A Neighborhood Built Around Religious Ritual
Border Helps Potomac Jews Observe Sabbath

By Janet Lubman Rathner
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, October 4, 2008

Orthodox Jews do not use phones on the Sabbath and on some holidays. Nor do they drive.

However, telephone poles and highways have combined to create a Montgomery County neighborhood that is especially welcoming to Orthodox families.

That's because wires connecting the infrastructure surround the neighborhood with an eruv -- a sort of ritually sanctioned border. Orthodox Jews do not carry items outside their homes on the Sabbath. But using telephone poles, utility lines, fences and the natural topography, an eruv forms a solid but unseen boundary that extends the private area of the home into public. This makes it possible for people to walk to synagogue with house keys, reading glasses and handkerchiefs in their pockets, to carry their prayer books, and to push children in strollers.

The Potomac eruv is a roughly triangular area west of Interstate 270 and north of Democracy Boulevard, about two miles long. It was built largely using existing power lines, phone wires and highway fences. Rabbi Joel Tessler of Beth Sholom Congregation and Talmud Torah, the largest Orthodox synagogue in the Washington area, led the push for establishing the eruv.

"There are 24 subdivisions that are within the eruv boundaries, approximately 5,323 homes," said Rina Rebibo, a real estate agent with Long & Foster who has lived within the perimeters of the eruv for 12 years.

Rebibo said this invisible amenity is a draw for many Orthodox Jews.

"They'll say, 'Do you have it?' " she said.

Robert Kreitman, an oncologist at the National Institutes of Health who helps monitor the eruv to ensure that its borders are connected, says "The eruv makes all the difference in the world. It allows whole families to come out and go to the synagogue."

Kreitman checks the eruv once a week.

"If there is construction, or a pole has been removed, the eruv has to be reworked," Kreitman said.

If a gap has been created, which isn't very often, Tessler will supervise reconnection.

"It has to be corrected within Jewish law. It's a simple idea, but you have to find a way with pre-existing boundaries, which conform to the Jewish laws needed to construct an eruv. It can get complicated with the many details -- land formation, hills, fences, a major highway, parkland. They're all questions that need to be raised within the Jewish legal framework," Tessler said.

A little more than 20 years ago, Tessler worked with an eruv expert, a rabbi who came down from Yeshiva University in New York and walked the prospective perimeters. Mapping the eruv took more than two years.

"We were looking for potential problems in the eruv. After investigating a wire within a bush, I remember coming home with mulberry stains and poison ivy. To get this accomplished was a fascinating labor of love," Tessler said.

Although there are Orthodox communities without eruvim (plural for eruv), that means baby carriages and Snuglis can not be used, making it difficult for parents of toddlers and infants to participate in Sabbat services and the socializing that typically happens afterward in homes throughout the community.

"I could not have built this community without the eruv because you would not attract young traditional families. When you have children, it is much easier to observe the Sabbath when you are within an eruv," Tessler said.

The eruv has contributed to the growth of the Orthodox community in Potomac. Today, in addition to Beth Sholom, two other Orthodox synagogues operate within its confines.

"It makes our lives a lot easier," said Irene Wertheimer, 44, a real estate agent who has lived within the eruv for 18 years. Without it, she says, she would not have been able to go to synagogue "because I would have been home all day with my three kids." While she also appreciates the proximity to I-270 -- Wertheimer's physician husband commutes 50 miles to Hagerstown -- it was the eruv that sold the family on the community.

"If there hadn't been one, we would have looked elsewhere," she said.

Suzette Tanen, a middle school English teacher at the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy, and a mother of three now-grown children, said the eruv and I-270 access -- her physician husband commutes to Northern Virginia -- were attractions for her family as well when they bought their house 12 years ago.

"What the eruv does is help the Jewish community feel more like a community. There's not much feeling of isolation. I do most of my entertaining on Shabbat. If the eruv was down, people couldn't come," Tanen said.

As important as the eruv and I-270 access are, there are other nearby conveniences that enhance quality of life for residents of the neighborhood. Those who commute downtown have a choice of the Grosvenor and White Flint Metro stations. For shopping, there is the Cabin John shopping mall and plaza, which has a grocery store that carries a number of kosher products, a drug store, banking and recently opened kosher restaurant. White Flint and Westfield Montgomery malls are a short drive. Cabin John Regional Park and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington are nearby, too.

Residents also speak of an intangible that makes this particular eruv special.

"It's so beautiful here, and this community is so caring," said Andrea Wiener, who lived within the eruv for 17 years before moving to Boston when her husband changed jobs, only to return two years later because the northern city didn't feel like home.

"We needed to live in a Jewish community and we chose one, but it just wasn't as welcoming. We couldn't get a minyan [prayer quorum] when my mother-in-law died. There is no other place like this. I'm just happy that I'm back," Wiener said.

Rebibo said another aspect of Potomac's eruv that she finds especially appealing is the diversity and acceptance for varying degrees of religious observance.

"Here, some people will drive because they live too far to walk and here, nobody will judge them. We're all on a journey, and some are doing different parts of the path. It enriches my life because we learn from each other," Rebibo said.

Tessler agreed, even though drivers aren't following the strict rules for observing the Sabbath. "This synagogue is a success when the streets around it are lined with cars," he said.

"People need a place to learn and explore about their Judaism. Most are not observant, and our synagogue serves as the entry point for all who would like to see the beauty of Orthodox Judaism. Cars on the street are a wonderful testimony that we are succeeding."