In Israel, There Is No Private Domain

It’s not easy explaining the laws of the eruv to a non-Jew, or even to a non-observant Jew. The idea that there is a wire encircling every Israeli city, and also many American cities, seems like a bit of witchcraft to those who don’t understand its purpose. 

The eruv exists because of the Torah’s prohibition on transporting objects from the private domain into the public domain (and vice versa) on Shabbat. This poses a problem if you want to bring a bottle of wine to a neighbor’s house for dinner on Friday evening, or even if you just want to bring your keys with you.

The eruv provides a workaround by transforming the entire area contained within its enclosure into a single shared domain.

Once explained, it may no longer sound like witchcraft, but many will still regard it as a silly legal fiction — Talmudic casuistry at its most absurd. Even my own partner, who does not observe the laws of eruv, looks at me with a bit of pity when he sees me warily keeping my distance from the eruv at the beach in Tel Aviv — as if I was a terrier boxed in by an invisible electric fence.

In Israel, however, the eruv is profoundly real. It’s the concept of a private domain that is the legal fiction. This is a place where people experience themselves first and foremost as members of a collective.

In Israel, however, the eruv is profoundly real. It’s the concept of a private domain that is the legal fiction. This is a place where people experience themselves first and foremost as members of a collective. This sense of peoplehood and solidarity draws Jews from all over the world to make their lives here. But for those who grew up with it, it can also feel draining. 

Since Oct. 7, this reality has become even more pronounced. Our private homes are flooded with public concerns and the result is that Shabbat has become far less restful at the precise moment when we are most in need of its shelter. 

At Friday dinners, we sing “shalom aleichem” and recite kiddush, but then we lapse immediately into discussions of the news. We gasp at the worst absurdities from the American campus protests. We debate military strategy as though we were members of the war cabinet. We speculate on Netanyahu’s political prospects as though we were pundits.

Even seriously observant Jews have taken to keeping their phones on throughout Shabbat. The fear is that they will be caught off guard again, or that their loved ones will find themselves in danger and need to call, or that news will come about a family member serving in the army. 

But it’s not only Shabbat. On every day of the week we find that the boundaries between private and public have collapsed. At the same time, the eruv itself has become like an iron wall dividing Israel from the outside world.

Israeli musicians, dancers, and artists speak of canceled shows and exhibitions in Europe and America. Israeli activists feel isolated from the international left — branded pariahs. Far-right nationalists feel vindicated by the isolation. See how they hate us? Didn’t we tell you?

And so the eruv makes a ghetto, in which we are cut off from the rest of the world and given no space from one another. 

Our fear, our tragedy, our sense of injustice, our sense that the world has gravely misunderstood us — all of this we carry through the eruv’s domain. We lug it from house to house and down the street. We drag it into bed with us at night and cradle it as we fall asleep. 

In times of great emergency, it is permissible to abrogate the laws of the Torah. This principle is known as “et la’asot l’hashem, hefeiru toratecha” (“it is time to act for God, and so they annulled your Torah”). This is in keeping with the Talmudic saying that sometimes the abrogation of Torah is the foundation of Torah. 

With this in mind, perhaps it is time to place a temporary hold on the laws of eruv — to let the walls between private and public domains return, at least on Shabbat. 

After all, none of this will be over soon. We are facing many more months of worry, of frustration, of grief, of fear, of uncertainty, of being filled to the brim with our enormous shared pain. 

All the more reason to take at least one day a week to connect to ourselves, to our families, to our close friends, and to our God. 

To turn off the phones.

To stop debating. 

To stop asking what comes next.

All of that will be waiting for us when we light the havdalah candle. For Shabbat, at the very least, let us be present — not just in the moment, but also in the walled-off, intimate space of the private domain.

Matthew Schultz is a Jewish Journal columnist and rabbinical student at Hebrew College. He is the author of the essay collection “What Came Before” (Tupelo, 2020) and lives in Boston and Jerusalem.