I remember playing tag as a kid with all the other neighborhood urchins. There was usually some object such as a tree, rock, manhole cover, whatever, designated the "base"; whoever was "it" couldn’t tag you if you were touching the base.

There was a kid down the street named Neal who’d sometimes host these games of tag in his yard. Though we always agreed to tag when he suggested it, games at Neal’s house invariably provoked arguments, because Neal liked to cheat. Invoking the "because it’s my house" rule, Neal would shift the base around on the fly as it suited him. If he was "it", he’d invalidate your claim of sanctuary at the fencepost, insisting that the base had been the mailbox all along. Conversely, those who were "it" and caught him could expect an earful about how the patch of earth he was on at the moment was the base, not the garage door. Sooner or later we would all revolt and either leave for more equitable fun, or declare there would be no base at all.

I bring this up because I read a recent article in the L.A. Times discussing how Orthodox Jews in the L.A. area want to set up this thing called an eruv chatzeirot. In a nutshell, an eruv chatzeirot is a roped-off area that allows activities normally prohibited on the Sabbath to take place. On the Sabbath, observant Jews are prohibited from moving objects around outside their houses. This means anything. Loaf of bread? Prohibited. Car keys? Denied. Slab of bacon? Doubleplusungood.

The eruv alleviates such cumbersome restrictions by basically declaring entire neighborhoods—heck, even entire islands—one "house". Now, I know I’m oversimplifying things here, but I immediately thought of Neal and his fudging of the rules:

God: Thou shalt not carry things outside your home on the Sabbath.
Rabbi: What, nothing? Seriously?
God: Yes, seriously. This is God speaking, remember?
Rabbi: *grumbles*
God: What was that? I didn’t hear you.
Rabbi: Oh, nothing.. *shuffles around*
God: Whoa, what are you doing? You can’t move that thing around. You’re outside.
Rabbi: Chill out, man, it’s still in my backyard. That counts as my house, right?
God: Well… sure, OK. Fine. Go nuts.
Rabbi: Thanks. *keeps fidgeting*
God: Hey- what’s that? What do you think you’re doing with that box?
Rabbi: This box? Just moving it around the house. We’re cool, right?
God: No. Uncool. You’re totally carrying it across the street.
Rabbi: Yeah, well, the neighborhood is, like, my house now. Yeah, that’s it.
God: Riiiiiight.

I realize that the concept of the eruv was decided upon by a bunch of very serious bearded men somewhere who carefully pondered this as a weighty theological matter, but the original eruvs apparently adhered much closer to Sabbath proscriptions; contemporary interpretations sound extremely silly. I mean, really. If you have to make up bullshit workarounds like this, maybe you should just change the damned rules. If it doesn’t even pass muster with a bunch of seven-year-olds playing tag, what makes you think God is going to fall for it?