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Op-Ed: Crown Heights Is Ready for an Eruv

by Anonymous

It’s been a year since my wife and I got married and chose to settle in the nice and friendly neighborhood of Crown Heights. Since then, we’ve been blessed with a beautiful baby girl, who brings much light and joy into our new home. But, one thing has changed for the worse since this wonderful gift has come into our lives: every Shabbos, my wife and I are stuck in our apartment, as if it has become our jail cell.

No more Shabbos walks down Eastern Parkway, no more Shabbos meals at friends and family, and no more attending Shul for my wife – who used to go every week to Daven, hear Krias HaTorah and perhaps meet a few friends who were too busy working during the week.

The reason we are cooped up in our apartment is because Crown Heights, unlike almost every other Jewish community in the world, lacks an ‘eruv’ which makes it permissible to carry – or push a baby carriage – outdoors on Shabbos. So, until our precious child learns to walk, we will be unable to leave our home together on Shabbos. This will probably take a couple of years, and if we, G-d willing, have more children, there is no telling when our next Shabbos stroll will be.

Among the many benefits of having an eruv is that it will save those who do carry on Shabbos – whether a religious Jew who left something in his pocket accidentally, or a non-religious who does so deliberately – from committing a grave sin. Even people who are allowed to carry, such as members of Hazolah, are supposed to minimize the amount of ‘Melachos’ they do in a way that won’t cause any danger to human life; and eruv would go a long way toward that goal.

So why doesn’t Crown Heights have an eruv? Because it is a commonly held belief that the Lubavitcher Rebbe was against the erection of eruvin. However, after doing some research, I have concluded that this is simply not the case.

There are two generally cited problems with an eruv. One is Halachic, the other is practical.

In regards to the Halachic question, the Rebbe was firmly on the side of those Poskim who hold that an eruv is permissible.

In 1959, a number of New York Rabbonim wanted to construct an eruv around the entire island of Manhattan. They sent a letter to the Rebbe asking his opinion, and the Rebbe responded in strong support of the project. In his letter, the Rebbe brought a number of Halachic sources that there is a Mitzvah to construct an eruv wherever possible. Incidentally, it was Reb Moshe Feinstein who did come out publically against the eruv, as well as any others in the city.

The Rebbe did, however, have a practical issue with community eruvin. In a letter sent to the Lubavitch community in Melbourne, the Rebbe writes that erecting an eruv can become a stumbling block – causing many unsuspecting Jews to violate the Shabbos. This is because it is inevitable that the eruv will break, and since it is impractical to inform everyone in town that the eruv is Posul, many will come to carry that Shabbos in violation of the law.

This letter is what is generally cited by those who reiterate the Rebbe’s opposition to an eruv in Crown Heights. But there are two important points they fail to mention: 1. in the very same letter they are quoting, the Rebbe actually says they can build the eruv – only that it should not be publicized, 2. while a Halachic issue cannot be remedied, a practical issue can.

The Rebbe was concerned that if the eruv broke, there would be no way to notify everyone in the community, and thus someone will end up carrying that week, oblivious to the fact that he is violating the Shabbos. But the Rebbe was writing from a time when the most advanced method of communication most had access to was a rotary telephone.

In today’s day and age, with cell phones; Facebook; Gmail; Twitter and Crownheights.info, the entire community can be notified of a break in the eruv with just a few keystrokes. It is very possible, though not guaranteed, that in light of the current communicative technology available to all, and with a committee responsible to inspect the eruv on a bi-weekly basis to ensure it is intact, the Rebbe would not be as concerned about a break in the eruv happening without widespread awareness of the problem.

So, are we going to be Chassidim of the Rebbe, whose opinion is clearly that an eruv should be built – at least in secrecy, or Chassidim of Reb Moshe Feinstein who differed?

Remember, those who object to the idea of an eruv are free to continue not carrying on Shabbos; no one is asking for anybody to make any sacrifices. This isn’t Williamsburg, where the decision to construct an eruv was met with violence and bitter mudslinging. This is Crown Heights, and with the Jewish population increasingly growing more diverse (Lubavitcher Chassidim are no longer be the sole Jewish inhabitants of Crown Heights), the construction of an eruv here is inevitable; the only question is when.

I say now.

This Op-Ed reflects the views of its author. It does not necessarily reflect the views of CrownHeights.info or its Editors.

Any reader that wishes to make his or her voice heard, on any topic of their desire, is welcome to submit his or her Op-Ed to News@CrownHeights.info.

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203 Comments

  • concerned

    you’re “learning pshat” in the rebbes answer. if you post the whole answer, his opposition is quite clear, despite your pilpulim.
    it should be mentioned that the ongoing machlokes in lubavitch (starting mid-late ’80’s) was a result of pshetlach in the words of the rebbe. doik v’timzo (if you’re honest & sincere!)

  • Well Said

    As a member of a community in LA that has an Eiruv I couldn’t agree more. It brings people together, allows the entire family to go to Shul and so much more.
    It is the best thing you can do

  • Eruvrav

    How would everybody find out on a Shabbos morning that the eruv went down Friday night? I will never forget hearing from an Israeli that in Israel it is permitted to carry on shabbos! Having no idea that there is something called an eruv.

  • concerend abt tweeting on shabbos

    so if you are tweeting or facebooking that the eruv is down on shabbos afternoon then why put an eruv up? the Rebbe was against carrying on shabbos- meaning if the eruv came down on shabbos, what would crown heights do to notify?

  • crown heights

    Do not open a can of worms! This issue is something not to be taken lightly. Invite guests and enjoy shabbos in your apartment like the rest of us do.
    good shabbos.

  • Pro-Eruv

    I say it is long over due. Williamsburg has an Eruv! We need to have one simply because almost all frum communities have one and we cannot be the exception since CH hosts many outsiders and they don’t know that CH doesn’t have an Eruv.

  • Zalman Z

    Sorry, but unlike around Manhattan, it’s not possible to erect the Alter Rebbe’s Eiruv around Crown heights!

  • eiruv

    Rebbe told Reb P Mochkin in Yechidus that with a eiruv children grwo up not knowing the issur of hoitzoh,

    Feitel Levin got answer in mem ches which did not encourage eiruv in Melbourne

  • Rutland Road

    I agree 110%!!! Please make sure it encompasses all of Crown Heights, including the hudreds of us who now live south of Empire Blvd.

  • Mendy

    Only one point to contest. An Eruv should be inspected every single friday or erev yom tov.

  • Kluger

    You misrepresent the words of the Rebbe,

    The point of the Eruv not being publicized, is so that people do not intentionally carry, relying on it as there are Halachik problems.

    The fact that the Rebbe writes that it is a mitzvah to build an eruv goes hand-in-hand with the not-being-publicized point. It is there as a fallback should someone unintentionally carry.

    That being said, you entire reasoning of the current ability to communicate problems with the eruv almost instantaneously is incorrect. What happens should a problem arise / be found close to Shabbos, most people are not in the habit of checking there phones and the internet 10 minutes before shekia? What happens if a problem arises on Shabbos itself? The entire point of the Eruv being there (to protect if someone should accidentally carry), is null and void, for now people are purposely carrying, relying on it.

    I spent time in Melbourne with such a system in-place and it is far for perfect. And that is with a much smaller community.

  • Anonymous

    BS“D

    I and my daughters are residents of New Haven, CT, where there had been two eruvin which have been connected in such a way as to expand the eruv ”coverage“. However, the eruv has also been maintained as two eruvin should there potentially be a break in one it will not render the other posul.

    We actually do not follow the eruv because the Rebbe was in favor of not utilizing one where possible.However, I understand and hear your reasoning for constructing an eruv in Crown Heights.

    I am able to witness here how the families who do follow the eruv are able to enjoy the Shabbos in a more familiar familial manner. As you write, no one would be forced into following the eruv. We have an eruv ”hotline” that one can phone moments prior to Shabbos to ensure the kasherus of the eruv as an announcement is also made during Maariv for the men to inform their families upon returning home from Shul.Utilizing technology is great, but should not be soley relied upon in such a critical area of corcern: Melachos of Shabbos.

    I wish you Hatzlocho and Brachah, as well as your, G-d Willing, growing family. May Hashem bless whatever outcome to be reached in peace and regarded in peace.

    May we merit the revelation of Moshiach speedily in our days and merit the return of our Righteous Rebbe, the Rebbe ,Melech Hamoshiach!!!

    Anonymous Mom

  • watch it fly

    “settle in the nice and friendly neighborhood of Crown Heights.” u got the wrong crown heights. the crown heights i know is neither nice nor freindly and my point will be proven by all the comments will start flying …..sit back and relax

  • Alex

    can one make an Eruv out of wire? This way if there is a break you can know instantly, the current wont go though.

  • Whooooo

    This is going to make some noise! I want an Eruv now! I am sure that most young couples would agree with me as well.

  • Chaim

    Years ago, when my kids were young, my wife always said “Leave the Rav home with the kids for a Shabbos or two, and we will have an erev the next Shabbos”.

  • A Resident

    Did you talk it trough with a Rov before you wrote this article, did you fint out what is the Alter Rebbe’s Shitah about an eruv?

  • dont like it here then leave!!!!!!

    we as lubavitcher chassidim try as much as possible to only use a eruv al pi the alter rebbe now u ppl come to the heart of lubavitch and try to undermine it?????? ye its a lovely place here thanks ch but dont come here and try to undermine us with ur totally misunderstaning of what the rebbe alter rebbe and lubavitch stands for and which ohther chasidim or other jewish ppl moveded into ch that is a total lie!!!

  • stuck at home mom

    Wow! This is such an amazing and informative article. I am a mother of a few kids b’H who are all very close in age and ever since i had my first child, i’m stuck in my apartment every week. I never realized the Rebbe was for an eruv! Please make this happen!!!!!

  • For the Eruv

    For all people who are for an Eruv, there is a FB page you can like or friend them on FB!

    I am happy someone spoke up, CH has come a long way.

