Daf Ditty Eruvin 52: Conceptualizing Eruvim

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MISHNA: If a person set out to go on a Shabbat eve to a town for which an eiruv is established
in order to go there on Shabbat, and another person caused him to return home, he himself is
permitted to go to that city on Shabbat, and for all the other residents of the town it is prohibited
to go there. This is the statement of Rabbi Yehuda.

Rabbi Meir says: Anyone who can establish an eiruv, and negated his residence in his original
place, and did not establish an eiruv, i.e., he did not at least state that he seeks to establish
residence somewhere else, is likened to both a donkey driver, who walks behind the animal and
prods it, and a camel driver, who walks before the animal and leads it, in the sense that he is
pulled in two opposite directions. Due to the uncertainty with regard to the location of his Shabbat

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limit, his movement is restricted as though his residence was established in both his city and at a
location along the way to the other city. He may not venture beyond two thousand cubits from
either location.

There are two towns within four thousand ‫ אמות‬of each other, and all the people of one town
intended to establish residence between the two towns, so that they can go to the other town, but
they did not actually set up an ‫עירוב‬. If one person began to walk to the other town before ‫שבת‬
began, and then returned home to his original town, ‫ יהודה רבי‬holds that HE may go to the other
town on ‫שבת‬, because the ‫ עירוב‬is valid for him. The other residents of his town may not go to the
other town, because the ‫ עירוב‬is NOT valid for them.

GEMARA: With regard to the Mishna’s statement that according to Rabbi Yehuda, he himself
is permitted to go to the other city, while for all the rest of the residents of his city it is prohibited
to do so, the Gemara asks: What is different about him and what is different about them?
Why is he permitted to proceed to the other city, while they are not? Rav Huna said: We are
dealing here with a case where that person has two houses, one in each town, with the distance
of two Shabbat limits, four thousand cubits, between them.

‫ הונא רב‬explains the opinion of ‫ יהודה' ר‬that the person who had begun to walk before ‫שבת‬
establishes residence between the cities because

Once he set out on the road, he is considered a poor person who can establish a ‫ שבת‬residence
with just a verbal declaration. The others who never left their town are considered ‫עשירים‬who
cannot make an ‫ עירוב‬this way. However, according to ‫ יהודה' ר‬they retain their residence in their
town, and can walk 2000 ‫ אמות‬in every direction.

R’ Meir says that both he and the other people are limited by the ‫ חומרא‬of the ‫ תחום‬of their city,
and the ‫ חומרא‬of the ‫תחום‬that they wanted to establish.

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With regard to him, since he set out on his way, his legal status is that of a pauper, as he did not
intend to return to his first house but to continue to his other house, and he can therefore establish
residence at the end of his Shabbat limit simply by declaring that he wishes to acquire residence
in such-and-such place. And the legal status of these other inhabitants of his city, is that of wealthy
people, as they are in their houses and have food. Consequently, they can only establish residence
at the end of their Shabbat limit by depositing food there prior the onset of Shabbat.

R’ Meir holds that one who can make an ‫ עירוב‬with food - as in our case where they are all home
at the onset of ‫ שבת‬- cannot make an ‫ עירוב‬by declaration.

Therefore, their ‫ עירוב‬is not valid, and they may not go further than the ‫ תחום‬of their town. R’ Meir
also holds that even a mere attempt to make an ‫עירוב‬in one direction is a renunciation of one’s
right to go in the other direction.

Therefore, even though their ‫ עירוב‬is not valid, they may not go in the other direction further than
2000 ‫ אמות‬from the attempted ‫ עירוב‬location.

Being restricted in both directions is referred to as - - ‫חמר גמל‬Like a person leading a donkey from
behind it, and a camel in front of it - while he’s stuck in the middle.

The Gemara explains that according to ‫ יהודה רבי‬the following two conditions must be met for the
‫ עירוב‬to be valid, and be allowed to walk to the other town.

-1- He actually started walking on Friday –

-2- He verbally declared his desire to be ‫ שביתה קונה‬at some given location.

That was also taught in a baraita: With regard to one who has two houses, with the distance of
two Shabbat limits between them, once he set out on the way, clearly demonstrating his
intention to leave, although he did not explicitly say: My residence is at the end of my Shabbat
limit, he acquired an eiruv there. This is the statement of Rabbi Yehuda.

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Furthermore, Rabbi Yosei, son of Rabbi Yehuda said: Even if another found him before he
left, and said to him: Spend the night here, it is a hot period, or it is a cold period and
inadvisable to set out now, on the following day he may rise early and go to the other town, as
his intention to walk is sufficient.

‫ ה ברבי יוסי' ר‬is more lenient than ‫ יהודה רבי‬in that he requires only one of these conditions to allow
him to walk to the other city - however, there is a Machlokes as to which one.

‫ רבה‬understands that he only requires him to verbally declare that he wants to make an ‫ עירוב‬,but
does not require him to actually begin to walk.

‫ יוסף רב‬understands that he only requires him to begin to walk, but does not require him to verbally
declare his desire for an ‫עירוב‬.

The Gemara relates an incident where ‫אישתתא בר יהודה רב רב נתן בר‬, Friday. ‫ רב נתן בר אושעיא‬to fruit
of basket a brought ‫ אושעיא‬waited until ‫ אישתתא בר יהודה רב‬took one step out the door back to his
hometown, which was less than 4000 ‫אמות‬away, before asking him to stay overnight and return
home .morning ‫שבת‬

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The Gemara explains: ‫ נתן רב‬either held like ‫‘יוסף רב‬s understanding of ‫ יהודה ברבי יוסי' ר‬,that all
one needs to establish residence is to begin the trip, or he held like ‫יהודה רבי‬that you need both,
and in this case ‫ אישתתא בר יהודה רב‬also verbally stated where he wants his Shabbos residence to
be.

