New Brooklyn Eruv: Time to Accept?

I only follow the Halachic opinions of people who post endlessly on YWN.

“Avira, the Rav Haflaah says on הכהן אשר יהי-ה בימים ההם we cannot question the ruling of the gedalim from one generation to another, so chutzpah does not apply.”

Nobody would argue that we should trust the Rabbonim of the current generation, but waiting anxiously for a gadol to pass on so that we can ignore his psak halacha immediately certainly seems like chutzpah to me. If we’re talking about a change in metzius that would allow an eiruv in Manhattan or Brooklyn today (decades later) then fine, but they put these eiruvs up when there was absolutely no change in metzius other than the unfortunate loss of the posek hador, Reb Moshe. Some were erected while he was still alive, blatantly ignoring his answer on the matter.

As for the main discussion here, Reb Moshe did not wholesale asser eiruvin in the NY metropolitan area. He was matir the Kew Garden Hills eiruv as they proudly display on their website. The reason being (I think) that it’s partitioned off by highways dividing it into a smaller reshus. If there has been a recent change in Brooklyn’s urban layout (which I have not heard of) then theoretically it could actually make a difference. That being said, I haven’t seen anyone actually make that claim here or elsewhere.

I was told that R’ Moshe’s reason for allowing Eruvin in Queens but not in Brooklyn is because of the way the boroughs are viewed. If you mail a letter to someone in Brooklyn, you address it to “Brooklyn, NY”, no matter which area in Brooklyn it is. Nobody writes “Boro Park”, “Midwood”, etc.
In Queens, the common practice is to write the name of the area – it will be addressed to “Kew Gardens”, “Kew Garden Hills”, etc.
So R’ Moshe allowed eruvin in Queens, but each section has its own, and they also have to make eruvin to allow for crossing from one area to another. That is indeed how it’s done in Queens.

It’s curious. Rav Moshe was mattir on peanut oil for Pesach. Do those who cite him on eruvim also argue for peanut oil?

“Rav Moshe was mattir on peanut oil for Pesach. Do those who cite him on eruvim also argue for peanut oil?”

By this logic, nobody can ever cite anyone. There are a handful of well-known cases where the American community breaks from the trend and does not follow Reb Moshe’s psak (eg. peanuts on pesach, shabbos timers, arba kosos davka being wine).

The minhag of most, but not all, of the frum tzibbur is to follow Reb Moshe’s psak regarding the Brooklyn eiruvin. In Manhattan, the entirety of the frum, non-MO tzibbur follows his psak regarding the eiruv.

Yes, we know there are those that are matir Brooklyn eiruvs. The discussion here is that the OP seems to be suggesting that even those of us who don’t should change our shittah due to some new change in metzius that he has been suspiciously unable to specify with a halachic source. Is it possible that this situation happened? Sure. Brooklyn could be deserted like Gary Indiana and no longer be a reshus harabim according to anyone, but I see no evidence that anything like that happened.

“The Yeshivaliet will not approve of an Eruv here even if the metzius would change.”
As a member of the “yeshivish velt” I would contend this point. If a meteor were to fall on Brooklyn and destroy it altogether, then if people moved back and rebuilt a small village on its remains, Reb Moshe’s psak would not apply to that small village.

Obviously it doesn’t need to be that big of a metzius change, but you get the idea.

The Torah does not want us to worship any Talmid Chacham but to understand his view and the view of the other side. To do this properly, I recommend to analyze fully the Shut Yabia Omer above at Chelek 9 Teshuva 33 and then discuss this topic in a fully informed manner.

“The Torah does not want us to worship any Talmid Chacham but to understand his view and the view of the other side.”

I don’t think anyone disagrees with you. The people following Reb Moshe’s psak aren’t “worshipping him” and the people following the matirim aren’t worshipping their ravs either.

I’m not a hardliner on the Brooklyn eruvs. A lot of really frum people hold by the Boro Park eruv. You have to stop making this an issue of emunas chochomim. We’re making an informed decision to follow a certain rav. If a new questions arises (i.e. a change in metzius) we’ll ask a currently living rav, but I’m still not hearing that that’s happened.

Nomesorah: I would like to believe you’re wrong and that we would reevaluate for any metzius change, but I know you’re probably right. You’ll like this story: the first time I spent a Shabbos in LA, I called a rav to ask about using the eiruv because the area it encloses seems at least as trafficked if not more than Brooklyn. When he told me it was fine to use the LA eiruv, I asked out of curiosity what makes LA different than Brooklyn in this regard. He answered, “because Reb Moshe explicitly said Brooklyn can’t have an eiruv.”

What is effect of WFH on Brooklyn traffic? In many cities there are now less people in downtowns and there is less weekday traffic on major highways out of traffic, and probably also on weekends as people can have a weekend the whole week. I don’t think the traffic might fall below the levels of R Moshe’s time, though.

Da – check out most young israels in Brooklyn; they advertise when the eruv is “up.”

Most modern people definitely carry. Maybe people close to rabbi shechter don’t, but youre making it out to be as if all of Brooklyn MO people are black hat RW YU people, and the reality is that isn’t so.

The Modern Orthodox built an Eruv in Flatbush, that only the MO used, during Rav Moshe’s lifetime. In the 1970s, about.

Aveirah, honestly, I’ve only ever seen one modern person carrying in Flatbush. I’ve seen many chassidim. Maybe not the type who wear a streimel and bekishe, but there are many I know personally, who daven nusach sfard, pronounce their Hebrew with the chassidish pronunciation, and told me they have heterim from a chassidishe Rav.

