Religious enclaves are part of American culture.
The wire that transforms much of Manhattan into one big, symbolic home (2017)
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Re: The wire that transforms much of Manhattan into one big, symbolic home (2017)
#62[flagged]
> Do [ other groups ] get similar perks of using public space Yes, it's public space. > and encroaching on others? An eruv wire looks just like any other wire strung on a pole, save it's and thinner, doesn't carry electricity or communications .. so it "encroaches" on your life just as much as any other utility wire .. even less if you spend little time in jewish neighbourhoods that actually string such things.
Well it’s not a Jewish neighbourhood if it’s all of Manhattan. Encroachment isn’t always the most obvious - do construction permits require builders to fix any breaks to this, similar to other public utility lines (telephone, electricity)? That would be an encroachment. Does it increase any risk to public workers who fix supply lines, or increase the risk of electrical fires from thunderstorms? That’d be encroachment. Not saying it’ll happen, but some non-obvious examples.
Also, what are other such examples from other groups? There’s a big difference between theoretical (a matter of law) and the practical (societal acceptance). I’m also not sure of telephone poles being public space, I can only imagine the administrative and legal hurdles to overcome to hang something off one.
Re: The wire that transforms much of Manhattan into one big, symbolic home (2017)
#63There's one in Santa Monica too so that you can go to the beach. Yeah, I'm sure you tricked god...
You could make the argument that if God is giving you rules you should just obey them, not try and understand/interpret His exact intentions and do that instead (since presumably you cannot fully comprehend them).
For correctly obeying the rules, you first need to understand and interpret them.
Re: The wire that transforms much of Manhattan into one big, symbolic home (2017)
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For Christians and those raised in the Christian tradition, this is entirely foreign. I'd say it is quite familiar to Christianity. Canon Law mirrors the secular legal system, complete with its own lawyers, courts and so on. (Arguably, it's the other way around: secular Western law that mirrors Canon Law.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_law
At this point in the conversation I would like to once again point out that Catholics once considered beaver tails (but not beaver bodies) "fish" for purposes of meatless Fridays.
And in Jews consider birds to be "meat" because people in the 15th century kept getting confused. The Mosaic law is that the prohibition against mixing milk and meat applies to land animals; not water or sky animals (which each have their own set of rules).
Re: The wire that transforms much of Manhattan into one big, symbolic home (2017)
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Do [ other groups ] get similar perks of using public space Yes, it's public space. > and encroaching on others? An eruv wire looks just like any other wire strung on a pole, save it's and thinner, doesn't carry electricity or communications .. so it "encroaches" on your life just as much as any other utility wire .. even less if you spend little time in jewish neighbourhoods that actually string such things.
Well it’s not a Jewish neighbourhood if it’s all of Manhattan. Encroachment isn’t always the most obvious - do construction permits require builders to fix any breaks to this, similar to other public utility lines (telephone, electricity)? That would be an encroachment. Does it increase any risk to public workers who fix supply lines, or increase the risk of electrical fires from thunderstorms? That’d be encroachment…
Leaving aside that this is about "much of Manhattan" rather than "all of Manhattan" it remains that Manhattan, Brooklyn, New York City in general are well known as one of the larger jewish neighbourhoods on the planet.
Jews comprise approximately 10% of New York City's population, making the Jewish community the largest in the world outside of Israel.
Some of your other what if's are addressed in the article, if you're a good faith commenter looking for actual serious issues then there's also 100 years of existence in Manhattan and the wider New York City to draw upon.
Perhaps you could highlight some actual real issues that have cropped up in the last century?
Re: The wire that transforms much of Manhattan into one big, symbolic home (2017)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, after determining that the offered definition of “house” using the wire didn’t apply. That’s not a trick, that’s the system at work. The legal system and morality and all areas of any complexity require judgment and decision making. It might satisfy a certain type of person to have explicit, highly detailed mechanistic rules for human conduct, with no exceptions. But even where that’s been tried, 50 years passe…
> after determining that the offered definition of “house” using the wire didn’t apply. That’s not a trick, that’s the system at work. > The legal system and morality and all areas of any complexity require judgment and decision making. I don't think it requires much real judgement to say that a wire does not make a home and that whole area is not a single big home. This is not some finely balanced call that requires…
Imagine that a whole nation's statute laws, and associated common laws, were frozen in time for over a thousand years, because (the statutes were declared to be immutable canon, and) any judges with sufficient authority to strike out old common law and to establish new common law were long gone. That's Judaism (specifically the Talmud)! (Speaking from experience as a Jew.)
