Eruv - General Information

Under Jewish law, Shabbat is a day set apart from the working week. Family time and spiritual pursuits are emphasised and certain activities associated with the working week are prohibited. Carrying and pushing wheelchairs and baby buggies is permitted in private homes and in community areas whose symbolic boundaries are marked by an eruv. An eruv is simply a practical method of denoting the area within which carrying and pushing wheelchairs and baby buggies is permitted.

There are well over 150 eruvim in communities all over the world -- and many more in Israel. Every major city in North America has one - Toronto, Phoenix, Memphis, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Providence, Miami, New York City and Washington, D.C., to name but a few. Outside North America there are eruvs in Johannesburg, Melbourne, Gibraltar, Antwerp and Strasbourg. The Washington, D.C. eruv includes the White House. The Strasbourg eruv includes the European Court of Human Rights.

Eruv for Carrying

There are 39 categories of activity prohibited on Shabbat. On Shabbat, the Torah forbids removing an object form one domain to another and thus requires that Jews not move any item outdoors, no matter its weight or purpose. According to Torah law as understood by the Talmud, this encompasses three actions:

• Moving an object from an enclosed area (such as a private home, public building, or fenced-in area) to a major thoroughfare,
• moving an object from a major thoroughfare to an enclosed area, or
• moving an object more than four cubits within a major thoroughfare.

To prevent confusion over exactly what constitutes a major thoroughfare, the rabbis expanded the ban to any area that was not fenced or walled in.

What is an Eruv?

The Torah permits carrying within an enclosed "private" area on Shabbat and Yom Kippur. Such an area enclosed and considered "private" may vary in size from a small home to an entire community. The Talmud specifies both the definitions of an enclosure and how to render an entire area a private domain. All these conditions have been met in order to create the Bethesda Eruv, and it will therefore be permissible, within the area described and according to the conditions herein detailed, to carry on Shabbat and Yom Kippur.