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Comment by woodruffw | Hacker News Reader

AFAIK the eruvim are not dictated by “high courts” (there is no “high court” at all), but are instead constructed and maintained by various Orthodox groups. Not all Orthodox groups agree about their propriety either, so the presence of an eruv doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s recognized.

(Also pedantic, but it’s not the entire city: there’s a Manhattan eruv that covers a large part of Manhattan, while Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx have separate smaller eruvim.)

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> Not all Orthodox groups agree about their propriety either, so the presence of an eruv doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s recognized.

There have been some big fights about the topic: https://traditiononline.org/unpacking-the-iggerot/

Although from what I understand, Moshe Feinstein wasn’t opposed to eruvim in principle, he just viewed them as an inappropriate for a city like NYC

There's a lot one could say about

> following the law of the highest of high courts to the letter.

but I don't think that "there is no 'high court' at all" is one, for believers.

You can look it up if you don’t believe me. Orthodox Judaism doesn’t have a supreme religious authority; it’s a general classification for ~hundreds of distinct sects and movements.

(Each movement has its own beis din, but there is not “high court” that unifies religious rulings across them. Which is why an eruv created by one group is often considered invalid by others.)

It's God, he's talking about God.

“We’re Kosher, and have to answer to an even higher authority!”

https://youtu.be/lR1eeV5-M4U?is=anSmLPurh2pegvky

That wasn't clear to me :-). But even still: the eruv is a rabbinical interpretation, not something attributed to God.

The whole joke is that the Jews will even take God to court (where God is the Judge, Jury, and Defendant), and win - I believe there's a whatever it is they have about this: God basically ends up saying "Ha, I like the cut of your jib".

You’re probably referring to the Oven of Akhnai:

https://voices.sefaria.org/sheets/144163?lang=bi

(Talmudic interpretation doesn’t stress this story because it shows how much Jews love to argue, or because they can win arguments against God. It stresses the story because it demonstrates that the law has been received (“It is not in heaven”) and thus does not need to appeal to God. This, inter alia, is why nobody asks God for their opinion on eruvim.)

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