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It was a particularly good Shabbos for strictly observant Jews in parts of the Mission, Noe Valley and Castro neighborhoods of San Francisco on Aug. 16 and 17.

For the first time, an eruv encircled part of those areas, organized and overseen by Rabbi Gedalia Potash of Chabad of Noe Valley.

An eruv is a concept in halachah, or Jewish law, that allows for the creation of a boundary, equal parts physical and metaphysical, that turns a public area into a communal area. This allows Orthodox and Orthodox-adjacent Jews to carry items outside of their homes on Shabbat. (Carrying is one of 39 categories of work prohibited on Shabbat.) 

“The eruv is really a method of creating a single space in a wider area,” Potash said. “So just like your home, even though it has different rooms, it’s considered one home [where] it’s permissible to carry on Shabbat. The idea is to extend that same method to a broader area, including many homes, including some streets, including some parks.”

It can make a lot of things easier. Suddenly, an observant Jew who lives in the Mission can carry a bottle of wine to a friend’s house in Noe Valley for Friday night dinner, or carry their tallit and siddur to synagogue the next morning. Dolores Park is included in the eruv, which means a group of people, some or all of whom are strictly Shabbat-observant, can carry food to a picnic in the park. Perhaps more important to fostering community, they can now carry a child or push a stroller, liberating parents and allowing whole families to celebrate Shabbat together more fully. 

There are a lot of misconceptions about eruvs, including a sense among some Jews that they are merely a loophole or halachic sophistry. Not so, said Potash. Rather, the concept of an eruv is a legal innovation that allows the spirit of Shabbat to flourish within the letter of the law.

“For people that are careful about eruv and carrying in the street, you can be homebound with little kids for a whole Shabbat, which is torture, really,” Potash said. “So it’s very liberating in that regard. And that’s what the rabbis had in mind” when they created eruvs, “to make Shabbat less burdensome and more joyous.”

The word “eruv” means a mixture or blend.

“You’re blending properties together into what is considered one halachic property,” he said. “Also you’re blending the people that are in the property, and now they’re unified by this common space that they’re all part of.”

And yet, the boundary itself is nearly invisible — until you know what to look for. 

A private space, the theory goes, is defined by walls. So to create the semi-private space of an eruv, walls must be identified. In the Mission, most buildings are built so closely together that there is no gap between them — and when there is, that gap is often closed by a fence. So, much of the new eruv simply relies on existing walls and fences.

But what about places where there is no wall or fence, or where there is a gap between them? This is where utility poles come in. 

For the purposes of an eruv, a wall can be composed entirely of doorways. And a doorway can be defined as a structure consisting of two posts and a lintel, or the top of the frame. Out of that interpretation comes the most well-known feature of an urban eruv: utility poles and their wires above, supplemented occasionally by extra wire or string.

An eruv can also make use of natural boundaries, such as the edge of a forest, a slope or a body of water. The Mission-Noe eruv makes use of one such boundary, a slope along 28th and 29th streets.

Members of the Chabad of Noe Valley community, as well as Mission Minyan, which also has many Shabbat-observant members, have talked about creating an eruv for years. Potash has been in San Francisco for 24 years, 19 of them on the same block of Cesar Chavez Street.

For people that are careful about eruv and carrying in the street, you can be homebound with little kids for a whole Shabbat, which is torture, really.

Rabbi Gedalia Potash

So why now? In a word, serendipity.

The new eruv is the city’s third, with more established eruvs in the Sunset and Richmond districts. The one in the Richmond was initially established with the help of a traveling eruv expert, Rabbi Howard Jachter.

“I got a phone call from a friend who is involved with the eruv in the Richmond,” Potash said. “And he said, ‘You once mentioned to me that you wanted to do an eruv. [Jachter] is in town today. I have him for a full day, but I only need him for half a day. You got him.’”

So Jachter came over to the Chabad and immediately saw that the neighborhood was ripe for eruv-ification. In fact, he and Potash realized that an eruv could be defined in the area with almost no new construction — no additional lengths of wire or string, and only a handful of short posts.

And it could easily be expanded in the future. Parts of the outline of the current eruv were in large part decided by where just one or two Jews live. If someone new moves to the area, Potash said, it will be possible to expand it to include that person, too.

“With time we will be happy to expand it, certainly, if there’s interest,” he said the day before the eruv’s first Shabbat. “Actually, even from three days ago, after I had made an initial plan … I said, let me see if I can expand it; there’s one more family I want to put in there. And I managed to find a whole new route. Once you know what you’re looking for and you know how to get what you want, it’s actually not so difficult.”

One twist: Potash himself won’t use the eruv. Chabadniks, generally speaking, don’t use eruvs out of fear that carrying in public too easily will diminish their awareness of Shabbat. But they do see eruvs as a legitimate halachic device and want to make a halachic lifestyle more accessible to those they serve.

Not that this eruv serves a great number of Jews.

Asked how many, Potash said, “Dozens, for sure, dozens — I’m not going to fool myself. One lady, I told her about it, she says, ‘You know, I carry anyways, but it’ll just be with less guilt.’ So there’s people that may not care on one level, but care on a deeper level.”

According to Potash, it was a particularly auspicious Shabbat on which to inaugurate the new eruv. Called Shabbat Nachamu, it follows the grim holiday of Tisha B’Av as a Shabbat of “nachamu,” or comfort.

“So, you know, there’s a little comfort in there, knowing that the Jewish community is getting stronger and more connected. What’s more comforting than that?” Potash said. 

“It’s a real big milestone, and I’m very excited that the community is going to have this for their enjoyment of Shabbat.”

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