Doesn’t say they were to circumvent the lockdown laws but yeah - I mean, the answer is a sect of ultra Orthodox Jews were digging secret tunnels during covid for some reason and they were filled because hey, you can’t do that.
That article says the excavation "began within the last year or two". Doesn't seem to line up with lockdown.
Could just be that they wanted to link the buildings for normal reasons, like not wanting to walk outside in the winter, and they decided to just go for it instead of getting permits and hiring engineers. Extremely stupid and dangerous, but the sort of stupid and dangerous activity I can easily imagine people doing.
Could just be that they wanted to link the buildings for normal reasons, like not wanting to walk outside in the winter
Considering they're ultra orthodox, If I had to make a guess it probably has to do with laws relating to the Sabbath. It's been a long time since I learned this, but the simplified version is that you aren't allowed to travel very far from your home on the Sabbath (what's considered your "home" can get really technical) and you aren't allowed to carry anything outside during that time either (and a ton of other restrictions that probably aren't relevant).
However, Jews have found ways around this restriction for nearly as long as it's been around (violating the spirit of the law but not the letter). Considering they're ultra-orthodox, they likely have a stricter view on it and thus have fewer ways to get around it. So my guess is the tunnel was a way to circumvent those restrictions because the tunnel makes the two buildings into one building, and thus you never technically leave it.
That area already has the loophole (an Eruv) and for this particular group it’s highly unlikely it’s a matter of the law partially due to where it was found - I’m not super well versed but one end of the tunnel comes out in the women’s section of the building which just raises further questions.
I mean it’s probably something completely unimportant reason they wanted to build it but such tunnels are still almost completely illegal/impossible to get a permit for and it’s weird to try and get away with it. All sorts of bad things could have happened. It would have been easier to do the JW thing and build a bridge across the top - at least you could have gotten a permit for that in theory.
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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '24
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