For the last two and a half weeks, I have been learning Talmudic tractate Eruvin in my daf yomi class. Eruvin is one of the three most difficult tractates in the Gemara. There is less aggadic material than in some, and the halacha is concerned with very complicated discussions about what types of spaces different areas are, their very specific measurements, and how to render them fit for an eruv, a joint agreement among residents to join together with food in common (usually a box a matzah – my suggestion that it be a Dr Pepper-chocolate cake made from matzah meal has so far not found other adherents) so that a common area becomes halachically a private domain in which carrying is permitted on Shabbat and festivals. I don’t pretend to understand it – if I were honest, I would define the karmelis, a semi-private domain that comes up from time to time as “a type of space invented by the rabbis to confuse students by only being mentioned after just enough time has passed that they have completely forgotten about it since the last mention” – I’m reasonably certain that this is not the actual definition. But I’m enjoying it.
In fact, I’m not just enjoying it – I find it to be quite a sacred thing. I bought the book “It’s a Thin Line: Eruv from Talmudic to Modern Culture”, edited by Rabbi Adam Mintz, whose shiur on the topic kicking off this tractate I was privileged to attend (he seemed amused when I held up his book before class to show that I had obtained it). I now subscribe to the Center City Eruv email list and am excited – and oddly comforted - each Friday afternoon when I receive the email saying the Eruv is UP (fortunately that has been the case so far each week since I joined the list). I’m excited and impatient for the Center City Eruv to extend its boundaries southward even though I live inside the current eruv, in Northern Liberties. I look forward eagerly to each evening’s class (mornings on Friday and Sunday, and we’re on our own for Shabbat – I’ve listened to online shiurim or at least read the daf on my own from my Koren Talmud for Shabbat’s daf). I even took a walk through my neighborhood a few days ago and started noticing alleyways and trying to figure out whether or not they would be suitable for an eruv!
What is odd about this is that, not only am I not shomer shabbos – I’m not even Jewish – although I’ve had a long-standing deep interest in Judaism that goes back decades, having majored in Judaic studies in college with a minor in Hebrew and having taken many courses in Judaism in divinity school. (Also, when we write our “What I Did During the Pandemic” essays after this is all over – if it is ever over – mine will be “Worked, slept, ate, took lots of walks, and attended lots and lots of synagogue services and classes on Zoom every day”.) One of the two synagogues I participate in regularly (and have even joined as a non-Jewish member) is more progressive, and I suspect that while most of the members have a serious Shabbat practice, it does not include the practice of only carrying inside an eruv. So it might seem puzzling that I have developed an eruv obsession. I wouldn’t even have been able to hazard a guess, other than placing it inside my general interest in Judaism, before this morning.
What I realized this morning is that, in the absence of being able to enter most buildings set aside for public worship, such as synagogues (although I have recently attended a couple of outdoor masked socially distanced Kabbalat Shabbat services), I’m feeling a loss. I have for a long time had sacred space set apart in my home – but it’s not the same thing as a public sacred space. But the knowledge that there is an eruv, a sacred boundary, even if its primary purpose is to halachically permit certain mundane activities rather than serve as a ritual space, somehow gives me comfort. It feels important to know that I live within this sacred boundary, that it somehow sanctifies, in ways I don’t even necessarily understand, where most of my life has occurred these last five and a half months (has it only been five and a half months?!?!?) and sets it apart as a space sacred to God. This might also explain another obsession I have – whenever the measurements in Eruvin are connected by the rabbis, as they often are, to the Mishkan (Tabernacle in the wilderness) or Mikdash (Temple in Jerusalem), I strain to find some sort of theological connection, sometimes with more success than at others.
Because, improbably enough, for me, at this time, the eruv has become my Mishkan – God’s dwelling-place in my life.
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