The Mishna and Talmud in Eruvin 43 and discuss a case where a person wanders outside of his techum on Shabbat, whether a human chain can be made to bring him back into the Techum. At first this sounded like a real warm “kumbya” Talmud, but it turned really hard, convulted and complicated. The final anyalsis was that the human chain would work if done ‘without das.”

Frankly, The Shikker Dovid did not understand this whole idea and why at the end must be human chain be without “das” knowledge. What is going on.

To the extend the SD understood this difficult Talmudic idea, it appears that the human chain can bring people in. That a nice thought. But why does it end without das. How can you not have das-knowledge of what we are doing.

The SD would like to suggest that this rather academic, esoteric discussion is really a metaphor to inspire us to remember the needs of others. To do it without recognition, or more importantly, maybe the person be saved should not have das that he is being helped by others or be aware of who is helping him.

The SD had a tough time learning the specifics, so he will just take away the “kumbaya” and say, a human chain for Eruvin is a spiritual life line that we can all be part of.