On to Eruvin

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET MAGAZINE: Navigating the Talmud’s Alleys: The range of problems and the variety of answers in the study of Oral Law lead to new pathways of reasoning.

When I first heard about eruvs as a teenager, I regarded them a little indignantly. If the point of Shabbat is to rest from labor, to rejoice in prohibitions, why invent legal fictions to allow you to get around those prohibitions? Isn’t the eruv contrary to the very spirit of Shabbat? Now, after being immersed in the Talmud for half a year, I’ve begun to understand the more flexible imagination that the rabbis brought to these problems. For them, it was not a question of enjoying a holiday from reality, but of finding a way to obey very specific divine laws while still carrying out the necessary business of life. Precisely because they take the letter of the law seriously, they want to know the exact boundaries of that law—what it allows and disallows, and how to tell the difference.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links, as well as here and here.