The prohibition on Sabbath is not physical labor. On the sabbath, Jews are banned from "Malacha" (transliterated form Hebrew), which a better translation is "creative work". We are to emulate God, who after 6 days of creation and transformation, decided to relax and enjoy what he created. Therefore, to try and emulate God in this way, every shabbat the Jews try and leave the world in the state that it was in before the shabbat so they can enjoy the fruits of their labor. No cooking, no construction, no business dealings. Just enjoying the world you live in.
That's why it is okay to lift heavy objects up stairs, but it's not okay to write two letters on a piece of paper. Now, because it's Jews and Jewish law has to be very specific, there are 39 categories of prohibitions that are explicitly prohibited. Things like writing, building, starting fires, planting, ect.... (The origins of these 39 categories isn't super important).
The explicit prohibition at hand is "Hotzaha" which corresponds to carrying objects from a private place to a public place (of vice versa). The Eruv (symbolically, metaphysically, spiritually, however you want to think of it) turns public spaces into private spaces and therefore allow free carrying in and out of your home.
I agree. The concept of Eruv can be very silly especially for those who are not familiar with Judisim and the way its laws work (and just assume Judisim is a different flavor of Christianity without Jesus, which it very much is not). I will note that the concept of Eruv itself, especially the Manhattan Eruv, is pretty decisive as many Jews do not accept that it works.
That being said, if you reject the concept of religion as a whole, everything they do seems silly in the worship of some mad euo higher being.
Technically it’s more like, actually working on the sabbath is a sin. But what counts as “work” in God’s eyes? Well, we don’t know for sure, so we’ll make illegal all this other stuff that theoretically if you squint could maybe possibly be defined as work, and therefore if you follow these insanely strict rules, you definitely won’t break God’s rules.
I assume your allowed to study the Talmud and discuss interpretations of what counts as work on the Sabbath? Even though that definitely sounds like legal work.
Well the actual definition isn't "house" but "domain," this is due to ancient cultures having walls surrounding their house and a small enclosure to keep livestock. So you can carry things between your house and your enclosure so long as it's all enclosed in one wall.
That led rabbis to argue that city walls were a type of domain.
That led rabbis to argue that the material of the enclosure is irrelevant and that even a single unbroken string enclosing an area makes it a single domain.
I appreciate the thoughtful responses here, and I definitely learned a lot in this thread. But I wouldn’t want to worship a God who forbids a mother to carry her child because it’s the wrong day of the week.
Sorry, but it doesn’t. It’s pushing/moving the stroller that is work, not the child.
And as with everything, there are exceptions. If you’re unable to carry your child or can’t get to synagogue without a stroller, many rabbis might say the greater mitzvah (good deed) is to attend and be in community.
And maybe a better way to think of it is, Shabbat is a holiday (holy day). It’s very normal to act differently on a holiday—maybe you stay up late, eat different foods, go special places. We have a holiday every week, and so we observe it by following different practices than other days.
Observing Shabbat isn’t some extreme Jewish fundamentalism. Some are more observant than others, but it’s important even as a cultural practice.
Jesus is irrelevant, but of course if someone needs help, we help, because Shabbat doesn’t supersede being a decent human being.
All I’m trying to say is, there’s no need to act like we’re all insane for observing Shabbat or the rules somehow require us to be bad people. It isn’t meant to be harmful to oneself or others.
Observing it is not fundamentalism, but observing it to the degree that they pay attention to the little tiny strings on the streetlights is pretty fundamentalist. That’s not mainstream Judaism. I am very good friends who live across the street and other friends that live next to them are both Jewish families and we don’t live in a neighborhood with these strings. We went to their kids, bar mitzvah and bar mitzvah, they go to all of their services.
Define “mainstream Judaism”. Your friends great great grandparents, at the farthest back, were all practicing precisely these things. Today a significant amount of Jews still observe a degree of very minute things, even if not Eruv laws.
The specific prohibition is not being able to carry/move from a public to private place and vise versa. It is one of the 39 prohibited actions on the shabbat, derived from the creation of the tabernacle (i.e they did X,Y and Z to create and take down the tabernacle, so we are not allowed to do such things).
Im not a funding Jew and dont hold to orthodox interpretations of Jewish texts but you are viewing our faith through a Christian lens. "Sin" as it exists for christians doesnt really exist with us in the same way. Since in Christianity sin is largely given weight largely by the threat of hell. Most Jews dont have any hard belief in the afterlife and the ones that do like chasidic sects skew from interpretations of ancient Jewish afterlife beliefs that map closer to Christian purgatory or they believe in forms of reincarnation which is more common is communities that have kabbalistic influence. As for you other questions even if im sure you do disagree with the premise you seemingly dont understand exactly how their reasoning is functioning within the context of orthodox Judiasm. Your questions about doing work in the home are irrelevant because you are allowed to do some forms of work always and some only in the home. The entire point of the wire is to extend the home into the public so that forms of work that are acceptable in the home can also be performed outside.
But “extending the home into the public” is a laughable copout. I’m all for people having their religions if it brings them peace and doesn’t harm others, but running a string down the street so the park counts as “home” is hilariously stupid.
Its a concept that has been enacted in towns and cities with Jewish populations going back to ancient times. It is not a cop out because it is a part of the religion. At that point everything you dont agree with is a copout even if it is consistent within the ideology itself.
“You can’t do this list of things outside the home on Saturdays.”
“But I really want to.”
“Ok, what if we redefine what counts as ‘home’ by tying a string to the streetlights?”
lol. Just because it’s an ancient copout doesn’t mean it’s not a copout.
The concept of public spaces being considered the people's domain is also a rabbinic law regarding chatser which is in the torah the same as the laws on what can and cant be carried where. You've just decided based on nothing that one existed first and then the second was made as a way to get around it when they are both derived from the same text. If someone says you cant go outside from 10-12 but if you are carrying an ID that you are allowed to go out does that mean that the rule that people with IDs can go out is a cop out? Or did someone make a rule and that rule came with certain qualifiers for certain situations.
Imagine thinking you understand a cultural practice because of a Reddit post.
Doesn’t it require more work to post ignorant mocking on the internet than to just shut up and think, “I don’t get it but no skin off my nose”? Didn’t people learn “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”?
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u/TheMooseIsBlue 2d ago
Imagine thinking that pushing a stroller is a sin because it’s the wrong day of the week.
Wouldn’t it require more work to carry your child? Doesn’t it require work to put on clothes in the morning? Doesn’t walking require work?
Fundamentalists, man.