    Thank you CH.info for posting

  • Sad

    here we come! how long will it take for lubavitchers to shed off all CHUMROS restrictions that the Rebbes and Chassidim implemented for more than 250 years???!!!
    CrownHeights.Info should be ashamed for giving a stage to people that only look for Kulos and Heteirim! this is not CHABAD! This week in Tanya we learn about Kadesh Atzmoch Bemutor Loch! That what is permissible is pure klipa if used for one’s own pleasure and comfort!

  • hi

    i used to live in sydney australia when they made the eruv alot of lubavitchers use it and u get a email befor shaboss or check the website to see if the eruv was good or down

  • MMB

    So you think CH is better than W’msbrg vis a vis violence and mudslinging, you must be from out of town.

  • Ask Rabbi Michoel Seligson

    Although I haven’t researched the issue, I beg to suggest that the Rebbe wasn’t anti-Eruvim per se, (in other words, the Rebbe was in favor for an Eruv generally but not for his Chassidim.) Yes it would make life easier for us. So would eating cholov akim; do you suggest we do that too?

    We raised a large family and it would have been nice to go out on a Shabbos. Now our children either have to move in with us for Shabbos or we go to them. Wow…such a hardship. Not.

    Dear Anonymous, there are so many problems here in Crown Heights. Is this all you have to be concerned about? I think your obvious great intelligence and skills would be better spent in trying to help solve all the issues that stop this community from being a cohesive, vibrant and joyful place to live.

  • Fiber Optic Eruv

    The way you mentioned to notify the community if the eruv is down does not work when the eruv breaks on shabbos (or 5 minutes b4 shabbos starts). The only way to make sure no-one c’v carries by mistake if/when the eruv breaks is to build it out of fibor optic cable where if the circuit breaks, it sets off the shabbos alarm so everyone knows real-time that the eruv is down. I’ve heard Monsey has this type of setup where the eruv glows. If the it doesn’t glow you know there is a break somewhere even if it is miles away from where you are.

    In any case, the Rebbe made it pretty clear there should be no eruv in CH for a number of other reasons not listed here. There is no way to do this without bending the Rebbe’s words so out of shape, it becomes unrecognizable as coming from the Rebbe anymore.

  • Mottel

    Right!!! as per usual, here we go with the yelling and shouting, and bad mouthing!!! The guy is entitled to his opinion!!! thats what an Op ed is all about!! STOP screaming at people!! Enough! Let us be!!
    As it happens, I too would totally love an Eruv . . it would make the lives of SO many of us, so much more fulfilled, less lonely (yes, even with 4 kids) and there are so many pros to it!!
    Dont like it??? DON’T USE IT , and let those of us who do want it, and need it, use it; Of course it goes without saying , as long as its done , al Pi Halacha, and with the Hascomoh of our Rabbonim. . .

  • Yossi G.

    The author is a coward that he didn’t write his name but hid behind the mantle of “anonymous”

    This subject should be left to an expert in the field — namely a Rav not some anonymous jerk thats need to get the Rebbe involved in his desires of an Eiruv.

    And the people in Melbourne know that technology doesn’t help when the Eruv breaks on Shabbos from the recent incident there,

  • Milhouse

    #1, So make an eruv that’s kosher according to the Rambam, and the Alter Rebbe will be OK with it. That’s not a problem.

    The problem is that the Rebbe gave several horo’os against urban eruvin; his reasons aren’t always clear, but bepalterin shel melech his word is law. Just as the Lower East Side will never allow an eruv because it’s Reb Moshe’s mokom, so Crown Heights has to stick to the Rebbe’s hoiro’os. Only if we can be sure that the Rebbe would be OK with it can we make an eruv.

  • Ilana S.

    How come Kfar Chabad has an Eruv if it would be akin to Lubavitch blasphemy to “indulge” in one? And I’m pretty certain no woman stuck in her home for 25 hours with her children every week while her husband is farbrenging (indulging in alcoholism) as per the Rebbe’s instructions is among those who have their underwear in a bunch that someone would suggest this.

  • To number 7

    Go fly a kite, maybe it’s time you leave CH people like you are not wanted or needed in CH. Apparently you are not a parent or someone who gives a damn for other people in the community. If you don’t want to use it then you don’t have to carry. Those who want to use should be able to!

  • and we will just forget....

    and we will just forget about the part where the rebbe told melbourne not to publicize it

  • Eruv breaking on Shabbos

    It seems like you don’t know the Halacha. If the Eruv breaks on Shabbos and you don’t know about it, it is not consider chilul Shabbos & on top of that a simple solution is to hook it up to the alarm so if it breaks the alarm will go off! Technology has come a long way!

    • halachah

      thank you #33. I was waitng for someone to right the correct halachah if an eruc breaks on shabbos!…however i think the other halachah of CH being a reshus harabim/carmolis is the real issue.

  • shloime

    if it breaks on shabbos is the concern !!

    not before shabbos…

    the problem still exists ..for the concerned people….

    no need to mud sling and mention by name other communities…

    you did excelent till that point…..

    there are places that have ?? 4 5 backup systems

  • Stop the Am Ha-aratzus

    This is not a matter of hiskashrus, this is a matter of Halachah. According to R’ Moshe Feinstein, all streets in Crown Heights have the status of a Reshus Harabim D’oraisah. Thus, an eruv will not help anything, and carrying inside the eiruv would still violate the Torah prohibition against carrying.

    Shame on CH.info for promoting op-ed’s that promote a violation of Torah law.

  • To #18

    Experience has shown that an eruv actually makes a community into “a cohesive, vibrant and joyful place to live.” If only we had an eruv, this place may become heaven on earth …

  • to #24

    it would be impossible to construct an eiruv in crown heights that’s kosher according to the rambam.

  • To number 42

    Shame on Ch.info for posting something against torah law? are you out of your mind? The smartest man in the world came up with the concept of Eruv (and yes i am referring to Shlomo Hamelech) so get your facts straight

  • Twister of Truth

    1. The Rebbe’s “practical” concern includes a situation when the eiruv breaks ON shabbos. in such a case all the technology makes no difference. there is no way (yet) to notify EVERYONE that the eiruv is passul.

    2. IIRC, the Rebbe also mentions the concern that since people will be so “used to” carrying, they will continue to carry accidentally out of habit. (this is seen every year during Tishrei when people come here from places that have an eiruv!)

    3. How sad that you feel like a “prisoner” in your own home with your wife and child.

    4. Contrary to popular “feeling”, although it is certainly nice, Shabbos is NOT made for family strolls and visiting friends. Look at the pessukim describing teh issur of techum shabbps. the “point” of the mitzvah is so that people WILL stay HOME on Shabbos.

    5. We ARE chassidim of the Rebbe, and the fact that we are not the only CH residents is irrelevant. We must uphold the Rebbe’s clear and unambiguos opinion that an eiruv should be made QITHOUT the knowledge of the residents, and serve ONLY as a backup to protect people from the issur. NOT for you and you daughter to take strolls down Eastern Parkway.

  • nechama

    According to the Alter Rebbe’s shulchan Aruch, small children do not belong in shul, so an eruv for the purpose of going to shul is not needed. I don’t see what women need to go to shul for anyways. Our tachlis is at home.
    Also, people who get used to carrying on Shabbos forget when they leave the area that one cannot carry on Shabbos.
    Now is the time to focus on building your family unit and spending time with your small children. It’s a beautiful thing. I don’t see the importance of shabbos socializing, which can be done all week, and often comes at the expense of your children’s chinuch and proper guidance of their behavior.

  • lonely

    and what happens if a person didnt cook for shabbos relying on taking their children to family or friends, and then the eruv breaks on shabbos.
    no challah
    no wine
    no food
    :(

  • put up an eruv already!!!

    1. The Eruv in melbourne is checked EVERY SINGLE WEEK!!!! And community emails confirm its status EVERY SINGLE WEEK!!! A flag is placed in a prominent part of hte community – green for Eruv is Kosher, Red for Eruv is not Kosher that week.

    2. Theres no reason why the Eruv cant be built – and then everyone can choose to keep it or not….its really not such a big deal

    4. im in FULL agreement with your sentiments!

  • The Man is Right!

    This is not the first issue that people assume the rebbes opinion.

    There was a longtime understanding that the rebbe objected to a Shliach in Poland. It was based on what the rebbe to Chatzkel Besser, but the rebbe was talking about something else entirely. The rebbe mentioned clearly In B’Haaloscha Nun Beis that there should be a shliach in poland. Simple ignorance!

    Make the Eruv, don’t ask Lustig. I will be setting up a commitee, please visit CHEruv.com tommorow.

  • we need an eruv now

    I think a big reason why men dont want the women is because, then they cant stay in shul and get drunk, while there wives stay home and look after all their kids.

  • all you big scholars

    ITS GREAT TO SEE ALL OF YOU SCREAMING AT THE AUTHOR THAT WE CAN ONLY MAKE A ERUV ACCORDING TO THE ALTER REBBE AND SINCE WE CANT DO IT IN CH WE SHOULD NOT DO IT

    FYI THERE IS NO OPINION OF THE ALTER REBBE ON A ERUV. HE MAY HOLD LIKE SOME OPINIONS JUST AS THE REBBE DOES BUT THE ALTER REBBE DOES NOT MAKE HIS OWN ERUV

  • CHJCC SHOULD MAKE A ERUV WITH THEIR MIL

    THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF NON FRUM PEOPLE AS WELL AS SO CALLED FRUM TEENAGERS THAT CARRY ON SHABBOS. ITS TIME TO HAVE A ERUV SO THEY WONT BE MECHALEL SHABBOS.

    WHATS THE CHANCE OF IT BREAKING ON SHABBOS BUT ITS 100% SURE THAT WE WILL BE SAVING HUNDREDS OF NOT THOUSANDS (WHEN WE HAVE THE CONVENTIONS) OF PEOPLE FROM CARRYING ON SHABBOS

  • I love you all!

    B”H
    We have to strengthen our love for one another!!! Everyone has struggles. Some have a hard time staying at home on Shabbos. Just know the author of this article is trying as we all are. At the end of the day we must and will fallow the Rebbe’s horas. This person clearly wants to depend on the Rebbe’s words so publish what you know and STOP THE HATE!