Dear Avira,

A good amount of these modern eruv carriers are runaways and were not originally MO. This can be confirmed by talking to them in yiddish.

OK, so I looked into the new situation that the OP seemed to be referring to. The brand new Brooklyn eruv is a totally different situation than the old ones, as the OP pointed it. It is a WAY WORSE situation than the old ones.

The existing Flatbush and BP eruvin enclosed sub-communities of Brooklyn with fewer than 600k people, so they could claim to be comparable to the Queens eruv that Reb Moshe was matir (still not totally sure on why he was okay with it just for Queens). The new Brooklyn eruv surrounds the entirety of Brooklyn. Millions of people, and “excluding cars” won’t help you, live within it.

Sadly, I recognize the respect the names of some of the rabbis involved with this, but they aren’t exactly making it easy to understand their heter. 90% of the letters on their site simply talk about how great and halachically solid eruvin are in-general, which nobody is challenging. The issue of Brooklyn being a reshus harabim is beyond side-stepped. They say, and I quote:

“There is no need to elaborate on the topic of permissibility of setting up Eiruvin in big cities in general, and Brooklyn specifically, since this is something that has been discussed at great length by the Gedolei Haposkim.”

I respect these rabbis and don’t want to be throwing around accusations, but they need to explain their reasoning. The Crown Heights Badatz already made a scathing rebuke, and I assume others will follow. From my understanding, even the Manhattan eiruv claims that their heter is that it’s sectioned off into sub-compartments none of which exceed 600K people. Seeing as this new Brooklyn eiruv isn’t even claiming to have done that, this might be the single most halachically problematic eiruv ever built.

If it is only kosher according to the unique shittah of the Aruch Hashulchan (which they aren’t even claiming), then that still doesn’t help with my last statement. The precedent is not to hold by it. The OU has a page where they mention nobody allows us to hold by that l’kulah. The OU.

Dear Neville,

Wow! You are really out of place here. What is wrong with you that you looked something up?

Some posters will take this to mean ehat your argument must have been logically unsound. Why else would someone resort to the facts?

If I recall Conservative Judaism built such Eruvin back when the lay people kept Shabbos. How is that for normative precedent?

Though you understand that the OP did not come here for psak. The important thing is to remember that we shouldn’t bother him/her anymore, because… because just because.

N0m: The old Flatbush eiruv from the 1970s was built by the MO and the MO were the only ones that used it. Rav Moshe was opposed to it.

Reasonably non-controversial eruvim are available in EY and many “OOT” cities in US. So, it seems that the most “in townies” consist of either people, whose wives can’t walk to shul or park with a stroller on shabbos like everyone else or those who use possibly invalid eruvim? This is not worth the large selection of restaurants …

But it might be worth the large selection of Yeshivos.

Point taken, though. If everything else were equal in terms of frum resources, it would make no sense for a huge part of the frum world to congregate in one of the world’s only doraysadik reshusei harabim.

“They don’t even realize that according to their arguments it would be equally unacceptable to make in any (large) city say for example chicago.”

No, it wouldn’t. As we’ve said several times on this very thread, Reb Moshe was matir the Queens eruv. He did not asser city eruvin on the basis of the machmir definition of a reshus harabim. He asser’d the Manhattan and Brooklyn eruvin on the basis that they are a R”HR even according the the meikel definition.

I explicitly said a few posts up “I respect these rabbis and don’t want to be throwing around accusations, but they need to explain their reasoning.” If that sounds disrespectful enough that you need to be throwing a hissy fit, then maybe you aren’t cut out for the CR. Personally, I didn’t see Avira say anything disrespectful either.

Thanx. I have no patience to write here the nitty gritty but but R’ Moshe aside, according to the others quoted to asser, namely Rabbis Bick Belsky Kotler zatzal and more, according to all of them what I wrote is correct. Even if it would work according to Rav Moshe, where did the d’oraysa disappear to if it is one according to the rabbis I mentioned? Oh, because you rely on Rav Moshe? Well those Brooklyn have many great rabbanim of this generation to rely on, as well as many gedolei acharonim of yesteryear.
As for RAv Moshe Feinstein, I implore you to learn his own words and tell me a coherent heter for Queens. In short, did anyone ever sit down with a map and city records as to whether KGH isn’t part of a 12×12 mil area of 3,000,000?

lakewhut, I don’t know what you mean when you say Elizabeth isn’t a thing, but they do have an Eruv, overseen by R’ Teitz.

Dear Richmond,

Something doesn’t sound write about your approach. Are you capable of building city eruvin? I am not.
Rav Belsky and Rav Bick definitely did approve of the city eruv in concept. It is very difficult to decipher Rav Aaron’s stance. But the Toronto and Baltimore eruvin were from two of his talmidim. I really can’t make sense of your post. What is your point?

Rich…rav belsky was against many large scale eruvin, for different reasons. Us talmidim did not carry in Yerushalayim, for instance.

As regards to the matirim, besides rav yechezkel roth and rav menasheh klein, which over high profile poskim were provably matir it?

But even they did not request an eruv, but rather endorsed it after it was made.

They’re also not infallible, and benechilas kovod torasam, it is questionable to undermine the accepted minhag based on a psak from the gedolei hador of a generation preceding them.

Neville, it wasn’t just the litvishe poskim, it was most chasidishe poskim and rebbes of the time as well.

Dear Avira,

Two more: Rav Tuvia Goldstein and Dayan Fishel.