New Brooklyn Eruv: Time to Accept?

“communal norm”??
Well who was the first to actually have an eruv in the Brooklyn Queens area if not Rav Moshe with the KGH eruv. So please don’t create norms out of whole cloth. Besides, there were eruvs in nyc over 100 years ago, so regardless of how many people did or did not rely on it the “norm” was already established. How about the Baltimore eruv which Rav Moshe supported (according to RAv Heineman shlita), where it was also against the “communal norm” of that city where jews resided already for 100 years by then.

n0mesorah, regarding R’ Tuvia GOldstein zt”l, I was told by one of his main talmidim that while he himself held an eruv was allowed in Brooklyn, he wouldn’t pasken that way out of respect for R’ Moshe, except for very specific circumstances. He never allowed it to be used openly. The example told to me was that if someone has asthma and needs to carry an inhaler, R’ Tuvia held that it could be kept in your pocket, because it’s not visible. R’ Moshe would have held that one shouldn’t leave the house on Shabbos with it.

Thanks, Neville.
By the way, please check your history. Both the Flatbush and the BP eruv (in its first gilgul) were established while Rav Moshe was alive and well. Additionally, what’s this fabricated “waiting till the gadol dies” which you repeat (but didn’t invent), if Rav Moshe states clearly black on white numerous times in plain lashon kodesh, both in his manhattan and brooklyn teshuvos, that the rabbanim have a right to pasken and make an eruv and do not have to follow his psak, then why are people frummer than him and condemning those who don’t follow him? Additionally, why, for heaven’s sake, must one follow his fellow’s rav if he has his own?

Thanx, Neville,
There was and is no “minhag” in this issue. Why didn’t this “minhag” disrupt the KGH eruv? The Chicago one? The Boston one? Each of which had people who disliked it.

The “minhag” in Europe was always to make. The minhag in America was that many rabbanim over the past seven decades tried to make. Some succeeded. Some didn’t.

If you check the census numbers in Queens – the increase from 1970 when R’ Moshe was Matir Aruvin in different parts of Queens to today, all the Aruvin in Queens are probably also not good according to R’ Moshe.

“Additionally, why, for heaven’s sake, must one follow his fellow’s rav if he has his own?”
I agree, like I said before to Avira. The thing bothering me here with the new eruv is their lack of willingness to explain their halachic justification. You’re correct that other big cities in the past have had eruvin, yet they generally have had very specific reasoning. Even the Manhattan eruv has an official justification, albeit I don’t personally hold of it.

“There was and is no “minhag” in this issue. Why didn’t this “minhag” disrupt the KGH eruv?”
Not sure what this is in response to; when did I mention minhagim?

“Additionally, what’s this fabricated “waiting till the gadol dies” which you repeat (but didn’t invent)”
I could be wrong about this being an example of it. My chronology of the events might be off, as you pointed out. The general idea is certainly not fabricated, however (eg. the OU reversed some kashrus stances after Rav Belsky was niftar).

Avira:
Obviously you’re going to say Reb Moshe is way more chushuv than Chassidishe rabbonim, and obviously chassidim will disagree. There’s really no purpose in bringing those types of points into this discussion. Even if they really were lower tier than Reb Moshe, they’re paskening for their people, he did for his. Not everybody has to hold like Litvish Ashkenazim on everything.

“The problem with your approach is that you make Rav Moshe as a gzeiras hakasuv”
In other words, you didn’t even read my post, or you’re potentially confusing me with other posters.

“Well, I believe they do require as such – and they’re right there to whoever wants to learns his teshuvos objectively.”
Clearly you aren’t one of these people. I told you earlier, you can find his letter about the KGH eruv easily; I’m guessing you didn’t, and there’s nothing objective about your approach. You are strangely obsessed with wanting this to come out l’kulah.

“I believe his heter would apply to sections of Brooklyn just as to KGH.”
Is this a joke? We don’t need to guess or theorize how Reb Moshe would have paskened for a Brooklyn eruv based on his psak regarding KGH. We KNOW how Reb Moshe paskened regarding Brooklyn.

