goodbye eruvin....

Eruvin began with defining a doorway, looking to different doorways within the Mikdash, temple to determine the definitions of the archetype door. And Eruvin ends with who should enter different domains of the temple in order to remove sources of impurity.

entering and exiting the temple. and in-between the discussion in Eruvin has been involved with defining domains, boundaries, thresholds and structures. How to share  domains and resources with neighbours in order to live together in the world, starting and finishing with the Temple, the place where God dwells in the world.

So goodbye Eruvin. it's been interesting in parts, tedious in others, and very very repetitive.

there have been many times when I thought I needed to stop this crazy project. I fell behind a day or 2, and the quality varied hugely, some drawings were definitely better then others. There were interesting discussions about defining domains and boundaries, with fascinating insights into how people lived and formed neighbourhoods. But a lot of the discussions were tedious and repetitive... many was the time over the last couple of months I wondered why I was bothering doing this. But doing this strange activity of daf yomi, learning a page of Talmud a day, has become part of my daily routine. The debates and ideas from the day's page sit with me as I go through my day. and after Eruvin, I will never look at courtyards, alleyways, houses, etc in quite the same way. 

eruvin 48

can two mis-matched people find common ground and share a picnic?

(subjective measurements for a cubit based on your own body size and when 2 people's 4 cubits of movement overlap, they can come together and share food)

eruvin 45

rabbinic cloudbusting

if you don't need to be awake or aware to establish a place. then what about the rain?
where does rain begin?

eruvin 29

how many apples does it take to make a meal?

but for some, why bother with apples when a glass of beer is enough.

(discussion about various foods, and their quantities, that are needed to make an eruv. An eruv has to be enough food for 2 meals. it is mentioned that some people have a glass of beer in the morning, and in the evening, as their meal)

eruvin 7

when something is missing, the status changes

if a corpse is missing a vertebra or two, then it is just a pile of old bones.
and
if the back wall of an alley is breached to open space where people have not come together to make an eruv, can no longer carry.

eruvin 2

what makes a doorway THE doorway?

(debate about the maximum width of the entrance to an alleyway is a debate about which entrance to the temple/tabernacle is definitive. the one to the hechel, the inner sanctum, to the alum, the main hallway, or the extra special king's entrance. what do you have to pass through to be on the inside?)