Anyone wanna visit Jewhenge? (2)

1 Name: Citizen : 2007-10-22 00:27 ID:dCOxKDJo

While it might not seem that way from a google search (which doesn't find any examples of the word existing), there is such a thing as a "Jewhenge": it's called an eruv instead, and what makes it a "henge" is the fact that it consists of something being supported by the top of poles or pillars in an enclosed manner. The idea here is - and, yes, this is a silly Jewish idea based on silly Jewish law - to allow Jews to carry stuff on Saturdays between home and synagogue. This occurs because the area within an enclosure is deemed to be "private" for Shabbat purposes (Shabbat is the Jewish Sabbath, which falls on Friday nights and Saturdays. The Jews in ancient times, like the Hindus and Babylonians, had a seven-day week, and it carried over into other cultures as the idea gained popularity.)

2 Name: Citizen : 2007-10-22 00:33 ID:dCOxKDJo

Okay. Eruvin (the plural of "eruv") tend to be controversial among Jews and non-Jews alike (occasionally for anti-Semitic reasons, but also because the idea of an eruv was not quite explicitly stated in Scripture). The concept of an eruv, I think, arose among talmudic scholars trying to put a "fence around the Torah" (that is, try to make sure people follow Jewish law as written in the Torah by establishing additional rules), and they considered a group of houses bunched together and enclosing a garden to be good for an eruv. In later years, some smart-aleck realized that poles with something connecting them at the tops could be considered to be "doorposts", and from there it was a simple idea to extend the concept to cover rows of "doorposts" - hence, my term "Jewhenge". Houses, fences, seawalls (arguably), elevated lines, etc. can count as part of an eruv boundary as well.

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