Query for those in the know

nozzferrahhtoo

I observed something a number of years ago that I kept meaning to look up but kept forgetting until it came up in a post on another forum yesterday.

While in Morocco a few years ago I noticed an odd practice there of... at certain times of the day.... erecting a border of string around shops.

Annoyingly I can now not even remember if I was in the Jewish quarter or in a Muslim area so I have very little to go on.

I got the impression that this was because some religion or other was forbidding trade at certain times but somehow you could create a loophole with string, kind of like the Catholics eating fish on meat free days.

Has anyone got more details on this or got any idea what I am talking about?

Sounds like they might put up their string around the 5 muslim prayer times during the day? do you mean the string was blocking the entrance?

nozzferrahhtoo

No, there was kind of poles spaced around the entire premises at maybe a distance of 2 metres from the shop itself.

String was being put from pole to pole creating a kind of border around the shop. People were then able to step through the string and into the shop and continue to shop as normal.

I am only guessing that this is to overcome some ban on trading at certain times of the day, but I would love to know the specifics, and how they came to think that string could change gods opinion on the matter and make it ok.

robindch

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I got the impression that this was because some religion or other was forbidding trade at certain times but somehow you could create a loophole with string, kind of like the Catholics eating fish on meat free days.

Perhaps the string's for keeping evil spirits away from the shop?

.

nozzferrahhtoo

That would not really explain why I saw it only at certain times of the day. Surely evil spirits operate 24/7

I have been trying to Google this, but a big problem is I cant remember what area of Marrakesh I saw this in. So it could be Islamic or Jewish.

Has anyone else here been to Marrakesh and seen something similar? Maybe if you remember what area it was in it would round down my googling.

Edit: If it helps at all, the time of year I was there was November. Maybe whatever the explanation it is tied to a particular time of the calendar and is not an all year round thing. Are there any specific Muslim or Jewish practices in November.

robindch

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Surely evil spirits operate 24/7

No doubt, but you've to open your heart(tm) to religious assplanations.

Imagine that islamic prayers are so effective against evil spirits that any time they're happening, the only places which are safe for evil spirits to stash themselves are the unholy buildings owned by members of competing religions. The hassle then being that once all the local evil spirits show up in some, say jewish, shop, the local majority islamic population won't go near it for fear of evil jinfection. And that means loss of money, which is real. So the jewish owner approaches the local mullah who, for a small consideration, blesses some magic string which is proof against the jinns, and everybody's happy.

Easy, peasy.

magicbastarder

robindch wrote: »

Perhaps the string's for keeping evil spirits away from the shop?

that's some seriously powerful string.

legspin

Not sure if it is the same thing but it sounds like an Eruv

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruv

This is a level of sophistry and rule bending that I can do nothing but admire.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-march-23-2011/the-thin-jew-line.

John Stewart has a crack at his own religious fruitbats. Mind you, the fact that the hardline orthodox jews in the piece come out as the reasonable ones is more than a little disturbing.

May not work in IE.

Jaden

Complete wild guess, but I've seen something done like this in the Jewish areas of NYC. It has something to do with the definition of a courtyard to a building, which allows certain kinds of work to be done.

If I get a chance, I'll delve deeper into it.

EDIT: legspin beat me to it.

sounds like the eruv

wow
that's...

robindch

legspin wrote: »

Not sure if it is the same thing but it sounds like an Eruv

Sheesh, it makes our airborne anti-swine-flu rabbis look like paragons of sanity.

Here they are (again):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0gvbw1S4Ks

No sign of magic string though

nozzferrahhtoo

Thanks guys, that sounds like exactly what it must have been. The stipulation on the height of the Eruv sounds about like what I saw too.

I thought I had remembered seeing it on more than one day but it is possible it was only one day and that was the sabbath. This is 3 or 4 years ago so my memory was not clear on it.