Eiruvin 5a, b

Today we learn about how we define an alleyway and how we might correct for height, width, and conspicuousness requirements that have not been met.

Reading this confusing, convoluted set of arguments and examples, my mind returns again and again to the architechts who designed these homes and courtyards and alleyways.  Were homes and neighbourhoods constructed with halacha in mind?  Were homes in continual breach of halacha, requiring 'fixes'? Or did those families do without carrying from home to shul on Shabbat?  Were those who could afford these halachic 'repairs' able to enjoy the menucha of Shabbat that much more than those with less?  Did the entire community come together to create a 'kosher' alleyway, or was this formidable work done by the homeowner who would most benefit from the experience of carrying on Shabbat from his 'private domain'?

The Rabbis debate about situations where measurements are varied, changing the equation over and over.  At the end of 5b, they wonder about a situation where different parts of an opening - a breach in the alleyway wall and a standing portion of the wall - are exactly the same length.  Tosafot enter a discussion about whether that sort of precise measurement is even possible to achieve by human beings.  They highlight the larger question of human fallibility.

Of course our Rabbis understand that humans make errors!  But so many of their debates revolve around the notion of halacha as an exact science.  The Rabbis attempt to specify exactly how many handbredths are required to define a given parametre, for example, even though they know that handbredths are not precise measures.  The consequences of errors in halacha can be severe.  Precision is paramount.  And yet there is an inherent understanding that as people we are clumsy, inaccurate, imprecise.

Unlike many of us, the Rabbis embraced an ancient understanding of the reality of G-d.  Even so, they were able to face the challenge of balancing the idealized, G-dlike concept of precision with the predictable inexactitude that is human reality.