The Mishna states that If a man left his home (on Friday) to proceed to a town with which they
may make an eiruv with (for the two towns were within four thousand amos of each other), but a
friend of his convinced him to return home, he himself is allowed to proceed to the other town, but
all the other townspeople (who did not begin to travel) are forbidden; these are the words of Rabbi
Yehudah.

Rabbi Meir says: Whoever is able to place an eruv and did not (but rather, he declared that some
place other than his house should be his Shabbos residence), Behold this man represents a
combination of a donkey driver and a camel driver. [Such a driver is unable to make any progress.
A camel can be led only by pulling its rein and a donkey can be driven only from behind. A man
who is in charge of both animals can neither lead the two on account of the donkey, nor can he
drive the two on account of the camel.

In this case, he must remain between the areas permitted to his current place and the place he
wanted to make his eiruv.]

The Gemora asks: In what respect does he differ from them?

Rav Huna replied: We are here dealing with the case of a man who had, for instance, two houses
between which two Shabbos limits intervened. As far as he is concerned, since he had set out on
his journey, he has the status of a poor man.

They, however, have the status of rich men. The Gemora cites a braisa in support of this.

There is an argument regarding how to understand the opinion of Rabbi Yosi the son of Rabbi
Yehudah. The braisa quotes Rabbi Yehudah as saying that once he started on the road, his eiruv is
valid. Rabbi Yosi the son of Rabbi Yehudah is quoted as saying that even if his friend stopped him
by saying it is too cold or too hot, his eiruv is valid.

Rabbah understands that Rabbi Yehudah only says the eiruv is valid if he both started traveling
and his friend convinced him not to.

Rabbi Yosi holds that even if his friend convinced him before he started traveling, the eiruv is
valid. Rav Yosef understands that Rabbi Yosi is being more stringent than Rabbi Yehudah. While
Rabbi Yosi the son of Rabbi Yehudah requires both, Rabbi Yehudah only requires that he start
traveling.

Even if his friend does not say anything to him and he turns back, it is valid.

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Rabbi Yehudah is of the opinion that if he merely starts traveling in that direction and is turned
back by his friend who tells him it is too hot (according to Rav Yosef even if he is not told this by
his friend), he still acquires the techum in the place where he wanted to go.

The first opinion in Rashi is that this is even if he did not explicitly say, “My resting place should
be in this area (the place he wanted to go).”

However, the Ritva and others say this opinion is just too difficult to understand. It is a big enough
novelty that we permit a traveler to “name his techum.” To say that we do this even when he turns
back and does not explicitly say, “My resting place should be in this area (the place he wanted to
go),” is such a novel law that it should have to be said explicitly by the Gemora.

The Ritva and other Rishonim therefore say that the correct explanation is that this is even when
he does say, “My resting place should be in this area (the place he wanted to go).” Even so there
is an argument whether or not his techum is valid, as he turned back.

RASHI'S TWO EXPLANATIONS FOR THE ARGUMENT BETWEEN

RABAH AND RAV YOSEF1
The Mishnah discusses a case in which a person departed his city just before Shabbos with
intention to be Koneh Shevisah at a point 2000 Amos outside of his city, so that he would be able
to walk on Shabbos to another city that was 4000 Amos away from his present city. Just after he
departed from his city, his friend stopped him and insisted that he return to his city. The Mishnah
states that even though he returned to his original city, his Eruv Techumin is valid and he may
walk on Shabbos to the second city.

The other residents of his city, though, may not use the Eruv to travel to the other city. This is the
opinion of Rebbi Yehudah. Rebbi Meir says that his Eruv is not valid, and he is limited to the area
that is shared by the Techum of his Eruv and the Techum of his original city.

The Gemara then cites a Beraisa which also quotes Rebbi Yehudah. In the Beraisa, Rebbi Yehudah
says that since the person embarked on his journey, the Eruv that he intended to make at a certain
point far away from him is valid (that is, since he started traveling, he has the status of a poor
person (Ani) who is permitted to make a remote Eruv merely by saying, "My Shevisah will be in
such-and-such place").

Rebbi Yosi b'Rebbi Yehudah adds that even if his friend kept him back and told him to stay in his
present city due to the inclement weather in the other city, the Eruv Techumin is valid.

The Gemara then records an argument between Rabah and Rav Yosef concerning the point of
dispute between Rebbi Yehudah and Rebbi Yosi b'Rebbi Yehudah in the Beraisa (see Chart).

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Rav Mordechai Kornfeld, daf Advancement Forum

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ONE WHO STARTED TRAVELING TO ANOTHER CITY
BUT WAS KEPT BACK BY HIS FRIEND

(1) (a) According to this Lashon of Rashi, everyone agrees that he does not have to openly state,
"My Shevisah will be in such-and-such place." When the Gemara says that "he said" ('Amar'), it
is not referring to the person making the Eruv, but to his friend who told him to stay in his present
city and not to travel to the other city. The Gemara means that it was his friend who kept him back,
in contrast to returning by his own volition. (Since it was his friend who kept him back, we assume
that his own intention is to continue traveling the next day and he never had in mind that his Eruv
should be annulled.) If he said explicitly, "My Shevisah will be in such- and-such place," everyone
-- even Rebbi Meir -- agrees that his Eruv is valid, regardless of whether his friend kept him back
or he went back on his own.

(b) According to Tosfos, "he said" ('Amar') refers to the friend who kept him back - the
friend said the reason why he was keeping him back (such as "it is excessively hot/cold today"), in
contrast o keeping him back without giving any reason. Since the friend gave a reason, which will

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presumably not apply the next morning, it is assumed that the person will continue on his way to
the city in the morning.

(2) Even according to Rebbi Yehudah, only an Ani is able to make an Eruv Techumin by saying,
"My Shevisah will be in such-and-such a place." An Ashir, though, cannot make an Eruv in this
manner. (This is in accordance with the opinion of Rav Nachman on 51b, which the Gemara there
proves correct on the basis of our Mishnah.) Therefore, it is necessary that the person has already
embarked on his journey, for that gives him a status of an Ani. Even Rebbi Yosi b'Rebbi Yehudah
agrees with this (see footnote #3).