  • problems

    how will the make the eruv past eastern parkway!? its probably not going to be…

    its like in melbourne – the eruv cant go past a certain main road because it goes all around Australia and impossible to do a kinyan over….oh well..

  • Another reason why this community sucks

    The men can go out for nearly the entire Shabbos afternoon, enjoy their drinking, socializing etc….And us Mother’s stuck at home :-(

    Maybe the men should stay home for a year taking care of the kids and see how quick there will be an Eruv in CH!

  • Lucky to be in LA!

    We in Los Angeles are lucky to have an Eruv that is kosher according to the alter rebbe. I don’t think that would be possible in CH as you have no walls around the community (we use our freeways). Our wives come to shul with strollers and BH are able to hear kriyas hatorah and sit at a kiddush. I suppose that’s why so many young couples are leaving CH and moving to LA and Miami.

  • To number 55

    Go for it man, you will have a lot of support and yes more than you can imagine!!!

  • MM

    We live in a community with an eruv, with all the ongoing Machlokes , Crown Heights is much better off without en eruv!
    Agree with comment 7 invite guest and enjoy Shabboss.

  • Build it and see if they will come

    So long as only those who want the eruv are the ones paying for its construction and maintenance (and those who do want it or decide they want it later are honest enough to contribute to it at some point), go ahead and build it.

    The majority do fine without it, and should not be forced to pay for something that may actually cause chilul Shabbos in their eyes.

  • chaim

    lets say they do have technology to alert everyone that the eiruv is down…. and then on shabbos as mothers are strolling their kids to a friends house the “downed eiruv alarm” goes off what do all those people do then once they know that the eiruv is no longer kosher????

  • Barney

    I say build the Eruv. Like every community, there will be those who hold by it, and those who don’t. But let’s have one already!!

  • My solution

    I did not read all the comments (too many) so I apologize if somebody already mentioned this…. But my solution is to get a babysitter on shabbos just for 2 hours or so…. U realize it might take a few weeks to get the eiruv up and running so until then get a high school girl to come for 2 or 3 hours and consider it a shbbos expense. That’s what I used to do and it worked for me

  • Moshe

    B’H

    this article is NONSENSE.

    The Rebbe was NOT talking about an Eruv which could be broken in days of Chol but on SHABBOS!! We don’t use the Eruv durinbg days of Chol. If it was the case, your reasoning could be acceptable. But for your information, on Shabbos, there is NO PHONE, no FACEBOOK, no E-MAILS. Did you forget that??? What do you DO if the Eruv breaks on Shabbos???? You’ll pick your phone and call your frined to inform them that the Eruv has broken?

  • ETE

    @ 17 & 52: Thanks, just had to clean up my throw up from your comments, despicable!
    Lets get a ‘real’ Rabbi involved and find out whats possible!

  • Rabbonim

    to #57…right on the money. For years as I raised my children (now grown)..I was stuck at home with young ones cooped up in a small apartment waiting by the window watching for my husband to come home from Shul after a Kiddush and Fabrenging (all the other husbands in the Shul were doing this as well). As a Chosid of the Rebbe I would not want to do anything that’s against the Rebbe’s Shita…How is it that Kfar Chabad has an Eruv everyone holds by. They are as much of a Shtetl as Crown Heights is. Are there any Rabbonim who know otherwise and could possibly ease the long, lonesome ,wish we could be with extended family on Shabbos feeling and help establish an Eruv in Crown Heights.

  • agree w #57

    #57 you are rite on target! I grew up my whole life with no proper shabbos day meal since my father was too busy getting drunk every shabbos day and never came home till after shabbos and all of it was in the name of “chassidishe farbrengens”…but i guess that is for another op-ed

  • shimon

    Accordin 2 many Reshonim, Eastern Pkwy is a major issue being that it is Reshus HaRabim it is very hard 2 make it in2 a reshus hayachid being that u could fit 600000 ppl as we c @ the Carabean parade. There r more details 2 this. But its not so simple. So Eastern Pkwy is gona b a big issue

  • Proud mommy of a special boy

    I don’t know what all the halachic ramifications are but I’d love to see an Eiruv in CH. I’m mom to a special needs child who can’t walk. It is emotionally difficult to be stuck indoors for years on end on the one one day a week that I’m not running from doctor to therapist and so on. My son never sees his friends either and he needs fresh air too.. Oh and just as a side point-many Israelis carry by mistake when they come to Ch cuz they have no idea that there is no Eiruv here.

  • New Marketing slogan

    The Modern Orthodox neighborhood in the heart of Brooklyn: Crown Heights.

    The Rebbe once told a bochur who asked the Rebbe if he could get a driver’s license for the sake of Mivtsoim: Don’t mix your Taavos with my things. (As an aside, the Rebbe forbade bochurim from getting drivers licenses.

    You are doing worse, attempting to separate Crown Heights from the Rebbe to fulfill your Taavos. And in the process, creating what the Rebbe calls a michshol lorabim.

  • BT

    the Rebbe didnt want, and thats basic. What else are we in Crown Heights for, if not to try to live how the Rebbe wants us to

  • Quality of life

    If someone is serious about actually putting up an Eiruv, I am willing to help finance it, as well as some other people i know. It is not a question of if you can do it. Its a free country and community. People who want to use it can use it and people that are not comfortable with the idea dont have to use it. But i predict most people coming around to it once they see the quality of life increase with the Eiruv. There is no downside to it. It will save allot of people who carry anyways from being mechalel shabboss. If people feel that it is not a free community, we can have a vote just like they would do with any other community matters anywhere else.

    Enough talk. Tachles, get it done!

  • Know the right priorities

    Believe me, Hashem is happier for you to be with your zisseh kinderlach at HOME and doesn’t expect you listening to krias haTorah. The time flies and before you know it, your youngest will be of age to behave in shul and you will be going every shabbos. there is a time for everything.You are accomplishing more spirituality by being at home with them

  • CH is not Belzer or Kloizenberger

    Chassidim are not supposed to look for kulos. If you want to be a Shabbos carrier, you can join the Belzer and Kloizenberger Chassidim, and the Modern Orthodox.

  • UK

    i know2 dozens of people that carry on shabbos in this naiborhood…. many of them woman who think it is of to carry something in there “under clothing”!

    its about time we have an eruv here… with all the yuppies moving in… this was the rebbes whole idea of an eruv to prevent people from carrying!

    personally i would do what is done in may lubavitch communities and would let my wife carry as to not be stuck at home however would not use it myself if not needed!

    all those that are against it! none asked you to use it! like in every eruv there are those that use it and those that don’t!

  • mom in the hood

    bla bla bla
    everyone with their shallow comments – why did you post this and how could you – y’all should just wake up.
    An eruv is a great idea and the time has come.
    If you don’t want to use it..don’t!

  • yossel

    itsnot a lot of monny so lets just do it with all hidurim ther are peapel who spesilize in it pay them and its done i think it gos thrgho con ed

  • Montrealer

    An airuv was recently built in montreal. NOt by chabad ,but by another community.
    There was already one in cote st-luc. , but the new Eiruv extends all the way into the lubavitch area,all the way to the jewish general hospital.

    Many lubavitchers still don’t use it, but many are starting to.
    I hear many complaints from women living in the chabad area , that they feel trapped on shabbas,they can’t leave their homes bc their chabad rav told them that chabad doesn’t use the Eiruv. I think this is so ridiculous! So many women tell me that they actually dread shabbas bc they are stuck in doors with a bunch of little kids, and they cannot move , even worse in the summer with the super long days..
    i think the rebbe would be ok with at least women being allowed to use the Eiruv! Just for their sanity. The men don’t have to!
    Good for those who will be the ones to build the first Eiruv in crown heights. You will see how much happier your wives will be on shabbas. !!!

  • queens ny

    i know in the area of hillcrest, queens, there is a “trafic light” on top of the main shul, the young israel of hillcrest. if its green the eruv is up, if it red its down

  • Free the women!!

    http://www.eruvmontreal.org/

    Check out the new Montreal Eiruv,which many communities get to benefit from. The men don’t have to use it, but please don’t restrict the women from using it!!!

    There is no reason why women and kids have to be trapped in their homes all shabbas. Shabbas should be enjoyable , not dreaded!

  • dear young and kvetche couple

    some chabad communities are using a goy to push the baby carriage on shabess so do the same thing and leave us alone with you erouv
    for sure you should have first the approval from the rov before you do something like that

  • levi

    some chabad communities are using a goy to push the baby carriage on shabess so do the same thing and leave us alone with you erouv

  • YEHOSHUA

    I HAVE A COPY OF THE REBBE’S ANSWER TO MELBOURNE, IN FRONT OF ME. HIS REASON IS NOT BECAUSE WHEN IT BREAKS PEOPLE WON’T END UP KNOWING, HIS ONLY REASON IS THAT WHEN IT BREAKS IT WON’T HELP TELLING THE PEOPLE THAT IT’S POSUL, BECAUSE THEY WILL BE USED TO CARRYING ON SHABBOS.

    BASED ON THIS, UNTIL HUMAN NATURE CHANGES, POSSIBLY WITH THE COMING OF MOSHIACH, THERE WON’T BE AN EIRUV IN CROWN HEIGHTS.

    A MELBURNIAN.

  • not possible to make kosher eruv in ch

    -according to alter rebbe’s shulchan aruch!
    If being at home with your children is called ‘stuck’, please get a better mashpia.
    and please chabad lite: stop dragging down this community into the mud: if you cant live lubavitch, at least respect it, instead of trying to reform it.

  • Mikhail

    There is a technological solution to notification of potential failure. Why not have Green light if Eruv is good and “Red indicator light if its down? Those lights could be placed every quarter mile on major roads in the neghborhood.

  • who wrote this nonsense?????

    why do i get the impression that the people here who are pro eruv dont really care about the rebbe’s shitah or the hachis problems invovled and more importantly dont really mind if it will break on shabbos v’chulu v’dal.

