By Michael Cutler

The sounds of hammering echoed down Adelphi Road this Wednesday as both a Rabbi and a University of Maryland student set out to secure the eruv surrounding the University of Maryland area. 

Last semester, Judah Lesser, a Sophomore Computer Engineering major, noticed that certain parts of the eruv did not look up to code. He then went to JLIC Rabbi Hirschhorn and Rabbi Ari Israel of the Hillel and requested an inspection from Rabbi Shlomo Katz from Silver Spring. “A couple weeks ago we got Rav Shlomo Katz, [who oversees] the Silver Spring eruv, he came out and looked at it and he said what I was suspecting,” Lesser said. 

Upon inspection, it was decided that after all these years it was time for the Eruv to get a 

new makeover. Rabbi Yonah Ribiat, a member of the Eruv committee of Baltimore, was called in to make repairs and to give this old eruv a new upgrade. 

“I hadn’t been out here in I don’t know, 10 years maybe,” Ribiat said. 

From 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Lesser and Rabbi Ribiat drove around all of College Park, fixing up the Eruv. While Ribiat would handle the eruv high up on the electric poles, hammering away from his aerial lift, Lesser would help hammer in the eruv with new nails on the ground. 

“Judah showed me about 20 poles that needed some repair and we’ve got one more,” Ribiat said right before hopping into his truck that had the bold words “Eruv Maintenance” written on the side. 

I helped to tie one of the last strings of the eruv to a post, thus making sure that, as Lesser says, “the eruv is a lot better this Shabbat than it was last Shabbat.”

Featured Photo Credit: Courtesy of Michael Cutler.

Michael Cutler is a journalism major and can be reached at mjcutman42@gmail.com.