(3) Even though -- according to Rabah -- Rebbi Yosi b'Rebbi Yehudah does not require that the
person has already embarked, nevertheless he does require that the person at least say that he
plans to embark. If he does not say that he plans to embark, then he is not considered an "Ani"
and thus he cannot make his Eruv by saying, "My Shevisah will be in such-and-such place."

(4) (a) According to this Lashon, Rav Yosef holds that it is Rebbi Yosi b'Rebbi Yehudah who is
Machmir and Rebbi Yehudah who is Meikel. (Rashi mentions that there are those who explain that
Rebbi Yosi b'Rebbi Yehudah does not require as much of an act of embarking as does Rebbi
Yehudah, but Rashi does not accept that explanation.)

(b) However, Tosfos (DH Lomar) asserts that even according to this Lashon's interpretation of
Rav Yosef, Rebbi Yosi b'Rebbi Yehudah is the more lenient opinion. Rav Yosef means that even if
the person specified that he was returning "because of the cold," his Eruv is still valid, in contrast
to Rebbi Yehudah, who maintains that his Eruv is not valid unless his friend held him back without
explaining the reason. If he specified the reason (such as "because it is cold"), then we must assume
that the reason will remain valid even on the following morning, and the person did not want his
Eruv to be valid at all. (Compare to Tosfos' interpretation of the 1st Lashon, note #1b.)

(5) According to the first Lashon, Rebbi Meir holds that -- when the person who was making the
Eruv went back to his place before Shabbos -- we are in doubt whether his intention was still to
make his place of Shevisah in the place that he designated, or whether he changed his mind and
intended for his place of Shevisah to be at his home. Therefore, he has the status of a "Chamar
Gamal" who is limited to the part of the Techum shared by both possible places of Shevisah (Rashi
52a, DH v'Rav Yosef).

(6) This is the second Lashon of Rashi, which seems here (52a) to be his preferred explanation
(even though he refuted this explanation on 51b, DH Iyhu; see Insights). According to the second
Lashon of Rashi, "he said" refers to the person making the Eruv who said explicitly, "My Shevisah
will be in such-and-such place." (Whether his friend kept him back or he stayed back on his own
does not affect anything.) According to this, Rebbi Yehudah requires one to verbally declare his
intention to make a certain place his place of Shevisah. Rebbi Yehudah did not teach this explicitly
in the Mishnah only because he was relying on what was explained in the previous Mishnah (Rashi,
DH v'Rav Yosef).

(7) According to the second Lashon of Rashi, Rebbi Meir holds that one who has just departed
from his city is not considered an Ani. Only someone who is already traveling and is far from his

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home is considered an Ani. Therefore, since this person has just left his city, he is considered an
Ashir, and he may not make an Eruv by saying, "My Shevisah will be in such- and-such place." As
a result, he is not Koneh Shevisah in the other city (Rashi 52a, DH v'Rav Yosef). However, since
he wanted to be Koneh Shevisah in another place, he loses part of his Techum, and he is permitted
to walk only in the area which is shared by the Techum of both places (the place where he wanted
to be Koneh Shevisah, and the place where he is actually located) -- he is a "Chamar Gamal."
(Even though earlier, on 35a, we learned that if one wanted to make an Eruv in a given place and
the food of his Eruv rolled outside of his Techum, he does have the Techum of his city, Rebbi Meir
apparently argues and holds that there as well he indeed loses the Techum of his city and is
restricted to the Techum shared by his city and the place where he wanted his Shevisah to be. -
Rashi 52b, DH Ela)

(8) According to the second Lashon of Rashi, Rebbi Yosi b'Rebbi Yehudah as interpreted by Rav
Yosef is the only one who does not require a verbal declaration of intent to be Koneh Shevisah in
a given place. Therefore, the Gemara deduces that the Beraisa and the story of Rav Nasan bar
Oshiya are following the opinion of Rebbi Yosi b'Rebbi Yehudah, since they make no mention of
verbally declaring one's intent to be Koneh Shevisah.

Rabah states, "Everyone agrees that he must say; they argue whether he must be Machzik."
Rav Yosef states, "Everyone agrees that he must be Machzik; they argue whether he must say."
It is not clear what exactly these phrases mean.

(a) According to Rashi's first explanation, the argument between Rabah and Rav Yosef is as
follows.

1a. When Rabah says, "Everyone agrees that he must say," he means that both Rebbi Yehudah and
Rebbi Yosi maintain that in order for the Eruv to be valid even though the person returned to the
first city, we must know that he returned not by his own volition but that his friend told him to
return. When we see that his friend told him to return, we may assume that he still has in mind to
rely on his Eruv the next day, during Shabbos. If the friend did not say anything and the person
returned on his own, we assume that he no longer has intention to rely on his Makom Shevisah,
and the Eruv is invalid. (This is what Rabah means when he says that everyone agrees that "he
must say"; that is, the friend must say something to detain him, as opposed to his returning home
by his own volition.)

1b. When Rabah says, "They argue whether he must be Machzik," he means that according to
Rebbi Yehudah, although the person does not need to verbally declare his intent to be Koneh
Shevisah, he must have departed from his home in order to be considered an Ani. Rebbi Yosi is
lenient and does not require him to have actually left his home. As long as he was intended to
leave, but his friend kept him back, his intent to be Koneh Shevisah is effective.

2a. When Rav Yosef says, "Everyone agrees that one must be Machzik," he means that both Rebbi
Yehudah and Rebbi Yosi require the person to have actually left his home in order to be considered
an Ani.