  • BCH

    to number 55: “The rebbe mentioned clearly In B’Haaloscha Nun Beis…”
    No comment – the Rebbe did not speak by then r”l…

  • poshute yid

    fyi there are two reasons in the letter which can be looked up by anyone first of all is if it breakes ON shabbos which the writer clearlly ignored and i was in a camp that had a eiruv and it broke and we had serious issues
    second of all the rebbe writes that ppl will get used to carrying in places that dont have a eiruv like i personnally witnessed with the oirchim in ch for tishrey and someone once wheeled theire baby to my chabed house only to hear that there was no eiruv!
    based on the above in seeing how righr the rebbe is lets not convinse ourself that that is the rebbes daas

  • this is crazy

    all I have to say that the way were going now from the now mixed school to the eruv all brought to us by chabad lite were soon going to hit reform

  • Time to grow up

    Time to grow up and respect the spirit of Shabbos as much as you do the technicalities.

  • ATTENTION #90/91

    Know the halacha before you post a comment, especially calling someone else a ‘kvetch.’
    It is against halacha to ask a goye to do something for you that you are not allowed to do on Shabbos – especially if they do not benefit directly from the issur action. An eruv would help the couples that ask their goye to wheel their babies – at least they wouldn’t be mechalel shabbos.
    P.S. There is an eiruv on the outskirts of CH that encompasses parts of Eastern Pkwy near the Brooklyn Museum.

  • long shabbos

    to #73 and #74 . I also spent many years holed in my house on Shabbos with quite a few young children and a baby. Not only did my husband come home quite late in the afternoon after Shul…especially on Shabbos Mvarchim when he left at 8 a.m. for Tehillim and was gone for hours…..but when we finally had our Shabbos meal he was too drunk to stay awake and conked out till Mincha and then went to Shul again. I happen to have a great husband, but the Shabbos schedule was certainly a sore point…but then again all the other husbands in Shul were doing the same. So for all those (like #82) who claim that those of us who have an issue with this or use the words “stuck” at home with kids“ should get a Mashpia or claim that we don’t have our priorities straight being home 25 hours with our kids….I say you have no compassion. Like one of the commentators said ”just try having the husbands stay home with all the babies and young kids every Shabbos without leaving the house or having a decent space for the kids to play for a long, long Shabbos…see how long they will last” If through proper Halacha the Eruv can be put up, that would be great!

  • 20 years - a generation

    Eighteen years ago, someone said, that those influential opinion makers in Lubavitch, who maintain the concept “There need not be [cannot be] an ‘interim’ Rebbe”, are carrying a big burden that needs broader shoulders, than the responsibility of treading into the unknown, and at the minimum, consider the issue.

    So here we are, 1994 – 2012.

    That particular aging someone, has suffered begashmiyus watching the steady (and rapidly increasing) decline in Chabad-Lubavitch as a derech in avoidas Hashem. He never was (nor will be) an opinion-maker in Lubavitch, not with his farsighted and deep perception. But each issue like this, is for him akin to the amputation of a finger, so dear this chassidus is to him.

    Incidentally, for all the “legal” halachists here, there is a far more impelling reason for not making an Eruv. It has to do with the mixing (no pun intended) of kedushois. Eyn Beyn YomTov leShabbos… What is remarkable is that R.Yaakov Kaminetzky, the Litvisher Rosh Yeshivah, was opposed to an eruv for this reason.

    As a footnote: There are situations (walled in city or neighborhood, or ghetto) where eruv is a mitzva, and should be encouraged “sheloh tishachach toras eruv”. Now the opposite should be of concern: sheloh tishachach toras hotzaah.

  • Sober up guys

    The article and most of the comments do not sound that they are coming from a place of yiras shomayim. My Rosh Yeshiva taught me the Yiddishe way of dealing with mothers being stuck at home with the kids. In middle of Yom Kippur he would go home and watch the kids for an hour or two so his wife can go to shul and daven. By all means, ask your husbands to watch the kids a little so you can get out.

  • Maybe there is one

    “So, are we going to be Chassidim of the Rebbe, whose opinion is clearly that an eruv should be built – at least in secrecy”
    Who said there is no Eruv?

  • Laaniyas Dayti

    Sympathies to those women who are stuck, and to those who feel stuck.

    As a yungerman, my shabbos was this: Until 9:00am, my wife had “off”, and I went to shul (Even shabbos mevarchim. Tehillim and diapers at home.) The kids were already playing after their shabbos treat of cake and milk by then.

    I was back from shul no later than 12:30, when we made Kiddush – immediately, and sat down to a brisk shabbos meal (brisk, because the kids had to be seated at the table. And no, we did not need straight jackets to keep them there. They were trained to sit [if you can do it with dogs lehavdil…].

    On shabbos mevarchim I went back to shul at 1:30 t0 2:00 to face the music “Where were you? Home fressing cholent?”

    My standard response: (a) Ahavas yisroel begins at home. (b) I am not a Russian peasant but a Westerner, (c) it is a bigger mesiras nefesh to come back to a farbrengen after cholent, than to stay in shul escaping the family responsibilities.

    Women of Crown Heights, you have suffered enough. You do your part (up at 9:00 – plenty of sleep-in, any mother knows) and insist that he be home at least before 1:00. I tell bochurim (girls don’t ask me this kind of for advice) to make this a deal before you decide to be engaged. It brings out some healthy discussion also. Could avert problems of incompatibility.

  • Shabbos is too good to waste on an Eruv!

    #87, you are not serious, right?

    You “think the rebbe would be ok with at least women being allowed to use the Eiruv! Just for their sanity. The men don’t have to!” Like the Rebbe only cares about the men, and would be ok with women not keeping to halacha?

    How brainwashed can you get?

    I raised my chilren without an eiruv. Oh, yeah, I lived where next door neighbors actually liked each other! We would sit on the stoop with our infants, talking with our friends on the nearby stoop. The older kids would run back and forth between the houses, and there were the teenagers who were eager to play with the babies so the moms could socialize with their friends from down the block or around the corner.

    As soon as a baby was old enough to walk a FEW steps, the mom could walk him to the next house, and go to kol nidrei. The next day, mom # 2 went to shul and mom # 1 watched the other’s baby.

    We had a blast. I never felt “stuck at home”. I always looked foward to the shabbos block party.

    If you are newly married in CH, chances are you live in a building or 2-family house. Meet your neighbors. It’s very easy to make an eruv chatzeros. Do it.

    Just don’t turn CH into Park Slope. You live here because you have some connection to Lubavitch and the Rebbe. Don’t destroy what the Rebbe built with your habad-lite erev-rav ideas.

  • Yaakov Lo Mes? did he or didn-t he?

    we finally see what CH looks like 29 years after Adar 27 5752. Every yukel gets a stage for free. would any of these big CHABDNIKS dare to write such an article before 5752? The gemoro tells us that on certain issues if if you talk against the shoes of the Rebbe you should be condemned. To support an issue that the whole world knows the Rebbe was against is beyond comprehension. It is especially sad in the light of this week’s parsha and chazal who said that Yaakov didn’t die, whatever your opinion is regarding Gimmel Tamuz, everyone agrees that the Rebbe’s spirit and leadership is even greater in our days then before Gimmel Tamuz. I guess the Rebbe’s leadership never reached CH or perhaps left CH to be flourishing in the rest of the world.

  • MY TWO CENTS

    Many years ago they wanted to build an Eruv in Montreal. The Rebbe advised Rabbi Hendel not to build one. In Boston, Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik and Rabbi Moshe Finstein were opposed to Erecting an Eruv on Halachic grounds. It was susequently postponed until after Rabbi soloveitchik passed away. What makes you think it is Halachicly permissible to build one in Crown Heights? – did anyone ask for a Halachic ruling?

  • to montrealers, 87 and 89

    women have to be trapped in their homesif they have young children for the simple reason that the lubavitch area eiruv is not approved even by the vaad hair. If i understood correctly, Since we have Decarie expressway in our midst where one can travel into the highways to other cities/countries it is impossible to make a kosher eiruv, so yes men, restrict your wives from being mechalel shabbos bec. the vaad hair does not kosherize the existing eiruv shich was done by perhaps reform rabbis. I hope your children don’t read these comments that they make you feel trapped. if you have your priorities straight you wuoldn’t want something that is ossur.

  • Chochmas Shloime

    1) Orthodox Jews in Crown Heights want an eruv and should build it.
    2) The Rebbe’s “Chassidim” won’t hold by this eruv, and they don’t have to carry.

    3) If the eruv breaks on Shabbos, a Shabbos goy will ring the siren.

    4) The Eruv (from either direction) will stop at Eastern Parkway.

    5) I personally will stand on the street and scream “SHABBOS!!!” (and maybe throw stones)

  • la costa

    if you feel like you are in prison due to a 24 hour shabbos, you have more problems then an eruv can fix.

  • Milhouse

    Eruvrav (#4), once an eruv is checked before Shabbos and found to be kosher, there is no reason to check it again. It has a chezkas kashrus, and even if it happens to have come down after the inspection, since nobody knows about it they are entitled to carry.

    Zalman Z (#10), it is perfectly possible to include Crown Heights in an eruv that is kosher even according to the Rambam. The Park Slope and Flatbush eruvim are kosher according to the Rambam, and probably the Borough Park and Williamsburg ones are too, though I don’t know for sure. (By the way, the Alter Rebbe holds that a normal eruv is kosher, but that a baal nefesh should be machmir like the Rambam. Thus when you say an “Alter Rebbe eruv” you really mean a Rambam eruv.)

    Kluger (#15) the Melbourne eruv that Faitel built is checked every week and as of last year it had NEVER ONCE been found possul. That is probably some kind of record. It’s not kosher according to the Rambam, so Lubavitchers should be mehader and avoid using it, but it’s glatt kosher according to the majority of poskim (including the Alter Rebbe). (And by “glatt” I mean smooth, without problems; it’s sturdy and stable and well-inspected and -maintained.)

    Alex (#22) an eruv that is entirely one circuit would not be very mehudar, because it would not have real mechitzos. A good eruv takes advantage, as much as possible, of proper mechitzos, and especially of ones that are unlikely to come down, which would rule out your idea.

    hi (#31), the Sydney eruv is kosher even according to the Rambam, and thus there isn’t really any reason why a Lubavitcher shouldn’t use it.

