[Jesse-N30801]

I guess it depends on how you look at it. If you call it an excuse for doing something that would otherwise be illegal, then it could be called a loophole. The other view is that the eruv is a means to specify the division between the permitted and the not permitted.

More than 1,000 years ago, the sages carefully evaluated the letter of the law, which can be vague or confusing, and decided what procedures would be used to abide by them. In this case, the Torah (Bible) simply says that one should not work or do labor on Shabbat. The sages came up with several dozen activities that constitute labor or work; one of these (for example) is carrying. But what is carrying? A blanket prohibition would disallow carrying a plate of food from counter to table, or carrying a prayer book from its place to a seat in the Synagogue. So, they said that carrying within your immediate domain is permitted, carrying outside the domain is not. The eruv marks the boundary. The people using it don't see it as a loophole; they see it as a personalized law specifing what they individually can and can't do.

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Name : Jesse-N30801, Gender : M, Religion : Jewish, Age : 40, City : Herzliya, State : NA Country : Israel, Occupation : Engineer, 

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