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2b. When Rav Yosef says, "They argue whether he must say," he means that Rebbi Yehudah
does not require that the person return to his home at the urging of his friend. Even if he returns
on his own accord, he acquires his intended Makom Shevisah by virtue of the fact that he started
on his journey. Rebbi Yosi b'Rebbi Yehudah, though, requires not only that he started on his
journey, but that his return homeward was at the urging of his friend. It follows that according to
this explanation of Rashi, Rav Yosef holds that it is Rebbi Yosi b'Rebbi Yehudah who is stringent
and Rebbi Yehudah who is lenient.

According to this explanation of Rashi, everyone agrees that the person making the Eruv
does not need to expressly state, "My Shevisah will be in such-and-such place." When the Gemara
says that "he said" ("Amar"), it refers not to the person making the Eruv, but to his friend who told
him to stay in his present city and not to travel to the other city. The Gemara means that it was his
friend who kept him back, and it was not his own decision to return. If, however, he said explicitly,
"My Shevisah will be in such-and-such place," everyone agrees that his Eruv is valid, regardless
of whether his friend kept him back or he returned on his own.

(According to this explanation, Rebbi Meir -- who says that the person making the Eruv is a
"Chamar Gamal" -- is in doubt whether the person who returned to his city after he started out
towards another city still intends to make his place of Shevisah in the place that he designated, or
whether he has changed his mind and intends for his place of Shevisah to be at his home. Therefore,
he has the status of a "Chamar Gamal" who is limited to the part of the Techum shared by both
possible places of Shevisah.)

(b) According to Rashi's second explanation, the argument between Rabah and Rav Yosef is as
follows.

1a. When Rabah says, "Everyone agrees that he must say," he means that both Rebbi Yehudah and
Rebbi Yosi require that the person making the Eruv say, "My Shevisah will be in such-and-such
place."

1b. When Rabah says, "They argue whether he must be Machzik," he means that they argue
whether the person making the Eruv must have actually departed from his home and started
traveling or not. According to Rebbi Yehudah, in order to be considered an Ani who may make an
Eruv merely by saying, "My Shevisah will be in such-and-such place," the person must have
actually left home and started traveling. According to Rebbi Yosi, it is enough that he intended
and planned to depart in order for him to be considered an Ani. Rebbi Yosi, therefore, is more
lenient than Rebbi Yehudah in that he does not require the person to have actually left his home.

2a. When Rav Yosef says, "Everyone agrees that one must be Machzik," he means that both Rebbi
Yehudah and Rebbi Yosi require the person to have actually left his home in order to be considered
an Ani.

2b. When Rav Yosef says, "They argue whether he must say," he means that they argue as follows.
According to Rebbi Yehudah, the person making the Eruv must verbally declare, "My Shevisah
will be in such-and-such place." According to Rebbi Yosi, the very fact that he departed from his

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city towards the other city shows that he had intention to be Koneh Shevisah between the two
cities, and that "Giluy Da'as" suffices.
According to the second explanation of Rashi, Rebbi Yosi b'Rebbi Yehudah, as interpreted by Rav
Yosef, is the only one who does not require a verbal declaration of intent to be Koneh Shevisah in
a given place.

(According to this explanation of Rashi, Rebbi Meir -- who says that the person making the Eruv
is a "Chamar Gamal" -- maintains that one who has just departed from his city is not considered
an Ani. Only someone who is already traveling and is far from his home is considered an Ani.
Therefore, since this person has just left his city, he is considered an Ashir and he may not make
an Eruv by saying, "My Shevisah will be in such-and-such place." As a result, he is not Koneh
Shevisah in the other city. However, since he wanted to be Koneh Shevisah in another place, he
loses the part of his original Techum which is not accessible from the place in which he wanted to
be Koneh Shevisah, and he is permitted to walk only in the area which is shared by the Techum of
both places.)

Steinzaltz (OBM) writes:2

The Mishna on our daf brings the case of two cities that were close enough to one another that
someone could establish an eiruv and walk from one to the other. According to Rabbi Yehuda, a
person who was heading from one city to the other on Friday afternoon – even if he was called
back by his friend and did not reach it – can walk there on Shabbat, as he has established
his eiruv by walking. Nevertheless, other people in the city would not be allowed to walk
there. Rabbi Meir rules that since he did not clearly state his intention to establish an eiruv in that
place, he falls into the proverbial “donkey-camel driver” situation (see 35a-b) and is limited in
both directions.

According to Maimonides, the explanation for this case is that the person was sent by the
community to be their representative in establishing an eiruv so that they would be able to walk to
their neighboring city. Instead of placing food to create the eiruv, he simply walked to the edge of
the tehum . Such an eiruv works for him, but the community cannot rely on their messenger’s
physical presence to create an eiruv for them.

The Jerusalem Talmud has two explanations for this Mishna, both of which suggest that the person
involved was sent as a representative of the community to establish an eiruv between the two cities,
and it is his friend who called him back who has a different status than the rest of the city’s
inhabitants.

According to the first explanation, the messenger successful established the eiruv for the entire
city – except for the individual who called him back. So his friend can continue to walk the normal
2,000 amot around the city, while the rest of the city can walk one way only – towards the
neighboring city.

2
https://www.steinsaltz-center.org/vault/DafYomi/Eiruvin/Eiruvin_51.pdf

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The second explanation understands the case to be when the messenger did not succeed in
establishing the eiruv for anyone. The city’s inhabitants cannot walk to the next city, but the friend
who was with him succeeded in establishing an eiruv for himself by virtue of his presence, so he
is allowed to walk to the next city.

Rabbi Elliot Goldberg writes:3

The Gemara has thus far dedicated a significant amount of time to discussing the particulars of
the eruv techumin, which defines the area in which one is allowed to travel on Shabbat. As we
have learned, the general rule is that one can travel up to 2,000 cubits from one’s residence in any
direction.

While the Gemara has explored a number of scenarios in which a person might expand or contract
the area in which they are allowed to roam, each scenario has some defined travel limit.

Or, maybe not.

