of piety. Unlike Yankel, who spared himself and his wife the rigors of the Russian winter, they were victimized by the New Jersey winter. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
*On Sunday, February 28, 2010, the Times wrote about the resurgence of Jewish life in Poland, focusing almost exclusively on the story of a former neo-Nazi skinhead who discovered his Jewish roots, and who now has not only become Orthodox but is studying to be a mashgiach, a kashrut supervisor. Dan Bilefsky's story totally ignores the more mainstream men and women who are reclaiming Jewish roots and seeking Jewish identity, including those who are doing so at Beit Warszawa, Warsaw's thriving Progressive synagogue, under the leadership of American Reform Rabbi Burt Shuman.
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As an orthodox lurker, I usually keep my peace. I read the RJ blog because I want to know what my brothers and sisters are thinking. I only break my silence here because there is so much here that is stereotype and misinformation.
May I suggest that because the Reform movement has a different halachic process it produces different results. I really don't think that you understand the halachos of Shabbos that are being observed. If you do, I apologize.
To over simplify, the mitzva of shabbos includes 2 prohibitions on Shabbos. It is forbidden to transfer and object from a private domain to a true public domain and it is forbidden to carry more than about 6 feet outside of a private domain.
At the risk of boring the reader, where there is not a true public domain, there can be a rabbinically prohibited domain. In this rabbinically prohibited domain, rather than a true public domain, an eruv can be constructed to permit the transfer and carrying on Shabbos. This is a rabbinic remedy that works only with a rabbinic prohibition.
Taking your points in no particular order:
-The eruv is not a new idea. When your Talmud class reaches the tractate of Eruvim, I think that will be clear.
-As far as orthodoxy being more zealous in the last 40 year, I think that is a reflection of the general society. It is fair to say that orthodoxy and the Reform movement both have a more serious approach to halacha than they did 40 years ago.
-While I don't accept it, the argument that the eruv and the laws of Shabbos were dormant halacha could also be made about the triennial cycle.
-The argument that the eruv is a make work job for Roshei Yeshiva is laughable. In my city there are 2 eruv inspectors and an electrical contractor. The inspectors have day jobs. The bulk of the money goes to an excellent and reliable non-Jewish contractor.
-I did not understand the mashgiach reference as that was in reference to kashrus. I know a young lady who is a mashgicha and she does not wear a black suit or wear a hat.
-Those that do not use the eruv do not decry its use. There is a split in halachic authority as to the definition of a true public domain and the construction of an eruv. Both positions, to use or not use the eruv, are within halacha.
-I am not sure if your criticism that this is all chumra matches with your criticism that where there is a rabbinic will there is a halachic way. Are we too strict or too lenient?
I have learned that we really need to better explain what we do and why we do it.
As a Reform Jew, I understand that you are bound to examine the halacha and determine whether it is appropriate for you. I would urge you and your readers to do so. I would expect that a Reform Jew who took on this mitzva of Shabbos and the associated practice of check the eruv status before Shabbos would be within normative Reform practice.