"For the past 25 years, this process has been the rabbi's routine on both Thursday and Friday mornings: leaving his home in Monsey, an Orthodox enclave in Rockland County, hours before sunrise in order to circumnavigate the entire island of Manhattan. His mission: to check every part of the borough's eruv - the symbolic boundary, marked by strings and other man-made and natural elements, inside of which observant Jews may carry objects like food, keys and even babies on Shabbat and certain holidays."
"Tauber says it doesn't make sense for someone else to sub in for him, simply because he knows the eruv so well and can do it so efficiently, after having inspected it for so many years. With Chaya's approval, he even missed the early-morning birth of his 13th and youngest child, now 7, to check the eruv on a Friday morning. He immediately went to the hospital to visit mother and baby after his inspection was done."
Rabbi Moshe Tauber performs a twice-weekly, pre-dawn inspection of Manhattan's eruv, driving from his home in Monsey and walking along the Henry Hudson Parkway to check nylon fishing lines and other boundary markers. The eruv must remain unbroken to permit observant Jews to carry items such as food, keys, and babies on Shabbat and certain holidays. Tauber has maintained the borough's eruv since 1999 and values the efficiency and familiarity gained over decades, even missing a child's early-morning birth once to complete an inspection. A new sensor system installed in August by entrepreneur Jerry Kestenbaum now provides high-tech assistance.
Read at The Forward
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