On our daf, we see that some rabbis believe that the 2,000-cubit limit is more or less, but not
exactly, the limit. In a mishnah on today’s page, we learn:

MISHNA: One who intentionally, not for the purpose of performing a mitzva, went out beyond
his Shabbat limit, even if only one cubit, may not reenter. Rabbi Eliezer says: If he went out
two cubits he may reenter; however, if he went out three cubits he may not reenter.

The anonymous position in this mishnah holds tight to the rule — one can travel 2,000 cubits and
that’s it. If you go even a cubit too far, you cannot return. Rabbi Eliezer presents a more lenient
position, permitting one to exceed the prescribed limit by two cubits, but no more.

Later on, the page, we encounter a second mishnah that records a similar disagreement:

3
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/eruvin-52/

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If it grew dark while one was traveling outside the Shabbat limit of the town where they were
heading, even if it was only one cubit outside the limit, one may not enter the town. Rabbi
Shimon says: Even if one was 15 cubits beyond the limit one may enter the town, because the
surveyors do not precisely demarcate the measures, due to those who err.

Here we are dealing with a case of someone who is approaching a town as Shabbat is beginning.
Once again, the anonymous position supports a strict boundary — if they are more than 2,000
cubits from the town as Shabbat starts, they can’t enter. Rabbi Shimon rules more leniently and
grants people an additional 15 cubits.

In the first mishnah, Rabbi Eliezer’s rationale for being flexible is left open to speculation. But
Rabbi Shimon’s leniency is supported with a reason: We give people an extra 15 cubits because
the 2,000-cubit boundary marker isn’t accurate. Those who place the markers indicating the
Shabbat boundary site them at a distance of less than 2,000 cubits because they know people will
make a mistake.

How so? Some opinions say it is the travelers that err by crossing the boundary. To account for
this, markers are placed short of the ultimate boundary. Others say it is the surveyors who,
constrained by the local terrain, place boundary markers where it is geographically convenient and
not exactly on the 2,000-cubit line.

Either way, the permissive opinions are not adopted. Later authorities rule according to the stricter
positions. In their mind, the limit is the limit.

While this makes sense, so do the positions of Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Shimon. Why not make
room for someone who is just outside the line to enter the town? Isn’t it better to forgive a small
transgression of a cubit or two than to prevent a person from joining a community on Shabbat?
And if what Rabbi Shimon says is true, the boundary markers have been set up to keep people
from transgressing, so it’s possible that someone who strays a couple cubits beyond hasn’t actually
done anything wrong.

We’ll see more about how the boundaries of a town were established in the next chapter of Tractate
Eruvin, which begins tomorrow.

14
Eruvim: Talmudic places in a postmodern world

Peter Vincent and Barney Warft write4

Lodged in the heart of Western urban space, eruvim are religious enclaves important to Orthodox
Jewish culture. Eruvim enable acceptable behaviors on the Sabbath as defined by Talmudic
theological dogma. Work, and the carrying of all objects associated with work, is prohibited in
public spaces on the Sabbath by the Talmud, yet within the boundaries of the eruv, many such
restrictions are relaxed, facilitating social interaction and community cohesion.

This paper examines the religious and spatial dimensions of eruvim, including the obsessive detail
paid to the demarcation of their boundaries, which serve as metaphorical walls and doorways. It
also explicates the local politics through which private space is effectively extended into public
space. Conceptually, the paper situates the topic within broader concerns about diasporic Jewish
identity, which is threatened by assimilationism, slow demographic growth and secularization. It
invokes recent theories concerning the spatialization of consciousness and subjectivity, noting the
recent growth of eruvim as part of the global surge in ethnic identity that has emerged as a backlash
to postmodern capitalism.

Scattered across the landscapes of Israel and many towns and cities in the Western world,
frequently invisible to inhabitants who may be ignorant of their purpose and symbolic meaning,
lie a series of Orthodox Jewish places called, in Hebrew, eruvim (eruvin - Aramaic; singular eruv).
Defined and erected according to ancient Talmudic law, eruvim are important to the behaviour of
their residents.

As spaces of identity that reflect and reproduce traditional religious practices in a largely secular
culture, eruvim are miniature worlds that personalize urban space by making, for Orthodox Jews,
the public arena private. As sites of embodied cultural practice, they are an intriguing synthesis of
local urban geopolitics and reflections of worldwide trends to escape or resist the late twentieth-
century wave of time-space compression and commodification that has challenged and
undermined many traditional cultures.

The literature on the geography of religion has shifted from earlier apolitical, empiricist concerns
with the spatiality of different religious groups (Sopher 1967 1981; Levine 1986; Park 1994) and
sacred spaces (e.g. Tuan 1974; Jackson and Henrie 1983) to more explicitly theoretical analyses
centred upon, inter alia, the politics of religious dis- courses and symbolic meanings. Fundamental
to current perspectives are the power relations that underpin religion as an ideology of domination
and subordination whose exercise is fundamentally spatial in nature.

Conceptually, this metamorphosis has witnessed the gradual transition from long-standing
Weberian assumptions that religion would gradually disappear in the face of the hegemonic
rationality of commodity consumption to a studied preoccupation with religion and identity

4
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3804454.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A9c0079ddd39b2eda66a77c83df717440

15
(Cooper 1992), including gender, class, nationality and place. Within this body of work, the view
that religion constitutes a dying remnant of pre-modern culture has given way to an appreciation
of how religious communities reproduce and reinvent themselves in a largely secular world.

