[Avodah] `Eruv hatzerot for hotel hallway?

[Michael Makovi]

Random question. I'll be asking my rabbi about this, but I thought it
would be interesting to hear what others have to say.

If you stay in a hotel during Shabbat, in a place without an `eruv, do
you have to make an `eruv hatzerot in order to be able to walk through
the hallways? Hazal decreed that a common courtyard - which is a reshut
ha-yahid - might be confused with a reshut ha-rabim / karmelit, and that
therefore, the courtyard must have an `eruv (by which I mean the sharing
of food, not the walls, since the courtyard already has walls). But
did Hazal include hotels in their decree? A hotel is OBVIOUSLY a reshut
ha-yahid, since it is OBVIOUSLY privately-owned, and it even has ceilings,
unlike the common courtyard. I mean, the hotel is one contiguous building,
unlike a courtyard, which kind of does look like a public area outside
your house. So must one treat a hotel like a courtyard and make an
`eruv hatzerot? (And if there are gentiles in the hotel, then one must
simply avoid carrying, since one cannot make an `eruv with gentiles.) Or
is the hotel exempt from all this?


[Email #2. -micha]

> If you stay in a hotel during Shabbat, in a place without an `eruv, do
> you have to make an `eruv hatzerot in order to be able to walk through
> the hallways?

> Michael Makovi

My rabbi said this situation is more like a gigantic house with one
ba'al ha-bayit in which you are renting one room, rather than like a
common courtyard with multiple houses. As such, no `eruv is necessary.
His answer is so obvious that I feel like an idiot now. :P

Michael Makovi