    Yossi G (#36), what recent incident in Melbourne? As of last year there had never been a problem with the eruv. Are you saying it recently became possul?

    “Stop the Am Ha-aratzus” (#45), Reb Moshe is very much a da’as yochid, and he is not the moro de’asro in Crown Heights. There is no reason for people in CH to follow his shita, or even to take it into account. This is not the Lower East Side. In any case, an eruv that is kosher according to the Rambam would be kosher according to Reb Moshe too, and there’s no technical reason Crown Heights couldn’t be included in one. So this is not a reason. The only reason not to build an eruv in CH is the Rebbe’s opposition. CH is palterin shel melech and the Rebbe’s word is law, even if we don’t necessarily understand it.

    #50, You’re barking up the wrong tree. Shlomo Hamelech was the one who FORBADE carrying in a shared reshus hayochid! He did not come up with any leniency! He came up with the REQUIREMENT for an eruv chatzeros, which was never necessary before.

    #51, if the eruv breaks on shabbos it’s not a problem. Nobody will know about it, so everyone will carry beheter. And the argument that people will become used to the eruv and carry in places where there isn’t one, tell me where there isn’t one! Almost every Jewish community in the world has one. Adraba, precisely BECAUSE we’re all used to carrying is a reason to build one in CH. Nevertheless, we must not be in the business of second-guessing the Rebbe, so in the final analysis I think you’re right.

    problems (#61), try getting out a whole sentence and you might get an answer. Dandenong Rd is a “street that goes from city to city”, which is by definition a reshus horabim; Eastern Parkway is not. The Park Slope eruv crosses Eastern Parkway. Even if there is a reshus horabim, one can put up delossos and then it’s not a problem; that’s how the Upper West Side eruv deals with the Henry Hudson Parkway.

    chaim (#67) What do they do in Kfar Chabad? What did they do in Lubavitch, and in Liadi, and in Liozna, and in every other community, all of which had eruvim? What did the Alter Rebbe’s great-grandfather do when the eruv takeh broke on Shabbos? He asked his daughter to pasken what to do, because he didn’t know! Did they stop using the eruv after that? No, of course they didn’t. After Shabbos it was fixed and they kept on using it.

  • Milhouse

    Quality of life (#81), it is not a “free country”, it is palterin shel melech.

    UK (#84), is your wife not just as Jewish as you? If you won’t use it, why should your wife use it? And if it’s good enough for her then why not for you?

    rabbi (#92), really? I know that the usual practise is to check every week, but where does it say that every two weeks is not enough? Where does it even say that every month or every two months is not enough? As far as I know, once it has a chezkas kashrus it NEVER has to be checked. I wouldn’t recommend it, and I probably wouldn’t carry if it wasn’t checked every week, but you can’t just make up a halocho that weekly checking is required.

    not possible to make kosher eruv in ch (#95), nonsense, it’s perfectly possible. Not only according to the Alter Rebbe (who holds like most poskim that a normal eruv is kosher) but even according to the Rambam’s shita (which the Alter Rebbe merely recommends as a chumra, and which therefore chassidim should follow). It would be difficult to do it JUST for CH, but it would be perfectly possible to make a bigger one that includes CH. For instance it could go all the way down to Ditmas Park and use the railroad that runs between Ave I and J as a boundary.

    #104, the Rosh threatened to put a rov in cherem if he did not make an eruv in his community.

    #111, Decarie is a problem, but it can be fixed with dlossos.

  • no way!

    it may be easier with an eiruv , but if the rebbe is against it – there is nothing to talk about!!!!

    we are not looking whats EASY!!!

  • what the REBBE said!

    if you wanna make an eiruv – do it with out anyone knowing about it!

    like that you will prevent YIDEN from carrying (by mistake) on Shabbos!

    otherwise NO!!!!!

  • rabahjack

    For all those concerned about not being able to follow the Shita of the Alter Rebbe: The alter Rebbe (and Tzemach Tzedek) forbid the use of a Shitel for hair covering! In many many instances we dont follow the psak of the Alter Rebbe. The Eruv is important to have, for the one’s who don’t want to use it that’s fine, but don’t turn yourself into a Tzeduki by discouraging others.

  • SR

    I am sure that all those against it are men who for the most part are out of the house most of Shabbos!

  • CH ERUV ALL THE WAY!!!

    UMM, THERE ARE BETTER TECHNOLOGIES THAN FACEBOOK AND TWITTER. YOU CAN HAVE AN ELECTRICAL CURRENT GOING THROUGH THE ERUV (NOT HARD TO DO) AND WHEN IT BREAKS, WE KNOW THAT IT’S DOWN. IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF HOW WE DISPLAY THE INFORMATION.

    WE CAN HAVE SIGNS UP EVERYWHERE IN CROWN HEITHS WITH AN ERIV STATUS, IT CAN HAVE A RED/GREEN LIGHT, IF THE ERUV STATUS IS RED = DOWN, GREEN = UP. THAT SIMPLE!

    THERE MIGHT EVEN BE BETTER OPTIONS. BUT I CAN DEF SAY THAT WITH TODAY’S TECHNILOGIES, KNOWING ISN’T A PROBLEM.

  • volunteer babysitting for moms

    Maybe instead people can put their kochos into trying to organize some sort of chessed organization amongst teenage/single girls where they can come to a mother’s home on Shabbos day (i.e. morning or afternoon) and give her a little break, allowing her an hour or two to take a walk, visit a friend, or go to shul etc. This could be as volunteer or for a little pay. I think this would help mothers very much. (Maybe instead of raising $ for an eruv, the $ can be raised for this). Also men should be more sensitive to their wives, and come home earlier after shul is done (not sit and farbrengn for hours on end, and definitely not to drink excessively), — and give the wife a chance to go out a little in the afternoon if she needs etc.

  • Eruv in Montreal??

    for those writing about an eruv in Montreal, you seem to be unaware that there are many questions regading it. the Eruv is not sanctioned by the Vaad Ha’ir as its too problematic. and they aren’t chabad. It was built by the MO community and brought in a YU rabbi to sort it out. years ago there was a rov in the community who wanted to make an eruv and was about to give his hechsher on it. Before doing so a rov from EY came and showed him all the issues that he didn’t realize and cancelled the whole thing.

  • Milhouse

    #119, what kind of nonsense are you writing? The Alter Rebbe and the Tzemach Tzedek forbid sheitlach?! Where did you get such a stupid idea?

    And why are you calling people tzedukim? If you’re mixing this up with “eino modeh betoras eiruv” then you’re an am ho’oretz and don’t know what you’re talking about.

  • The real chasidic solution!

    THE LAST LINE SAYS IT ALL: To build an eruv in secrecy.
    Did it ever occur that MAYBE, just maybe, there is already an eruv in secrecy? if you’d know about it it wouldnt be a secret, would it?
    The Rebbe was only pro-Eruv so that those who don’t know better shouldn’t carry by mistake in reshus harabim.
    The Rebbe also spoke very strongly that we frum yidden who know about the inyan of eruv should NOT use it as a regular thing, and in general, better to only use it in a real walled city like Yerushalayim (the old part)
    So if you will start to use it to promenade on shabbos afternoon, what if for some reason you take a walk just 1 more block not realizing there is no eruv? or what if the eruv breaks on shabbos? The Rebbe was strongly against it for obvious reasons. And a real chossid would NOT encourage putting up an eruv so that he can have a nice peaceful shabbos walk or go to friends for shabbos.

    Trust me, I know exactly what you mean. We also can’t stand that there is no place for our little ones to get some fresh air over shabbos, nowhere to get out of the 4 walls.
    The only solution is either moving to a house with a garden so you can sit there on shabbos afternoon or convince our dear landlords to open up the courtyards so that we can atleast sit in those courtyards.

  • grateful eiruv-using mommy

    when i moved OOT from crown heights, i was makpid to not use the eiruv in my new community. for years i stayed inside with my large and growing family, children going bananas and mommy going bananas. i finally went to the rov and was matir neder. BEST DECISION EVER. shabbosim can be sane now. my high energy, intense children can get out. i was told something once that always stuck with me; “TORAH IS HERE TO MAKE OUR LIVES BETTER, not chas v’shalom the opposite.” doing things (within the parameters of halacha) to make our lives BETTER is a good thing, in my humble opinion. we shouldn’t have to lose our minds trying to be shomrei shabbos. hatzlocho crown heights mommies!! i will be thinking of you this shabbos!!

  • Avromie

    I haven’t been in CH for some time. From the sound of this article, it seems that the community does not have a very close relationship with their rabonim. Many of the responses have already covered the topic.

    Here in TX we invite the new mother & family over to spend shabbos so that they don’t have to be alone.

  • stuck on shabbos

    “I feel stuck without my cellphone and facebook for 25 hours. i heard using electronic devices is ‘only’ a rabbinic issur.” “i’m sure probably some rabbis will allow it” “The alter Rebbe probably, maybe, i think, would allow it if he had known how hard it is for all those teens to go without fb”

    Am i one op ed ahead?

  • eruv

    even if you think you understand the Rebbe’s position, on shabbos it is not possible to notify the whole community if the eruv breaks on shabbos itself.
    also how about going to the rabbonim and discussing it, rather than posting your personal svoros for all the ameratzim to comment on.
    The proper way of doing something in a jewish community, how much more so lubavitch, assuming that’s what crown heights is, is to talk to the rabbonim and mashpiim.
    when you truthfully seek out the truth you will hear it even if you don’t agree with it.
    Chasidim are not modern orthodox. there is no requirment for woman to go to shul on shabbos. if your wife must go to shul, so go daven at 8:30 in 770 with ganzburg and at 10:30 be home to babysit while your wife goes to shul.
    it’s not all about our perceived conveince.
    if your house feels like a jail cell, i feel sorry for you, please get some sforim, learn together, invite friends over, farbreng etc.