Religion and modernity are not seen as diametrical opposites locked in hostile confrontation, but
co-evolving, mutually transformative institutions that shape one another. The appropriation and
legitimization of sacred spaces is inevitably tied up with the political organization of social
relations, a dialectic that is contingent and place-specific in nature. Judaism is one of the oldest
known religions in the world, and although some authors have studied Jewish law and spaces such
as synagogues (Shilhav 1983a; Cooper 1996), analyses of the geography of Jews have remained
predominantly confined to the purely empirical level (Newman 1985; Sheskin 1998 2000). The
present paper examines the multiple dimensions of diaspora eruvim and, given the sparse research
into this topic, does not seek to be a comprehensive global assessment. Instead, it mainly focuses
on eruvim of the United States and the United Kingdom, where most have been established or
planned within the last 30 years, and explicates their social, demo- graphic and spatial dynamics,
embedding the topic within post-structuralist social theory concerned with the inter-relations
between identity, power and space. The paper opens with a brief account of the rapid population
decline of diaspora Jewry through assimilationism, inter-marriage, secularization and slow
demographic growth, all of which threaten the social basis of contemporary Jewish identity. It next
provides a detailed description of the religious roots of eruvim and how they are entwined with the
social and spatial practices of Orthodox Judaism.

Third, it summarizes the geography of eruvim outside Israel, focusing on the US and the UK, and
delves into the local politics that frequently accompany the erection of eruvim, focusing on the
Hampstead Garden Suburb of London as an example. Finally, it conceptualizes eruvim as
constellations of subjectivity and power drawing upon Giddens' structuration theory, symbolic
interactionism and post- structuralist theorizations of identity and spatiality. It situates eruvim
within the broader responses to global time-space compression in the late twentieth century, noting
they may be conceived as part of a broader strategy of resistance and withdrawal from the
hegemony of commodity fetishism.

Western Jews have long sought a balance between participation and isolation, a dilemma that is
particularly intense for those seeking to reconcile tradition and modern life (Lipset 1990). The
maintenance of Jewish identity in both the US and the UK has been problematic in the face of low
birth rates, intermarriage with non-Jews, rising levels of secularization and out-migration to Israel.
One-half of American Jews, for example, marry gentiles.

Indeed, assimilationism brought on by intermarriage, rising wealth and associated secularism is

often viewed as the single greatest threat to modern Jewish life (Gamm 1999; Fishman 2000).
Wasserstein (1996) laments that the diasporic European Jewish community is on the verge of
disappearing and, in the same vein, Dershowitz (1997) writes of the 'vanishing American Jew', and
the erosion of a vibrant cultural identity. Chanes (2000) notes that one implication of this loss of
identity is the fact that while the majority of American Jews adhere to the performance of Jewish
practices and rituals, relatively few are literate in carrying out these rituals.

16
The erosion of diasporic Jewish identity, how- ever, has not occurred equally among the various
types of Judaism. Of American Jews who belong to synagogues, 15 per cent affiliate with
Orthodoxy, the most conservative wing and the branch most relevant to the subject of eruvim. Of
particular relevance to this paper is Chanes' (2000) observation that American Orthodoxy has
recently experienced a shift to the religious and political 'right', away from the sustained
engagement with American society that characterizes most Jews.

Indeed, their relationship with other non-Orthodox communities has become at times acrimonious,
with some non-Orthodox even calling the Orthodox 'ghetto Jews' and Orthodoxy denying the
Jewish authenticity of the other communities, an issue hotly debated in Israel as well. In the United
States, this vitriol is symbolic of the collapse of dialogue between Orthodox and non-Orthodox
communities with the demise of the Synagogue Council of America in 1994, the sole body
purporting to represent the entire Jewish religious community.

Of the six synagogue groupings in the UK recognized by Schmool and Cohen (1998), the
Mainstream Orthodox community comprised about 57 000 members and the much stricter Union
Orthodox community about 6600 in 1996. In the UK, the loss of Jewish identity seems particularly
concentrated in the non-Orthodox community, and the more halachically (by Jewish law)
observant Orthodox group accounts for higher proportions of younger age cohorts, in part because
of their higher birth rates and larger families (Schmool and Cohen 1998, 17).

Within Orthodoxy there is a spectrum of behaviour, although all Orthodox Jews believe that only
by strictly following the Torah is it possible to be a 'good Jew'. At one end of the spectrum, the
Centrist or Modern Orthodox Jews have generally adapted their lifestyle to that of modern Western
society.

At the other end, in tightly knit ultra- Orthodox Haredi, communities show allegiance to the strict
observance of traditions and customs that developed in the Jewish communities of eighteen- and
nineteenth-century Eastern Europe, with a tendency to prefer the stricter options of halachic rule
(Shilhav 1998). As Shilhav (1989) notes, the ultra-Orthodox are not necessarily more religious,
but are religious in a different way.

They take it upon themselves to adopt stricter interpretations of halachic rulings where such an
alternative exists, alongside their attachment to traditional Eastern European lifestyles.

17
Eruvim as religious and social practice

Judaism as a set of moral and ethical codes is highly ordered socially and spatially through
practices that can be traced back to the times of ancient walled cities in Israel several thousand
years ago, ideologies that continue to structure the daily routines of its adherents (Katz 1991;
Felsenstein 1997). For Jews, God endowed the Sabbath with kedusha, a special sanctity.

To help experience the holiness and delight of the Sabbath, a day of rest, the Torah requires that a
foundation of observance be established by refraining from melakha - prohibited activities (Weiss
1987). One of the 39 melachot is hotza'ah, which prohibits carrying or transferring items in all
areas except private domains that are properly enclosed, i.e. the home.

An extension of the home for these purposes is the eruv, a device by which an area that is not a
private domain is halachically converted to one. The private domain is defined as an area enclosed

18
by walls, fences and the like not less than 10 tefachim high (approximately 38-40 inches). Thus an
eruv is metaphorically an extension of the family, the fundamental social unit in many pre-
industrial societies. The origins of the eruv can be traced back to the fourth century CE Babylonian
Talmud, in which the definition of space and territory is rigorously and technically defined (Valins
2000).

The word itself is derived from the verb 'to mix' or 'to blend', since an eruv blends many properties
into a single private domain. The primary purpose of an eruv is to enable residents to carry small
necessities such as a book, food, keys and the like, and to wheel a baby pram within the designated
area on the Sabbath.

