In the interests of complete disclosure, I'd like to say that many a Saturday I can be found carrying a ham and cheese sandwhich all over the city regardless of the boundaries or status of the eruv.

With that out of the way, I'd like to take issue with ernie's comments. First of all, I don't understand how changing times has anything to do with this. Some people argue that Kashrut is made obsolete by modern standards of food safety. I can't think of an analogous argument for carrying. The eruv was not a Jewish adaptation to secular progress. In fact, I'm sure it predates most of the innovations which you may have thought were responsible for its conception.

The eruv is not cheating. It's an honest interpretation of what a group of people believe to be the word of god. You seem to disagree, as I obviously do, about the foundations for their interpretation but your conclusion was unfair. I think if you make a deep and honest study of Jewish tradition you'll find that they've faithfully made the modern world conform to their beliefs rather than "cheat" their beliefs to conform to the modern world.

Mostly, I'd like to take issue with your characterization of the Sabbath restrictions as a hindrance. From personal observation I can say that the Sabbath is a tremendous joy to observant Jews - a joy I could never describe in this context. Leo Rosten discusses this in an appendix in "The Joys of Yiddish" and his excellent account goes some small way to capturing the deep relationship between the Jewish people and their bride, the Sabbath.