[dataviz1000]

Meanwhile in place of power, cable, and phone lines there is a related 18 mile translucent line hung in order to turn the entire city into one big happy home called a *eruv* -- following the law of the highest of high courts to the letter. [0]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSldb9IMDVU

[woodruffw]

AFAIK the eruvim are not dictated by “high courts” (there is no “high court” at all), but are instead constructed and maintained by various Orthodox groups. Not all Orthodox groups agree about their propriety either, so the presence of an eruv doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s recognized.

(Also pedantic, but it’s not the entire city: there’s a Manhattan eruv that covers a large part of Manhattan, while Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx have separate smaller eruvim.)

[skissane]

> Not all Orthodox groups agree about their propriety either, so the presence of an eruv doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s recognized.

There have been some big fights about the topic: https://traditiononline.org/unpacking-the-iggerot/

Although from what I understand, Moshe Feinstein wasn’t opposed to eruvim in principle, he just viewed them as an inappropriate for a city like NYC

[randallsquared]

There's a lot one could say about

> following the law of the highest of high courts to the letter.

but I don't think that "there is no 'high court' at all" is one, for believers.

[woodruffw]

You can look it up if you don’t believe me. Orthodox Judaism doesn’t have a supreme religious authority; it’s a general classification for ~hundreds of distinct sects and movements.

(Each movement has its own beis din, but there is not “high court” that unifies religious rulings across them. Which is why an eruv created by one group is often considered invalid by others.)

[bombcar]

It's God, he's talking about God.

[ButlerianJihad]

“We’re Kosher, and have to answer to an even higher authority!”

https://youtu.be/lR1eeV5-M4U?is=anSmLPurh2pegvky

[woodruffw]

That wasn't clear to me :-). But even still: the eruv is a rabbinical interpretation, not something attributed to God.

[bombcar]

The whole joke is that the Jews will even take God to court (where God is the Judge, Jury, and Defendant), and win - I believe there's a whatever it is they have about this: God basically ends up saying "Ha, I like the cut of your jib".

[radicality]

I live in nyc, when I first heard of the eruv couldn’t believe they would come up with such elaborate hacks just to ‘technically’ still be following their religious laws! Now if I remember I try and spot it when out.

It also has a status page! https://eruv.nyc/

[frantathefranta]

Somebody posted on HN before about an eruv index, that’s how I found my city had one as well[0]. I assume they got sort of popular around Jewish neighborhoods.

[0]https://eruv-columbus.com/

[radicality]

Next up, they could build a low-earth-orbit eruv and call it a day

[lesuorac]

Idk it makes sense to me.

Like a lot of the rules are very fuzzy in their origin. The whole kosher business comes from a passage about "Not boiling a kid in it's mothers milk". I think most people would interpret that much more literally and you couldn't kill a child goat (kid) and boil it in it's mothers milk; and probably also extend it to other animals like cows. But I'd still think that killing a kid and putting a slice on cheese on the meat would be fine.

So if somebody is going to be obtuse with what you can do it seems like it'd be good fun to figure out all the ways around it.

[to11mtm]

I think most of the kosher rules come from a sort of 'this is the most practical rule we can make at the time to keep people safe' sort of thing.

Stuff like disease (i.e. most of the other rules about kosher animal prep including 'inspection',) allergies (shellfish ban), heck even pasteurization (going back to the 'boiling in milk', what are the odds that the milk hit the right temperature all throughout versus only some of it boiling, which in fact could encourage certain bad bacteria to grow, let alone whatever's in the likely uncooked meat being able to feed off the whole thing...)

[quickthrowman]

I suspect the pork ban is twofold, preventing foodborne illness and also pigs can’t eat hay/grass like cows and goats, they eat what humans eat.

[lesuorac]

Sure. I also liked the idea that some of the rules are to promote tribalism by making clear defining lines.

A much weaker form compared to missions where people go out into the real world and get insulted and retreat back to the safety of their religion.

[markovs_gun]

Jews have a very different relationship to religious laws than Christians. In his own time, Jesus was combating the predominant interpretation of the Jewish law in favor of his own interpretation, which is based more about the meaning and purpose of the law rather than the precise letter of the law. Sin isn't simply non-adherence to the law, it is an intrinsic part of human nature that needs to be redeemed, and all will fall short of the law. The important thing to remember in this is that in historically Christian cultures, we have inherited Jesus's view of the law that was directly and explicitly opposed to the version of Judaism that eventually became the default.

Jews think of the law differently. The law came directly from God- therefore, it is free from errors. If there are loopholes you can find in the law, God put them there for a reason and won't be mad if you use them. Some people even think that God put the loopholes in there as a reward for careful study of the law. Jews also don't think that there is eternal damnation in Hell facing anyone who defies the law, so I suppose the stakes are lower than for Christians so they can afford to be stricter.