  • Dvunya from Dnieper

    Geez Milhouse,

    You got a lot of time on your hands….maybe you should be voted in for Rov…

  • TO #108

    as i stated in my title, i am a montrealer. there are many people who dont live right nexto each other, that their kids can run back and forth from house to house. not everyone lives in 4 block radius like in crown heights.

    i am very happy that no eiruv worked for you, but try to see it from someone elses point of view!

  • Just Wondering

    Disclaimer:
    I am not a Rabbi nor am I a community leader. I do not have young children unfortunately so it’s not relevant to me from that angle either. I have no bone to pick with anyone on either side.
    To all those concerns residents from either side of the argument :
    If This is an issue that should be dealt with by Rabbonim, then so be it.
    Are we ready to accept a decision and Psak Din? Then there’s no problem, regardless of how many comments this article generates.
    And if we are not ready to accept a decision and Psak din, then what is the point of the article and all the comments other then to promote discontent among the many disenchanted people, again on both sides of the arguments.
    I am also not an authority on the Rebbe’s Shitoh on this issue.
    Are we willing to find someone who actually is, and accept his ruling ?
    With all due respect to those people who must have an Eruv so we can be like all the other Frum communities like Williamsburg, ask this question and answer honestly to yourself, not to me, not to some anonymous commenter, the anonymous ( for obvious reasons) author of this article, or anyone else.
    Would you be comfortable living in a place like williamsburg; would williamsburg be comfortable with you ?
    Do we want to pick and choose the communities to which we would like to compare ?
    I would like to be like Williamsburg because they have an Eruv.
    I would like to be like Crown Heights because they show tolerance to all different types of lifestyles.
    I would like to be more like the so-called modern orthodox communities so there are less restrictions on what and where I may eat for example.
    I would like to be like Park Slope so that I may dress in any way I feel.
    I would like to live in Upper Manhattan so I would be comfortable in a mixed-seating Simchah. I would like to live in the Five Towns where going to a movie on Motzei Shabbos might seem to be a more accepted custom than eating Melave Malke. I would like to be part of the Dutch Orthodox Jewish Community, so that I may have an ice cream just one hour after eating meat.
    I want my children to grow up cool, Chasidish, well-mannered, religious, well versed in Torah, able to be educated in college, become a very wealthy, be a successful Shliach.

    The list goes on and on and there’s so much to address on this issue, to the opposers of the Eruv as well but it’s Erev Shabbos, and this will have to suffice.

  • mom

    B”H I’m a mom for 18 years now, and I never felt traped at home. Embrace your time with your children without any mundane interruptions.read books together, play games,learn with them or just talk. Shabes is the time to bond.

  • Chossid

    We live in EY and the only place that we carry on Shabbos is Kfar Chabad Bais (Bais Rivka campus)which has the halachic requirements according to Lubavitcher shita.This includes men and women. We are on Shlichus in a city with an eiruv, when we needed to hear the four Parshois we parents alternated at different shuls. We never felt in prison with our eigene Yiddishe kinderlach. If you feel that way, get your priorities checked.

  • Jail Sentence ?

    You feel having no Eruv is a “JAIL SENTENCE”?

    Oh my gosh, we’re talking about ONE DAY a week!
    And only for ONE YEAR until your baby can walk!
    You don’t have to be trapped in; you can switch off with your husband, you can get a babysitter, or you can just wait till Shabbos is out at 5pm.

    It’s really not that difficult. Find better things to complain about!

  • Yossel

    My comments:

    1. CH has a minority of Jews and MAJORITY of non-Jews who generally don’t like us. how long will it take for them to realize that the Eruv wires are for US, for their “underprivileged youth” to start monkeying around with the Eruv?

    2. Who is going to pay someone to make the required check of the Eruv on Shabbos and Eruv Shabbos?

    3. I assume people who use an Eruv, don’t use their cell phones, computers, etc. on Shabbos either. So if the Eruv goes down ON SHABBOS, you ‘re not going to know by checking your cell phone!

    4. The Erev Shabbos ALarm could be used to indicate a break in the Eruv, but what happens if I have my house keys in my pcoket, or worse, I have a 6 month old baby in the carriage, and I’m on a sidewalk 10 blocks from my house and the alarm goes off? Am I supposed to leave the kid there until Saturday night Havdala time???

    These are practical reasons that must be addressed. Personally I’d do anything to get out of this hood, I don’t like the big city, but the Rebbe told me to stay, so here I am.

  • Yossel

    My comments:

    1. CH has a minority of Jews and MAJORITY of non-Jews who generally don’t like us. how long will it take for them to realize that the Eruv wires are for US, for their “underprivileged youth” to start monkeying around with the Eruv?

    2. Who is going to pay someone to make the required check of the Eruv on Shabbos and Eruv Shabbos?

    3. I assume people who use an Eruv, don’t use their cell phones, computers, etc. on Shabbos either. So if the Eruv goes down ON SHABBOS, you ‘re not going to know by checking your cell phone!

    4. The Erev Shabbos ALarm could be used to indicate a break in the Eruv, but what happens if I have my house keys in my pcoket, or worse, I have a 6 month old baby in the carriage, and I’m on a sidewalk 10 blocks from my house and the alarm goes off? Am I supposed to leave the kid there until Saturday night Havdala time???

    These are practical reasons that must be addressed. Personally I’d do anything to get out of this hood, I don’t like the big city, but the Rebbe told me to stay, so here I am.

  • GRRR

    THE PROBLEM IS THAT IT WOULD BE MEN WHO WOULD PUT UP THE ERUV….. MEN ARE NOT STUCK AT HOME WITH THE KIDS ALL DAY, THEY GET TO GO TO SHUL AND EAT THEIR HERRING AND GET DRUNK AND SOCIALIZE WHILE THE WOMAN SITS AT HOME GETTING FRUSTRATED, PREPARING ALL THE FOOD, CLEANING , AND RUNNING AFTER KIDS… MEN DONT SEE WHY WE NEED AN ERUV…. WE LIVE IN A MAN’S WORLD… OH WELL

  • Chaim

    Is this a joke? When did you become the guy that tells the Rebbe what he wants?
    I will never carry in your eiruv and will let people know that.

    Crown heights doesn’t need an eiruv. We need some eirlicher yidden that care about Torah and Mitzvos though.

    Also, why don’t you post your name and shul where you are a member? That would make everyone say “Ahh.. It all makes sense now.”

    Gut voch.

  • to 103

    Madam, your issue isn’t with a lack of an eruv. It’s with a selfish, drunken husband who seems to have very little respect for you and his children. An eruv means you can escape, but it won’t solve your problem.

    Good luck.

  • For People who don-t know!

    Why don’t you ask the LA community how they got their Eruv? The Rebbe designed it with Rabbi Tziner from Boro Park and gave Rabbi Tziner $20! There is also a letter from the Rebbe to Rabbi Tziner stating that it is up to the Rabonim of every community to decide to make an Eruv. WELL…Where does that leave us? The answer is HERE. Close to every frum community in the world the Rabonim got together and put up an Eruv, however since CH Rabonim can’t get their act together to do anything positive in this community this is why we can’t get their support to put up an Eruv.

  • PUT IT UP ALLREADY!

    WHERE CAN WE DONATE MONEY FOR THIS PROJECT??? I SEE SOMEONE HERE IS WILLING TO FINANCE IT! I WANT TO CONTRIBUTE AS WELL!

    I CAN SEE SOME PEOPLE FORMING A COMMITTEE!

    HELLO YOU YES YOU MAN OR WOMAN IF YOU DON’T WANT TO USE IT NO ONE IS FORCING YOU TO USE IT!

  • ch resident

    what abou eastern parkway? and yes its a reshus harabim all the way i am not sure milhouse why you say not. regarding delosois they have to be opened from time to time, and you need municipal permision. and this that park slope uses it just shows about those who put it up.
    what about the alter rebbes shita? thats sai benogea the 6,00,00o ma’ase (the alter rebbe says to its proper to be machmir according to the shita of the rambam) and sai benogea the lechi every ten amos.
    what if it breaks on shabbos?
    why do have to mix in hiskashrus? you see clearly that the rebbe does not want it. rather what he wants is something that should not be used, thats the only way to explain a secret one, that would save people.
    bichlal why do you blame the rebbe for every ta’ava of yours, you poshut went over the line to blame the rebbe (ubfrat when his opinion was punkt fakert).
    kefar chabad is pfficially according to the alter rebbe. and no not all of the people of the comunity uses it. and even there (i was there) do you see the flagrant hotza’a like caragize? where do you get that in liozna or liadi there was an eruv? the ma’ase was in posen where they held you can have a eruv (acoording to shita that its fine), and even there you see the problem caused with the hentchekes.
    the issue of chazaka iz only that you are not held responsible, the aveira has occured. so you care about the punishment? or the avaira taking place? kelapei shamayim galya you did an aveira (just like if you used a chazaka to eat a peice of chelev), ubifrat here that you say that ye its goinf to fal but just dont let people know? a bisle sechel volt geven gut. even with the proported misasek said in the name of reb shlomo zalman is not so poshut. also millhouse where do you get this that there is a chazka forever there is no such chazaka in anything thats forever ubifrat when a rei’usa occurs, or if the parameters that made the chazaka dont apply (ruach she’ana metzua) or bichlal if it fell, tell me did you ever learn yore de’ah?
    no reb moshe was not a da’as yochid, rather reb manashe klien was, don’t lie.
    there are a number of things that lubavitch holds by, by the very virtue that we come from russia, and there the rabanim held certain things, and therefore they became the pesak by lubavitch. al derech ze all the russian rabanim were against the eruv, wheas all the poilishe were for it. lubavitch id from russia so we fallow cetain pesakim. if you have a problem with this regading the eruv (b/c you descend from poilin) then you have a problem with a half a dozen other things lubavitch keeps
    the glow in the dark does not help unless if you are next to it not if you live in middle of the shechana, and also what happens if yuo are already in middle carying? this fiberoptics will help if you did not leave your house. and there is also the concern that peoplle will just only say no there is just a malfuction (remember the chashash that that people wont listen)
    the rosh threatened someone who was saying it was osur when he said that the particular case, not if he did not make one, and not in all cases. the rosh is not the posek acharon have you ever followed pesak? you sound like 1) a moderner who finds a da’as yachid from a rishon and holds it as banner that now we all have to pasken like it. or 2) like one of these am haratzim who never learned how to pasken.

