[Avodah] Eruv in Bungalow Colony and City

[Yitzchok Levine]

The sefer Shulchan HaLevi, Halachic Responsa From the Desk of Harav 
Yisroel Belsky was recently published. It contains halachic 
discussions on a wide range of topics relevant to our daily lives. 
The sefer is now available in most Jewish bookstores.

In one section Rav Belsky discusses the appropriateness of making 
Eruvim in cities. He points out that there is a difference in halacha 
regarding cities with populations of less than 600,000 people and 
those with populations of 600,000 or more people. He concludes his 
discussion with

It should be noted when making eruvin in cities where the population 
is less then 600,000 one must be on guard for an increase in 
population which would render the existing eruvin invalid. 
Furthermore, almost all of the creative reasons invented to permit 
eruvin in large cities today would result in rules that would make it 
impossible for the existence of a reshus ha'rabbim, even those 
surrounded by walls, such as Yerushalayim, and the Babylonian city of 
Mechuza. It is self-evident that reasoning which leads to absurd 
conclusions is flawed by definition. It is surely the most ridiculous 
absurdity to imagine that there were never any public domains when so 
many of them are actually identified by Chazal and in light of the 
many decrees that were made by Chazal to prevent carrying on Shabbos. 
This alone is proof enough to invalidate this entire modernistic 
approach to halachah.

It is painful to observe how the groups who wish to construct these 
eruvin insist that the Chassidic custom has always been to seek any 
justification to allow eruvin any place, when in fact all historical 
evidence points to the contrary. As we mentioned above, it was the 
Beis Ephraim, a staunch misnaged, who permitted eruvin in Europe.

In Warsaw, Poland, the Rav who permitted an eruv, even when the 
population of the city grew to exceed 600,000, was Rav Shlomo Dovid 
Kahane, a Lithuanian Jew who never identified with Chassidism. the 
Chassidic population of Warsaw never used the eruv, and considered 
carrying in Warsaw on Shabbos to be prohibited.
Those who today wish to permit eruvin, who in every other respect are 
faithful to time-honored traditional custom have in this case availed 
themselves ofan approach to halachah that has no precedent and has 
never before appeared in any reputable Torah work.

I have put Rabbi Belsky's entire discussion of this issue at 
http://www.stevens.edu/golem/llevine/kashrus/eruv_belsky.pdf

Yitzchok Levine 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20081116/d56453da/attachment-0001.htm>