Mining the edge Fieldwork tracing boundaries of the Jewish Eruv
piper bernbaum
Although the Eruv is a physical boundary, it is outrageously humble in its physical manifestation. The Eruv’s materiality is its greatest strength, and its greatest weakness. The Eruv is made of everyday materials – fishing line, zip ties, wood posts, 2x4’s, string, wire – items that are bestowed with significance when put together. These spaces are made for the community by the community itself; the Eruv is resourceful, and its manifestations are endlessly fascinating. My field work on these spaces began in a place of disbelief. How can a boundary like this exist? The fact that it was fabricated of such mundane materials had me questioning its actual existence. I had to go see it myself, and understand how a boundary, so permeable and gentle, could also be so meaningful and powerful. The material manifestation of Eruvin is one of simplicity, ease of construction and accessibility which allows the Eruv to not only be a symbolic space, but also a tool of community building that can be both an architecture of necessity and an architecture of power. I had seen only a single photograph of the Eruv when I first stumbled upon the topic during my graduate studies. A pole, standing stark in contrast to the surrounding landscape, with wire strong across the top and leading out both sides of the image. The photograph, by artist Sophie Calle, was taken in Jerusalem and made the Eruv look like a statue in the landscape .2 This image sat with me – the object itself was too unbelievable to be true but represented the physical essence of how the Eruv is defined. The construction of the Eruv physically represents the simplified components of a house to make a figurative private space in the public domain. The posts of an Eruv represent walls, the space between posts represent openings, and the fishing line or cable that runs across the top is the edge and the roofline. When you are within the Eruv, you are under a unified roof, a shared household for an entire community.
I spend most my time these days looking up, and I mean literally. Tracing the edges of cities and communities, I am constantly looking for a glimmer of fishing line or string cutting across the sky. My main subject of research, but also long burning obsession, has been seeking out an elusive, symbolic and subtle object: the boundaries of the Jewish Eruv . The Eruv (literally translates to mixing/mingling) is an orthodox religious practice that is a symbolic extension of the home into the public domain of a city, creating a symbolic private realm. The space itself is physical, yet, embedded in its surroundings. Written into the Talmud as a Jewish law, the Eruv is a ‘loophole’, and defined as a legal fiction 1 – an assertion accepted as true. The Eruv law allows leniencies to individuals to break certain rules on the sabbath in order to do work – like carry a child, push a stroller, or even carry a prayer book – so long as you are within the Eruv boundary, which would otherwise be forbidden on the sabbath/day of rest. Eruvin (plural) introduce a multiplicity to urban environments – spaces that are typically mundane to most are bestowed with a symbolic meaning and significance to others. The consequence of the Eruv is the formation of community, one where all its inhabitants can participate in its midst, religious or not. For five years, the Eruv has been synonymous with field work for me – I have been dedicated to what I call “Eruv hunting” in my spare time, in any and every city I visit. What became so compelling about the Eruv for me as an architect was its inherent urban quality – it defines space, it makes ‘place’, it embeds itself in its surroundings, and it represents its context. It can be a small-scale space that is a portion of a city (Kitchener, Buffalo or Ottawa for example), or it can surround an entire city and even its suburbs (like Toronto, or Boston). It can span great distances, it can run parallel to streets or waterways, or it can cut across civic space. The Eruv, seemingly, has great flexibility, and more importantly, great permeability. 1 Marcus Jastrow, Sefer Ha-milim: Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Bavli, Talmud Yerushalmi, and Midrashic Literature. New York: Judaica Treasury, 2004. p 1075 2 Sophie Calle, L’Erouv de Jerousalem . Actes Sud, 2002
above: Eruv hunting right: Symbolic comoponents of the house
on site review 38: borders, lines, breaks and breaches 48
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