  • ch resident

    in con:
    to 119# you made that up, yasher koach. and btw bichlal the times we go against the alter rebbe (like in dinei nida) is only if a basra (the tzemach tzedek, or the other rabbeim) argues. find me a rebbe who argued with the alter rebbe in this regard.
    its a fact repeated by the rabeim in the sichos maamarim and letters, that just b/c something is mutar does not mean its fine. obviosly things are different in ragards to shluchin b/c you are trying to makerav someone. but you have to be very carefull with the rbebes shechuna, we are talking about the rebbe here.
    if there is no eruv all these years there is probably a reason. reb zalman shimon was a real rov and would have given instructions of what to do if it was all right (don’t make comments about this one if you did not reb zalman shimon). and bichlal making changes is not something to be taken light headed.
    did you ask at least one of the rabbanim in this shechuna before puting up this op ed?
    you just joined the community and you want to tell us what to do? live here a couple of and then think of having an opinion, you are like federman (no i am not trying to bash anybody and dont have anything agaisnt him) that moves in, and to quikly starts spouting opinions that we should all fallow regarding the structure of the shechuna (like voting).
    also if you dont like our shechana join another one who asked you ti come here? you want part of it, and the other throw away. if you want to come here and have our ma’alos follow also the stuff that bother you (i am talking about yidishkite and chasidishkite, not other stuf f like mentchlichkite). if you don’t like it here go to bergen county.
    you say that if you donk like it dont use it. to this i answer: 1) when it goes against the rebbe every chasid blood must boil. 2. i would like to live in a shechuna that has the tzura of a shechuna where shabbos is taken seriosly ubifrat when a ruv might fall down and you just say no dont tellthem). 3.how will i educate my kids not to use the eruv, when every frum looking person is using it? 4. whats with shalom bayis when one spouse wants it and the othee does not? 5. this is a chelek of the cracks and changes that are taking place inthe rebbe shechuna, that is changing the very look of the shechuna. therfore every change must be taken seriously. 128# or 130# vekadome might have been harsh but he hit the nail on the head.

  • ch resident

    about what i wrote on chazokos:
    even a chezkes penua or chezkas haguf are chazakas taht prepetuates itself. also you have to prove that its a chazaka thats not asuya lehishtanes or lehiskalkel

  • Mendy

    Hello Milhouse,

    You sound like you are well versed both in Halacha and in REAL life.
    I have seen your posts for some time now and have always wondered who you are.
    WHO IS MILHOUSE???

  • dovid

    As usual these comments are dripping with venom. A few points:
    1. Commentators please show a bit of menschlekeit, ahavas yisroel and perspective as well as not displaying your am-aratzus. A person who uses a kosher eiruv is not carrying on shabbos or breaking shabbos (as some here suggest). Yes the Rebbe may have made specific reference to Crown Heights but the inyan of an eiruv (which you make a brocho on) is an inyan of kedusha. Don’t make out that somebody who uses one is ch“v oiver.
    2. Nobody has actually explained how it is OK in kfar chabad – with the Rebbe’s haskomo – or indeed in every chabad camp I have ever been to.
    3. This is like many issues – e.g. opportunities for women’s dancing on Simchas Torah. You can bury your head in the sand and shrei ”rebbe’s shechuna” or you can listen to the actual needs of your residents. Do you not think in a post-gimmel-tammuz world and with so many going off the derech that if some yungerleit are asking for something which can be done AL PI HALOCHO then it should be done to avoid michshol. As per the rebbe’s directives ASK A RAV MOREH HORA’AH. If they say no, fine. But the people psoting here are not poskim.
    4. As someone said, if the women feel trapped at home let the men watch the kids so they can go out on shabbos.
    5. Many people have told me that Tatty made kiddush Friday night and Mommy made kiddush shabbos day. They accepted it because it was the rebbe’s farbrengen. Now that it is a stam farbrengen where the men just hang out and drink, YES< Takkeh they should go home to their families. Look around 770 how many fathers are ignoring their kids hanging out drinking with their friends. YES IT IS CORRECT.

  • home on Shabbos

    to #137…You wrote that it’s horrible to consider being home on Shabbos as Jail time and we should be patient till our kid turns ONE and starts walking..what you say would be true if we were spacing our kids apart in age…but as Frum Jews we are B“H having our children close in age…so that by the time your one year old is ready to walk outside on Shabbos..your now not able to leave because you have been blessed with a new baby…that can happen for years and you won’t be able to leave your house on Shabbos for a long, long time. All those that say we women are wrong for using the word ”stuck“ or ”Jailed” have probably never experienced years of being home on Shabbos. Yes, we are loving mothers and good wives and enjoy spending quality time with our children and we do, but we are human! It’s okay to be compassionate to those of us who cannot hardly ever leave our homes on Shabbos during our childbearing years.

  • To33,134,137

    To #33#134,#137.
    It’s so sad to see the insensitivity going around. We do not have to agree with the persons statements but it is how they feel and we should respect it. Maybe they don’t have family to move into for shabbos? Everyone handles things differently and while you may have enjoyed staying home , it is harder for them. If you do want to give ideas of how they should stay home and play with their kids, do it in a constructive way and do not belittle them.

  • Alter Rebbe Eruv In Crown Heights.

    1. The Alter Rebbe also said that when you have a situation of MERUBE HA’OMED AL HA’PORUTZ (that the majority is walls and not open space) then you can make an Eruv by connecting with strings, even if its wider than the 13 amos.

    2. According to the Alter Rebbe in Kuntres Acharon, for something to be a Reshus Ha’rabim it has to have 600,000 people crossing thru it, AND it has to be MEFULASH MITZAD LETZAD, i.e. that it should cross from one end to the other.

    Eastern Pkwy does not qualify for a Reshus Ha’rabim, because a) 600,000 people do not pass it every day (without counting the subway riders, who aren’t part of the cheshbon) AND it does not cross the city from side to side (it dead-ends by the jackie on one side, and the circle on another…)

    3. Here is a map of making a Crown Heights Eruv which will be according to the Alter Rebbe.

    http://g.co/maps/br2m6

  • We Want An Eruv Now (CH)

    First let’s clear up the am ha’aratzus that is constantly being bandied around in Chabad regarding eruvin. The fact is the Shulchan Aruch (O.C. 362:10, see Machtzis HaShekel, ad loc) states that the Rambam maintains that as long as we are using (at least two) mechitzos that are omed merubeh al haparutz, a tzuras hapesach is sufficient to close the gaps even if they are more than ten amos wide. All large city eruvin can make use of the mechitzos habatim that would satisfy this requirement of mechitzos. Therefore, if an eruv of tzuras hapesachim was erected in CH, it would be classified as a Rambam eruv.

    Additionally, it should be noted that the Rebbe’s main issue with the Manhattan eruv is not relevant to a CH eruv. In Manhattan, the Rebbe had halachic issues with the mechitzos at the waterfront that they were relying on, and it was not possible to establish a tzuras hapesach. Today, a tzuras hapesach could be established in CH.

    Today, we can address the other concerns mentioned in the name of the Rebbe regarding eruvin (some I believe could have been the reasoning of the Rebbe; some I don’t).

    1) The issue that the eruv will rip on Shabbos and it would not be possible to inform people about it:
    Today we can erect two or more eruvin that would negate the possibility that there would not be a kosher eruv on Shabbos. (I question if the Rebbe actually said this as this could have been an issue in all large cities prior to WWII. Why should America be different?)

    2) The issue that once people become used to carrying they may come to carry in cities that don’t have eruvin:
    I believe that this issue is all the more a reason to establish an eruv in CH today. There is almost no city with a frum Jewish community that has not established an eruv today. So, on the contrary, people who come from other towns may carry in the only city that does not have an eruv, CH. (I really don’t understand why CH should be any different regarding this matter than Kfar Chabad which does have an eruv.)

    3) The issue that we may not be able to include the whole area where frum Jews reside:
    There is no doubt that today we can establish an eruv in CH anywhere we would need to.

    It’s important to note that the Rebbe maintained that when it’s possible to establish an eruv, it is a mitzvah to do so. Now is the time.

    Finally, I think that the objection to eruvin that permeates the Chabad world is misplaced and has no place in the Chasidic canon.

  • Milhouse

    Yossel, every eruv is checked weekly; if there’s money available for building one, which there is, then there’s also money for checking and repairing it once it’s built. The checker needn’t necessarily be paid; most eruvin are checked by volunteers.

    The issue of it breaking on Shabbos is not practical. Nobody is likely to notice a break that happens on shabbos, so it’s a non-issue. The break probably wouldn’t be found until the next Thursday’s inspection. It would be found on Thursday, fixed that night, and sholom al yisroel.

    What you and a lot of other commenters seem not to understand is that if the eruv was found before Shabbos to be kosher, and then broke afterwards but you don’t know about it, YOU ARE CARRYING BEHETER. You are not doing an issur by carrying, EVEN THOUGH IT’S BROKEN. So why worry about it?

    In the unlikely event that someone happens to be walking on the boundary on Shabbos and happens to notice a break, and happens to notify you, you would have a shayla, just as has been the case throughout Jewish history. What did the Alter Rebbe’s great-great-grandfather do when this happened to him? He didn’t know the halochos; he asked his daughter to pasken! Did this make him stop carrying the next week? Of course not.

    Don’t act as if an eruv is some sort of weird innovation, some sort of “reform” chas vesholom. On the contrary, for at least the past 1000 years almost every Jewish community had an eruv, and everyone used it. Having an eruv is the norm, not the exception. And if it breaks it breaks; that was never considered a reason not to have an eruv, so why should it be now?

  • We Want An Eruv Now

    Milhouse (#38), while CH could be classified as the Rebbe’s palterin shel melech, the LES was not exclusively Rav Moshe zt”l’s makom. It is silly that the Feinsteins do not allow an eruv for the LES. The fact is that Rav Moshe allowed others to establish an eruv. In any case, no one has answered why the Rebbe allowed an eruv in Kfar Chabad? Why should CH be different? Many of the issues with eruvin that are mentioned in the name of the Rebbe could be a problem in KC as well.