Even within an eruv, some articles that are muktzah may not be handled or carried on the Sabbath.
Muktzah may be defined as articles whose use is connected with a forbidden activity (e.g. writing
materials, money, handbags, pocketbooks and tools), which are set aside before the Sabbath
because they are not normally used on the Sabbath, including objects that cannot be used in their
present state, such as frozen or uncooked meats. The use of umbrellas is also forbidden, since their
use is considered as tent making. In addition, bicycling or visiting the local store is not permitted,
letters may not be mailed, and large or heavy packages may not be carried. Even gifts for friends
within the eruv must be usable on the Sabbath.

19
In Europe, it is surprising where eruvim are not found. Paris and Budapest both have some of the
largest Orthodox Jewish populations in Europe, but neither city has an eruv. France does, however,
have eruvim (French erouv) in Metz, Reims and Strasbourg.

It is likely that many eruvim dis- appeared during the Holocaust and were never re-established.
One eruv re-established after World War II is located in Antwerp and was originally established
in the 1930s. Venice and Gibraltar each have an eruv, though the dates of their establish- ment are
not known.

In the United Kingdom, there has been considerable controversy about the establishment of the
Hendon, Finsbury, Hampstead Garden Suburb eruv, and although through the final planning stages
and Talmudic hurdles, it is unlikely to be fully operational until 2002 at the earliest. As noted
earlier, there are several little-known eruvim in small cul-de-sacs and front gardens in the same
general area. The one located in Woodlands Close, Golders Green, was quietly established in 1981
with little acrimony. An eruv is planned for north Manchester but the technical Talmudic
correctness of the complex urban boundary is likely to hold up the project for several years (Valins
2000).

Eruvim as expressions of a militant, highly traditional Orthodox Judaism are not uncontested.
Because they are only meaningful to a relatively small number of people, most urbanites simply
ignore their presence.

The political opposition to eruvim originates from several sources, some of the most significant of
which is not from outside the Orthodox community (i.e. secular Jews or non- Jews), but from
within. Ultra-traditional Jews con- tend that any relaxation of restrictions on work during the
Sabbath, within eruvim or without, is sacrilegious. Liberal Jews who are given to assimilationism
occasionally fret that militant assertions of Jewish identity may attract anti-Semites and invite acts
of aggression. Gentile opposition to eruvim often reflects prevailing assumptions that Christian
culture is 'normal'.

In this view, eruvim are seen as privileging a minority religious group, violating modernist norms
whereby religion is (or should be) confined to private spaces rather than the public sphere. More
broadly, assertions of Jewish identity may even threaten the mythologized equation of nationality
with a culturally homogenous citizenry defined, implicitly, by the hegemonic religious norms of
the majority. As Cooper (1996, 537) points out, 'Public expression of difference contravenes the
right of the dominant/universal community not to confront cultural otherness.' In short, the
symbolic politics of eruvim provide the fuel that animates opponents, often heatedly.

Conceptualizing eruvim

Clearly, eruvim have a wider set of cultural connotations above and beyond the pragmatic
advantages that they offer to their residents. Any understanding of eruvim, therefore, must situate
these meanings within a wider comprehension of the social production of meaning. Geography has
long exhibited an abiding interest in the ways in which human consciousness and space are inter-
woven with social relations of power.

20
Following Giddens (1984), culture may be understood as a matrix of ideologies that allow people
to negotiate their way through their everyday worlds. Culture defines what is normal and what is
not, what is important and what is not, what is acceptable and what is not, within each social
context. Culture is acquired through a lifelong process of socialization: individuals never live in a
social vacuum, but are socially produced from cradle to grave.

The socialization of the individual and the reproduction of society and place are two sides of the
same coin, i.e. the macrostructures of social relations are interlaced with the microstructures of
everyday life (Pred 1984 1990). Hence everyday thought and behaviour do not simply mirror the
world, they constitute it. Such a view asserts that cultures are always intertwined with political
relations and are continually contested. Giddens' more recent work (1991) on modernity and
subjectivity maintains that under the historical conditions of advanced commodity production and
consumption, the creation and maintenance of identity is a conscious project, not the product of
unwitting socialization.

Spatializing subjectivity, identity, interaction and power has been no easy task and occupies a
central role in post-structuralist thought. Lefebvre's (1974) representational spaces, borrowing
from the older tradition of Hegelian Marxism, comprise spaces of the imagination in which the
dramas of daily life are played out, fusing human consciousness to its geographical context. Such
an approach avoids the polarizing oppositions of sterile Cartesian space on the one hand and an
overly subjective, individualistic space of unfettered idealism on the other (Entrikin 1991;
Merrifield 1993). Soja's (1996) notion of 'Thirdspace', designed to overcome the simple
dichotomies of Enlightenment's binary divisions, extends this notion along the same lines, arguing
places are neither simply crude material objects nor idealist constructions of a disembodied will,
but complex, contingent products of human thought and imagination situated in local historical
and spatial contexts that are always and every- where permeated by power relations.

The utility of this perspective in the comprehension of eruvim as dioramas of everyday life and
consciousness is clear. The significance of eruvim lies in the shared meanings their inhabitants
ascribe to them, which play out in terms of how they define what is permissible and what is not.
On the Sabbath, an eruv extends the spatial margins of the permissible for the Orthodox Jews who
inhabit it, transcending the boundaries between domestic (private) and public places. As collective
projects motivated by, and in turn shaping, the shared understandings of particular groups of
Orthodox Jews, eruvim illustrate how local cultural institutions penetrate into the core of their
residents' sense of self and of one another.

Eruvim as discursively constructed places exist simultaneously as phenomenological spaces of

ideology and as concretized instances of social activity, straddling the boundaries between
individual subjectivity and collective praxis. As marginal sites of modernity, eruvim disrupt the
convenient closures offered by Enlightenment conceptions of rational, ordered urban space.