The "eruv" definition was established back when the biggest conceivable area that it might cover was that of a medieval village or ghetto, of maximum several hundred (small cramped) houses, i.e. let's say about the area of Vatican City, which is 0.49km2 (0.19 sq mi). Whereas the total area of Manhattan island is 59km2 (22.7 sq mi). So, yes, in my opinion, a Talmudic judge would consider the modern-day Manhattan eruv a gross perversion of the spirit of the law, and would update the definition accordingly. But no such judge exists in this era. So, yay, let's play "how ridiculously can we apply anachronistic archaic rules to the modern world" - apparently, ultra-orthodox Jews consider it such a fun game, that they let it rule their entire life!
Re: The wire that transforms much of Manhattan into one big, symbolic home (2017)
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I see this sentiment a lot when it comes to Jewish customs, especially when it comes to eruvs, I don't really get it. Why do you consider it "tricking" God, instead of just following the rules?
Because under any normal circumstances we'd call this a trick? Like, imagine someone under house arrest trying to argue they were allowed to go all around Manhattan because of this wire - we'd quite rightly jail them for contempt.
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Re: The wire that transforms much of Manhattan into one big, symbolic home (2017)
#68There's one in Santa Monica too so that you can go to the beach. Yeah, I'm sure you tricked god...
There's at least two in Sydney. One near Bondi and one around St Ives. The one around St Ives was a little controversial but the council eventually permitted it.
Yep. The St Ives one involved a fairly protracted debate at the local council, with accusations of anti-semitism (whether warranted or not is a matter of opinion) being levelled at those who argued against it.
Although I don't know if the Bondi and/or the St Ives eruvs involve their own physical wires? I thought it was deemed sufficient for the rabbis to just "declare" various sets of third-party power lines / phone lines as constituting the eruv, or am I mistaken?
Re: The wire that transforms much of Manhattan into one big, symbolic home (2017)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article really neglects to explain what an eruv is and why you would want it. Wikipedia's much more helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruv Basically if you are an observant Jew then you are forbidden from doing work on Saturdays. There are some extremely specific rules about what "work" is. One kind of forbidden work is taking things outside of your house; the eruv symbolically turns most of the city into "h…
My Jewish friend once told me, specifically discussing this wire, that Jews consider finding loopholes in their own rules a national pastime. The same thing goes for the hotels where someone is paid to wave their hand in front of automatic doors so the guests don't force the door to "work" for them or the elevators that run 24/7, stopping at every floor so they don't have to even work by pressing a button.
My favourite in this genre comes from a physics DPhil student I knew in Oxford: He insisted that it was permissible for him to work in the lab on Shabbat because after all he was really just studying the works of God and so it was no different in character from reading the Torah.
I'm not sure entirely how serious this argument was, but he wasn't entirely unobservant; he made a point of not playing in orchestra on Friday evenings (after dusk).
Re: The wire that transforms much of Manhattan into one big, symbolic home (2017)
#70I'm not religious so I'll admit I don't "get it." It's a neat idea. I'll admit, I especially don't get this part: > The series of practically invisible wires becomes a necessity that “benefits the most vulnerable people of the community.” He sees it not only as a way for communities to come together, but also as a way for the more affluent to give back. The eruv is funded entirely by the Jewish community, with a cons…
The article really neglects to explain what an eruv is and why you would want it. Wikipedia's much more helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruv Basically if you are an observant Jew then you are forbidden from doing work on Saturdays. There are some extremely specific rules about what "work" is. One kind of forbidden work is taking things outside of your house; the eruv symbolically turns most of the city into "h…
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