Your entire contribution to this discussion has been one big embarrassing lack of understanding causing you to believe that being matir one city means being matir all cities. There are plenty of resources out there for you to educate yourself on why you’re wrong.

If you really want to be “objective,” go back to the elu v’elu approach. There are respectable rabbis who were matir eruvin in Brooklyn, specifically Boro Park. That should be end of story. Everyone goes like their rav and doesn’t try to convert the other side. Why can’t you be satisfied with that? Two posts ago it seemed like you were.

I will (hopefully…) end off my contribution to this thread that it’s not that I, personally, actually believe in any city eruv in principle. My thesis is just that if Klal Yisroel, (including at least many of those who have a hard time with Brooklyn eruvs) accepts the city eruv as a concept in general, then they shouldn’t make a fuss about Brooklyn eruvs either. For that city has just as much heter to rely on an any other city (according to 99% of Poskim, and I mean poskim – not lamdanim or baalebatim).
Even if most litvishe can’t get through their heads that Brooklyn MAY be accommodated according to Rav Moshe, they must realize that we had great poskim both before and after him who do not agree with him.
Hashem oz l’amo yiten Hashem yevarech as amo vashalom. Amen.

“accepts the city eruv as a concept in general, then they shouldn’t make a fuss about Brooklyn eruvs either.”
Highly recommend you read an article published by the OU called “Major Cities and Their Eruv Status.” Eruvin in highly populated cities is not a “general concept” where if you accept one you accept them all. Each one seems to have a unique heter for its situation, and all the cities listed have more than 600K people.

Sadly, they don’t say why Reb Moshe was ok with considering KGH its own reshus separate from the rest of Queens. They do mention that he forbade the inclusion of the highways, which means the new connector between KGH and Forest Hills does not have the backing of Reb Moshe. The author of the OU piece agrees with you that this would allow for eruvin in sub-sections of Chicago.

There are plenty of extremely meikel shittos on the books, but the new Brooklyn eruv needs to detail which one(s) they are utilizing, otherwise no frum yid should be using it and signing on to blindly trust a mystery heter. Again, not talking about the BP or Flatbush eruvin, talking about the new one that goes all the way around Brooklyn.

Neville,
As I wrote in an earlier post. If you want to know the basis of the GBE why not reach out to them, they’d be glad to explain it to you.
Anyway, if you ever learned the pertinent halachos, you’d realize that the halachic mechanism used is not involving any mekil shitos. It’s just as good, and perhaps better, than many out of town eruvs you’re used to.
And no, nobody is following them blindly. One either has a rav to ask his shaila, and if not, and he chooses to rely on the rabbanim behind this eruv then he is in pretty good stead, better than anybody opening seltzer bottle caps on Shabbos, even plastic ones for which The heter isn’t nearly as clear in the gedolei haposkim as is the eruv. (Although it is perfectly fine if one follows the matirim for the bottle caps.)

Dear Richmond,

Your completely wrongheaded in your proclamations. Do you even know what eruvin issues are about? Rav Moshe was bothered that it may come to exactly what you are proposing. Paper Eruvin. It has no place in Orthodoxy.

Richmond:
The reason it comes across as n0m is saying is because you keep telling us there are these mysterious sources out there that we would all obviously know about if we weren’t so clueless. Then, when we bring actual sources (even ones that assist the meikel stance), you just double down with the same stuff without getting any more specific.

In the time you’ve taken to countlessly allude to these “halachic mechanisms” without ever naming sources or explaining them, or even making any attempt to reasonably prove their existence, you could have easily just told us over the information that you allegedly think we’re all lacking.

People here are either going to conclude–as you wish–that there is some secret halachic mechanism that is suspiciously left out of all publications discussing modern city eruvin that you are suspiciously unwilling to explain, yet somehow expect all frum yidden who have “done their homework” to know about.