A growing concern with the cultural heterogeneity of Western societies has led to a recognition by
cultural theorists of the centrality of hybridity in the negotiation of dominant and subordinate
identities (Bhabha 1994; Rose 1995; Mitchell 1997). Exceptions to the prevailing imagined
communities of nationalism built around essentialized precepts of ethnicity, and occasionally

21
gender, inescapably contest and disrupt hegemonic ideologies, even if unintentionally (Moore
1997). Eruvim in such a context destabilize the convenient assumption of cultural homogeneity by
demonstrating sites of difference and voluntary isolation from the world, disrupting prevailing
precepts of national com- munity, and identity. For example, the proposed eruv in north-west
London triggered opposition from those who saw it as a challenge to acceptable conceptions of
Englishness.

Following Foucault (1984), this line of thought allows eruvim to be appreciated as a nexus of
ideology, power and space, as a place simultaneously metaphorical and material. Jewish identity -
often precarious in a frequently hostile world of gentiles (Boyarin and Boyarin 1996) - has long
been explicitly spatialized at scales ranging from the ghetto to Zionist claims to a greater Israel.

An eruv constitutes a fused synthesis of social and personal identity manifested symbolically
through the ideology of its residents; a geographical con- figuration of class, gender and ethnic
relations; a stage for the performance of personal and collective identity (Goffman 1959); a bundle
of signs that encodes and reproduces Orthodox Jewish notions of order, morality and ethics. As an
imagined space that unites both ideology and material practice, eruvim thus ritually unify their
residents, enhancing their solidarity and sense of community through the symbolic demarcation
and enclosure of space as a collective metaphoric home. At another level, therefore, eruvim are
important signifiers of religious tradition surrounded by a largely secular, and overwhelmingly
gentile, society. The boundaries of the eruvim do not simply differentiate Jews from non-Jews, for
both groups are found on either side.

Eruvim are not analogous to ghettos, which may be established through voluntary or involuntary
segregation. However, the establishment of precise eruv boundaries cements and solidifies the
sense of community within the eruv in the face of a dominant, secular, individualistic culture. In
this way, eruvim illustrate the intricate connections between Judaism as an ancient body of beliefs
and practices and the lifestyles of contemporary Orthodox Jews (Valins 2000). Eruvim in global
context Above and beyond their role as constituent elements of local symbolic communities,
eruvim are indicative of a broader pattern of cultural responses to the massive waves of cultural
change, political upheaval and ethnic conflict unleashed by global capitalism during the late
twentieth century.

A burgeoning literature has sought to document the complex ways in which the rapidly changing
world system has brought in its wake rapid and thoroughgoing alterations of local subjectivities,
including various forms of nationalism, ethnicity and religion (Featherstone 1990; Wallerstein
1991; Turner 1994; May 1996; King 1997). This genre has ranged far and wide in exploring
pressing issues such as orientalism, local responses to globalization and the resurgence of ethnic-
based fundamentalism in the face of a seamlessly connected, international information-based
economy. While this body of work is far from compromising a homogenous whole, it has produced
a remarkably widespread consensus that many forms of local cultural practice, ranging from
tribalism to a deliberate retreat into the traditional, can be fruit- fully comprehended only when set
within an understanding of worldwide dynamics.

22
Concluding thoughts
As sacred places stretching back to Biblical times, eruvim are constellations of power, knowledge
and space lodged in the heart of the secular Western urban spaces. In contrast to the general decline
of diasporic Judaism in the face of assimilationism, intermarriage and slow demographic growth,
eruvim stand as reminders of an ancient past (both real and imaginary) steeped in religion. Defined
according to strict interpretations of Talmudic law, eruvim function as working metaphors of
communal space in the face of the highly individualistic culture of commodity fetishism, in which
market relations come to define the self and relations among people.

In this light, they serve as manifestations of individual and collective Orthodox Jewish identity,
facilitating family life and social interaction on the Sabbath in ways that would otherwise be
strictly prohibited. As such, the spaces of eruvim are helpful, but not essential, to the reproduction
of Orthodox Jewish culture. Yet eruvim can be seen in quite a different light, as destabilizing
hegemonic notions of ethnicity built around the myth of imagined communities of the nation-state.

As Mitchell (1997, 535) notes, The identification of peoples who have multiple loyalties, move
between regions, do not occupy a singular cultural space, and who often operate in some sense
exterior to state boundaries and cultural effects, has proven attractive for theorists who have sought
to disrupt normative narratives and understandings of nation and culture.' In this way, the assertion
of Jewish tradition via space also interrupts dominant conceptions of the city built around secular
rationality. Eruvim are moments of representation and lived experience, filled with personal
meaning and social connotation. The built environment is always constitutive of meaning in ways
that extend beyond its instrumental functionality. Architecture is always a dream, a function, an
expression of utopia and an instrument of convenience (Barthes 1979); a lived space imbued with
symbols as well as purposes.

The eruv suggests interventions in the city, which are small-scale, static and, for the most part, not
material. Thus, it provides a model for pluralist uses of the city that do not exclude other readings
of the same space. However, it is precisely the symbolic content of eruvim that frequently
generates political opposition, from both Jews and gentiles, who contend that it represents the
private religious appropriation of public space, the privileging of one group's identity over others,
and a threat to the mythical Enlightenment ideal of the culturally homogenous citizen bound by
universal norms of rationality.

This paper has argued that the question of eruvim is not one of simply imposing upon urban space
an obscure religious practice, but rather the willingness of authorities and residents to sanction the
city as a site of multiple readings. Given the heterogeneity of contemporary urban life, endlessly
celebrated in the literature on post- modernism, eruvim are important reminders of the diversity of
social and spatial practices that permeate the Western world, a diversity that extends to include
even pre-modern forms tenaciously persisting in the face of widespread secularism. Indeed, given
the global upsurge in ethnic and religious fundamentalism that has occurred as a backlash to

23
globalization, there is no reason to suspect that urban forms such as eruvim will disappear; many
have thrived and even grown in size.5

5
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