An eiruv expert carries the day

Photos: AbstractZen

What do you get when you mix an interest in complex halachah, good spatial skills, a knack for DIY projects, and a desire to help Klal Yisrael? An eiruv expert, of course.

I’m Mordechai Paretzky, an eiruv designer, builder, and fixer. I live with my wife and children in Skokie, Illinois, but I travel around the country building and repairing community eiruvin.

After my work was featured in Mishpacha a few months ago, I realized people were fascinated by my profession and all it entails. Now I’m back to give you a behind-the-scenes look at my eiruv work. Let me begin by answering some of the most frequently asked questions I receive about my profession:

Do you call yourself the Eiruv Rav? Get it, like the Eirev Rav in Mitzrayim?

Ha, ha, ha. I don’t personally use that title, but it’s been suggested numerous times. One community wanted to buy me a motorcycle and a leather jacket emblazoned with “Eiruv Rav” on it, but I politely declined. I’m not insulted by the joke, and it’s funnier than the jokes about “carrying on.”

Do you really need to be a professional to understand eiruvin? What’s so complicated about running a string around the city?

The sugyos of eiruvin in the Gemara and poskim are some of the most complex halachos in all of Shas. That’s on the halachic side. Practically, modern eiruvin are built using city infrastructure, such as utility poles, fences, overpasses, and river banks. Each of these components comes with its own practical and halachic intricacies that need to be reckoned with. A lot of the work is keeping all these complicated factors in mind while probing for creative solutions.