Or, we could conclude that there is no rabbit in the hat, and that you have no idea what the new eruv is relying upon, and that you’re simply talking in circles with no real answers.

If we must be dan l’chaf zchus for anonymous forum posters, then maybe we’ll go with the first conclusion. Otherwise, we’ll go with Occum’s Razor: the simple conclusion is probably the correct one.

midwesterner,”
“Does the Great Wall of China make that entire country no longer a Reshus Harabim?”

You obviously never learnt the inyan.

Reb Eliezer,
“Reb Moshe ztz’l holds that a platyeh gedolah which is market or a park having 600,000 people spreads all over the city making the whole city a reshus harabim.”
First of all a platya is not a park.
Actually, Rav Moshe says the opposite.

AviraDeArah,
“Gadol, it needs to be very clear that rav moshe did NOT say the slippery slope thing about the eruv. He held it is assur medeoraysoh, and has no tzad heter whatsoever. And the vast majority of poskim backed him on it. Some were on the fence but joined the prohibition to show solidarity.
And after rav moshe was niftar….people made the eruv. It was a chutzpah norah.”
Rav Moshe stated that his shitta was a chiddush, so how can one argue that most poskim agreed with him? Actually, an eruv was made in Boro Park and Flatbush in Rav Moshe’s lifetime, so what chutzpah are talking about?

DaMoshe,
“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.”
Explain how this follows Rav Moshe’s shitos in eruvin. An area of 12 mil by 12 mil which contains a population of 3 millions, is classified as a reshus harabbim. If Brooklyn does not contain such a population then it is no different than Queens.

AviraDeArah,
“Anon, again, apples and oranges; kitnios is a minhag. Hotzaah is deoraysoh. And it wasn’t only rav moshe – it was tje vast majority of poskim in America who joined him.”
Rav Moshe stated that his shitos are mechudash. It was most definitely not the vast majority of poskim who learnt the inayn.

“Besides that, you’re cherry picking a handful of psakim which rav moshe made which were not accepted. Rav Moshe paskened the biggest shailos in the country and was, in the satmar rovs words, “mara d’asra of America” despite their disagreements.”
Fiction, Satmar Rav never said this regarding Rav Moshe.

DaMoshe,
“n0mesorah, regarding R’ Tuvia GOldstein zt”l, I was told by one of his main talmidim that while he himself held an eruv was allowed in Brooklyn, he wouldn’t pasken that way out of respect for R’ Moshe, except for very specific circumstances. He never allowed it to be used openly. The example told to me was that if someone has asthma and needs to carry an inhaler, R’ Tuvia held that it could be kept in your pocket, because it’s not visible. R’ Moshe would have held that one shouldn’t leave the house on Shabbos with it.”
This is simply untrue. All Rav Tuvia’s talmidim agree that he allowed carrying in the Brooklyn eruvin. He simply did not agree with Rav Moshe’s chiddushim in eruvin at all.

You – where does rav moshe say it’s a chidush?

Counting Street lights as mechitzos, something the matirim use, is most certainly a chidush.

Igros Moshe, OC, 4:87
עכ”פ אני סובר לדינא כדכתבתי, אבל לא רציתי לומר זה לפס”ד ברור, מאחר שלא הוזכר זה בפירוש בדברי רבותינו האחרונים, ובערוך השלחן משמע שודאי לא נחית לזה… אבל בזה טעם שלא אמרתי למה שאני סובר לרבנים חשובים לפס”ד ברור.

youdont:

Saying that an area with over 600K people is a reshus harabim is definitively not a chiddish. The shittah of the Aruch HaShulchan doesn’t seem to have ever been accepted by anyone; he’s just choosing his wording wisely when talking about a previous posek hador.

We went through this same issue with Richmond: you can’t claim that Reb Moshe “would have” been matir a Brooklyn eruv. He was explicitly asser it. We don’t need to guess how he would have held based on other teshuvos.

