A clear fishing wire is tied around the island of Manhattan(old.reddit.com)
24 pointsby vinnyglennon8 hours ago10 comments
  • Animats6 hours ago
    The biblical idea is that you're supposed to stay home. The first level of cheat was that multiple buildings surrounded by a wall could be defined as "home". The next cheat level was that the concept of "wall" was defined down. I'm surprised that some clever religious type hasn't figured out a cheat to define the whole planet as "home".

    It's all kind of tacky, like kosher elevators and kosher light switches. You're supposed to suffer a little.

    • keane6 hours ago
      It’s much more complicated and interesting than this. Books have been written about it (eg. Circumventing the Law: Rabbinic Perspectives on Legal Loopholes and Integrity by Elana Stein Hain). One of the ideas is that halachic loopholes are meant to be discovered. It’s also been compared metaphorically to the difference between tax evasion (impermissible) and tax avoidance (legal means to reduce our obligation created by the authority’s design) which is something we all do.
      • awakeasleep6 hours ago
        What is really incredible and worth dwelling on is how self-deception can be so clear and obvious to every person except the self. This, of course, applies to us all equally.
  • xnx6 hours ago
    As others have pointed out, as long as they're inventing rules and then imagining technicalities to avoid rules, they should just tie a string around a stick and make everything outside the stick inside the eruv. It would make just as much sense.
  • comrade12346 hours ago
    Around Santa Monica too and into the ocean so that people of the Jewish faith can go to the beach and swim in the ocean on the sabbath.

    I love that as part of their religion they think that they can trick their god. It just seems healthy to me, as an atheist.

  • IveSeenItAll7 hours ago
    Same thing around the ex-island of Amsterdam: https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1K9JpabMj1Wgdjy6O41T...

    Learned about that years ago when I ran into one of the maintainers on a walk. It's... not something I understand, but do respect, given that it's ancient history that is older than, well, most living people, and entirely well-intentioned and harmless to non-believers.

    • 4gotunameagain7 hours ago
      [flagged]
      • throw-the-towel6 hours ago
        It's not like Israel's goal in Gaza is to extend the eruv.
      • IveSeenItAll6 hours ago
        Oh, bother... Fact: the Amsterdam eruv has been around longer than the state of Israel, and is in no way, shape or form related to its policies.
        • 4gotunameagain6 hours ago
          I thought we were extending the discussion about religion in general, not a single custom.
          • IveSeenItAll6 hours ago
            I sincerely doubt that's what's going on here at all. Plonk
  • johnea2 hours ago
    Why am I not surprised to find that this weird clickbait topic is tied to some nutjob religious idea?

    Once you take the leap of believing there is some big invisible guy in outerspace, pretty much any belief is possible after that...

  • WarmWash7 hours ago
    For people without exposure to Hasidic Judaism, it's way more "deranged cult" and way less "Jewish people". I don't know any Jews who have anything good to say about them. Nor does anyone else for that matter.

    You may argue I'm being antisemitic, but I'd counter that they don't get to hold a religion hostage so they can be totally off the wall insane.

    • keane6 hours ago
      I lived in a Hasidic neighborhood in Los Angeles and only have had good interactions with them. Always liked seeing their Hatzalah ambulance staged down the block.
    • 7 hours ago
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  • satisfice7 hours ago
    Somebody at a fishing line company won salesman of the month.
  • pvaldes7 hours ago
    Christians: the symbol of the fish represents Jesus

    Jews: Hold my beer, guys. We need to do something.