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July 11, 2003
Jews can carry in Vancouver
New eruv will give Orthodox families more freedom during Shabbat.
KYLE BERGER REPORTER
It has been at least 30 years in the making, but the City of Vancouver
has finally joined Richmond as the only two Jewish communities in
British Columbia to be surrounded by an eruv.
After a final year of work by Emily Singer, the wife of Congregation
Shaarey Tefilah's Rabbi Ross Singer, with the help of Schara Tzedeck's
Rabbi Avi Baumol, construction has been completed on an erev that
forms a continuous line around the city, allowing all who live within
the perimeter to carry on Shabbat.
According to Jewish law, from the candlelighting on Friday evening
until sundown on Saturday, Jewish people are not permitted to carry
anything outside of their own private domain.
An eruv is a structure that acts like a fence that surrounds,
with no breaks, an area of any size. It serves to recognize the
area as one large domain that the community can call their own,
and thus they can carry – or push for that matter – throughout
that domain on Shabbat (and Yom Kippur).
Singer told the Bulletin that creating an eruv in Vancouver
was no easy task, as many had tried unsuccessfully over the years.
"I'm sure the idea was born the first time we established an
Orthodox community in Vancouver," Singer said. "Just the
other day, someone suggested he knew of people who had been working
on it for at least the last 30 years and we know for sure that Rabbi
[Yosef] Benarroch worked on it when he was here."
Construction and budgetary difficulties, combined with limits to
B.C. Hydro's co-operation, continuously resulted in stumbling blocks
that prevented the project from coming to fruition, until Singer
and Baumol's combined ideas and efforts finally found a way.
Using established electrical or light poles and wires, Singer and
Baumol found a route that could sustain the eruv, with only minimal
co-operation needed from B.C. Hydro and City of Vancouver engineers.
For the eruv to be kosher, the korah (wires), must cross
over the top of each pole. And, while most of the city's power lines
do just that, there are some on which the power lines are attached
to the side of the poles. In those cases an additional lechi
(pole) that measures 40 inches is fastened to the original pole
just under the wires.
The area bound by a kosher eruv must also have a symbolic communal
meal, which must be available to anyone in the community. The meal
symbolizes that all who are within the eruv are living in one domain.
Schara Tzedeck Synagogue makes pieces of matzah, which will be replaced
every Passover, available at all times to account for this rule.
Finding a continuos route without a break was not easy, Singer explained,
and they ended up covering much more of the city than they needed
to.
"Last year, I spent the entire summer with my kid in a stroller
just walking and looking," she said. "Eventually I created
a map that was going to include [Shaarey Tefilah], Schara Tzedeck
and Rabbi Baumol's house, but not the whole community. Then I went
to Rabbi Baumol and we expanded the map even more because we wanted
to include all the synagogues. By the time we did all that, we had
spent hundreds of hours driving around."
Vancouver's eruv stretches south to Marine Drive, west past Dunbar
Street, north to 4th Avenue, and east past Fraser Street.
To help advise and ensure that all aspects of the eruv were kosher,
Singer had Rabbi Howard Jachter, her former teacher from Yeshivah
University in New York, fly to Vancouver.
A student of world-renowned eruv expert Rabbi Mordechai Willig,
Jachter advised Singer and Baumol based on Willig's teaching.
Singer said creating an eruv was essential in order for Vancouver
to be considered a full-service Orthodox community.
"If we weren't a rabbinic family and we were looking for a
city to move to and we had a choice between cities with and without
an eruv, I don't see us moving to a city with no eruv," she
said, noting that until now she had to pay someone non-Jewish to
push her kids' strollers to shul every Shabbat.
"It made me very limited because it meant I had to be ready
to leave as soon as the person came and they wouldn't show up again
until it was time to go home. And we were almost always at home
for Shabbat meals because people with small children couldn't get
to each other's houses.
"Now I can take my kids to the park or bring things to shul
for them to eat or drink," she continued. "People can
wear sunglasses or just go to the park and throw a ball around."
While the eruv has been operational for several weeks, Singer said
they will soon start a campaign in order to raise the funds needed
for regular maintenance – approximately $10,000 per year.
"If 100 families pay $100 a year then we're covered,"
she said. "We're just asking people to take responsibility
and hopefully we can cover it."
The Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver granted $7,000 toward
the establishment of the eruv and there is enough money left over
to last several months.
Singer is currently training someone who will be paid to check the
condition of the eruv each Friday.
Kyle Berger is an award-winning freelance journalist and a graphic
designer living in Richmond.
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