Dear Youdont,

Look in that very teshuvah and he writes that he was told off for using that sevarah. The poster on the first page wanted to use that specific idea that Rav Moshe and Rav Aaron completely rejected. And none of the previous poskim entertained. It would throw out the whole mesechtes eruvin. Good Yidden don’t throw away mesechtos or invent new ones. If we are to build eruvin in cities there is a whole list of precedent on how to do so. To just do a run around on the whole topic, when we have more resources than we did in the last millenium is too deviant to have a place in any form of Orthodoxy. Conservative Jews built those kinds of eruvin before they all started driving on Shabbos. This was Rav Moshe’s concern more than anything else. In his amazing foresight he saw that Brooklyn would be the battleground for the pseudo halachic eruvin.

If you want to discuss the actual nuance of eruvin, I’ll try my best. But you can’t just quote one liners. We would have to establish what was the general precedent all over Europe and how the postwar generation transplanted it to America. And then we could examine Rav Moshe’s take. I concede that there can be a kosher eruv in Brooklyn. But anybody who cares about authenticity knows that it would have to be under the auspices of a qualified Rav who can attest to it’s proper construction and that it is frequently checked.

To my knowledge, Rav Tuvya Goldstien was one such example. Though he explicitly said that it does not conform with Rav Moshe’s opinion. Are you claiming that it does?

Neville Chaim Berlin,
“Highly recommend you read an article published by the OU called “Major Cities and Their Eruv Status.” Eruvin in highly populated cities is not a “general concept” where if you accept one you accept them all. Each one seems to have a unique heter for its situation, and all the cities listed have more than 600K people.”
This is probably Rav Belsky’s argument, but in fact most poskim would disagree.

“Sadly, they don’t say why Reb Moshe was ok with considering KGH its own reshus separate from the rest of Queens. They do mention that he forbade the inclusion of the highways, which means the new connector between KGH and Forest Hills does not have the backing of Reb Moshe. The author of the OU piece agrees with you that this would allow for eruvin in sub-sections of Chicago.”
If one can make a subsection of Queens then one can make in a subsection of Brooklyn.

“There are plenty of extremely meikel shittos on the books, but the new Brooklyn eruv needs to detail which one(s) they are utilizing, otherwise no frum yid should be using it and signing on to blindly trust a mystery heter. Again, not talking about the BP or Flatbush eruvin, talking about the new one that goes all the way around Brooklyn.”
The Brooklyn Eruv is relying on mechitzos. With mechitzos there is no issue according to all, besides for Rav Aharon.

n0mesorah,
“Look in that very teshuvah and he writes that he was told off for using that sevarah. The poster on the first page wanted to use that specific idea that Rav Moshe and Rav Aaron completely rejected. And none of the previous poskim entertained. It would throw out the whole mesechtes eruvin. Good Yidden don’t throw away mesechtos or invent new ones. If we are to build eruvin in cities there is a whole list of precedent on how to do so. To just do a run around on the whole topic, when we have more resources than we did in the last millenium is too deviant to have a place in any form of Orthodoxy. Conservative Jews built those kinds of eruvin before they all started driving on Shabbos. This was Rav Moshe’s concern more than anything else. In his amazing foresight he saw that Brooklyn would be the battleground for the pseudo halachic eruvin.”
To call those who made use of eruvin, which our grandparents relied on as deviant (witness Warsaw, Lodz, and Odessa), is Conservative Judaism. You are even unfamiliar with Rav Moshe’s writings on the inyan. If you are referring to the Aruch Hashulchan’s sevarh, well Rashi says similar (Eruvin, 59b), so sorry it is not such a chiddush after all. If you are referring to the issue of cars being included in the tally, well most poskim would disagree with Rav Moshe regarding this issue [Rav Aharon never weighed in the matter (contrary to what some say in his name), for in fact he did not uphold the criterion at all]. If you are referring to traffic lights, it was only used as a snif lheter (and there are more people who accepted it than you realize).

n0mesorah,
“Conservative Jews built those kinds of eruvin before they all started driving on Shabbos.”
Care to provide support for this outlandish statement. Neverminded, forget it, it does not exist.