    Eruv in Montreal (#123), you do not know what you are talking about. The eruv in Montreal was not made by the MO community but only by the Chassidim.

  • A Rov needed for Eruv

    We finally have A Rov (the #3), now an Ay Ruv. “Vayhi Rov Ba’Aretz” – “…and there was Ay Ruv in the land”.

  • ch resident

    The Crown Heights Bais Din was contacted by the people who want to put up an eruv and they voted AGAINST it.

    There is no money to pay the bais din but there is plenty of money for an eruv?

    I agree that a better use of the money would be to organize children’s programing. After all the only problem an eruv helps is a baby up to walking age. Toddlers can wear 2 pampers or you can put your necessities at the house you are going to. How many women get out during Yom Tov when you CAN carry? Older kids can and do go out on shabbas. Husbands watch babies (no we all don’t have inconsiderate husbands who spend the day in shul drunk).

  • LA Eruv

    To clarify: The Mora Dasra in Los Angeles Rabbi Shimmy Raichik wrote a letter to Anash ,NOT to use the Eruv .Anash in fact do NOT use it.It is only used by the “Chabad Lite” community ,who dont listen to the Mora Dasra on other important issues as well such as not trimming the beard ,Tznius etc.They found a way out by getting (taking over) their own shul and hiring a young “Rabbi” who looks the other way on these issues.

  • aussie

    i live in melbourne, just outside the eruv, and my husband and i have seen many times Shomer Shabbos people carrying outside the eruv, they just didn’t know how far it extends. the Rebbe was right, a communal eruv makes carrying on Shabbos light in people’s eyes. and i don’t get why the woman has to stay home, ok, she won’t go to shul, big deal! a father can take care of his children in the afternoon so his wife can go out.

  • Yakov Kirschenbaum

    BS”D

    1) Why is this article anonymous?

    2) If I’m not mistaken, I think women were having babies before Gimmel Tamuz too. You would think during the tens of years of the Rebbe’s nesius, the issue of building an eruv in CH would’ve come up and been brought to the Rebbe. And we see that there has never been an eruv. Therefore, it’s almost 100% clear to me that the Rebbe did (does) not want it. This could probably be verified by speaking to Rabbi Groner, Rabbi Osdoba, and people in the know.

    In any case, an eruv could obviously, not be erected without the approval and hechsher of the CH Rabbonim. So if they won’t approve, the whole discussion is dead in its tracks.

    Therefore, the wise thing to do would be for the organizers to speak to the Rabbonim before doing anything, to make sure they’re not wasting their time and effort on something that won’t end up happening.

  • We Want An Eruv Now (CH)

    ch resident (#145), no Eastern Parkway is included in mechitzos so it’s not classified as a reshus harabbim even if it had shishim ribo traversing therein. Moreover, it does not have shishim ribo traversing it daily and it’s not mefulash. Consequently, there is simply no need for delasos.

    Actually the Rebbe seems to accept that the Alter Rebbe upheld the criterion of shishim ribo (the Rebbe cites the Bais Av that most Rishonim maintain shishim ribo is a criterion). Moreover, following the klallim of the Kuntres Achron, it’s clear that the Alter Rebbe did accept the shita of shishim ribo (furthermore, the Alter Rebbe did not write that a Yiras Shomayim should be stringent, it was added at a later date).

    An eruv in CH would be a Rambam eruv just like the one in Kfar Chabad. Your animosity towards eruvin is misplaced. You should stop trying to force your personal opinion into the Rebbes shitos in eruvin. Your rant regarding people not carrying in Kfar Chabad is also an invention to perpetuate your opinion against eruvin.

    No Rav Moshe ztl was a daas yachid and he said so himself. Show me one posek who argued that shishim ribo is conditional of an area 12 mil by 12 mil besides for Rav Moshe. Show me one posek who mentioned that the criterion of shishim ribo is fulfilled by a population of three million besides for Rav Moshe.

    Don’t make up stories regarding the accepted p’sak of Chabad or other Russian rabbanim regarding eruivn. There is no such p’sak.

    We do not follow the Rosh? You ever head of the Shulchan Aruch?

    There is no reason today to worry about eruvin ripping on Shabbos. The fact is our monofilament string or plastic coated wire rarely rips. Moreover, we can build back-up eruvin to address this issue.

  • We Want An Eruv Now (CH)

    LA Eruv (#159), what is wrong with taking a stroll on Shabbos. The Perishah maintains that this is one of the reason to establish an eruv. How can you compare Yom Tov to Shabbos? Shabbos comes around every single week. On Shabbos davening is shorter and people have more time to take a stroll.

    LA Eruv (#160), eruvin should be included with all the other issues you mention? Your antipathy towards eruvin is misplaced and shows that you do not realize that eruvin is not some kind of trick c”v.

    aussie (#161), your opinion would count if you lived inside of the eruv. You seem to be jealous of those who live inside of the eruv. In any case, an eruv in CH could be constructed to include the entire neighborhood.

  • Milhouse

    ch resident (#145, #146), Eastern Parkway does not go from city to city, is not mefulash misha’ar lesha’ar, and does not have 600K people. The only criterion of RHR that it fulfills is that it’s 16 amos wide (like almost every street in NY). Further, Brooklyn has mechitzos on three sides (albeit with pirtzos), and is therefore probably a reshus hayochid de’oraisa.

    You cast aspersions on the rabbonim who made the Park Slope eruv. Do you have any idea who they were, and how their knowledge compared to yours, that you feel comfortable belittling them?

    If Eastern Parkway were a RHR, it could be easily fixed by dlossos, just as is done on the Henry Hudson Parkway, and in many other places. I don’t understand why you think this would be a problem. It’s no harder to put up a door than to put up strings and poles. And it’s very easy to go once a year, at 3 in the morning, with three people. Two hold stop signs while one closes the door and immediately open it again.

    A mechitza that is omed merubeh al haporutz doesn’t need a lechi every 10 amos, even according to the Rambam. Such eruvin exist, for instance, in Flatbush and Park Slope.

    I know that Liozna and Liadi had eruvin because EVERY yiddisher yishuv had an eruv. It would be astounding if they didn’t, and that would require proof. And yes, people carried everything. And yes, problems arose from time to time, as happened in the maaseh with Reb Boruch Batlan, and yet we see that they didn’t stop carrying because of this. The next week they were carrying again, because that was what yidden did.

    If an eruv has a chezkas kashrus then you are allowed to rely on it, so even if it’s broken THERE IS NO AVERA. The same Torah that tells you not to carry in a karmelis tells you that you may carry in what you reasonably believe to be a reshus hayochid me’ureves. If it turns out afterwards that it was really a karmelis, because the eruv broke, that doesn’t change anything. You still carried beheter, and have nothing to do teshuvah for. That is the halocho.

    Reb Moshe was very much a daas yochid. His shita was a huge chiddush of his own, and NOBODY agreed with him, as he himself acknowledged.

    I don’t know which ruach hakodesh told you that I shtam from Poland. You have no idea where I come from. But if I did come from there, so what? What makes the Torah of Poland less authoritative than that of Lita? (There is no Torah of Russia; there were no Jews in Russia until the Alter Rebbe’s time.) Uvnei Yisroel yotz’im beyad Ramo, who was a Pollack.

    The Rosh certainly did threaten to put a rov in cherem if he did not make an eruv in his town.

    You’re right that if the Rebbe was not against making an eruv in CH, then Reb Zalmen Shimon would surely have made one.

  • Milhouse

    Aussie (#161), did you ever ask the people whom you saw carrying outside the eruv why they were doing so? How do you know they weren’t carrying before the eruv was put up in the first place? There were many people who did so.

    Someone who carries without knowing where the eruv runs is like someone who eats vegetarian food in treife restaurants, because “what could be wrong”? Is that a reason not to have kosher restaurants?! We cannot be responsible for such people.

    PS: Maybe they’re still relying on Zaichik’s eruv, which went all the way to the Yarra.

  • Milhouse

    #162, why is it so obvious that an eruv couldn’t be built without the rabbonim’s approval? Who would stop it, and how?

  • yakov

    people should first learn than give opinions in hilchos eruvin
    i advice to listen to the shiur of rav osher wais a big gadol in eretz ysroel that explain the whole sugia in eruvin
    http://www.kolhalashon.com/…|HTnc|ParashaShiur|R0007-1|CurrentLessons&Order=New2Old&InCall=True&PageNum=2
    shiur number 38 pls listen and than give opinions

  • Ilana S.

    Anyone else who’s been following this, help me out here with the general takeaway:
    1. Denigrating those who do have an Eruv is wrong.
    2. Disobeying the Rabbanim is wrong.
    3. Men should be helping out with their kids on Shabbos to the fullest extent possible.
    4. At least some women are OK with being stuck indoors with lots of children for 25 hours, but at least some are not for whatever reason.

  • Mendel

    The eruv is good for the men so why should i care i get to leav my wife with the kids all day and i get to farbreg all day.

  • to number 169

    number 169 maybe you could come to my apt and watch my kids while my husband and I go out for a walk instead of us being stuck indoors all day.

  • I feel trapped

    before i had children i would go to shurl every Shabbos and my husband and I would eat out and have a social life we are both worked full time and shabbos was the day to socialize and spend time with family and friends. Shabbos was my best day of the week. But ever since i have children and i am stuck all shabbos at home while my husband goes to shurl and enjoys while I’m home with the kids running after them, cleaning the house, and getting the food ready for the meal. I feel trapped in my apartment and don’t have the same love for Shabbos that i used to have.

  • dovid

    Once again: MEN why are you not being more sensitive to your wives? Absent an eruv which would take ages to build anyway, ask your wives if they want to go out on shabbos and act accordingly. Plenty of people daven at 8:30 minyanim so the wives can go for krias hatorah in 770 at eleven. A bissel mentschlekeit. Is this how you treat your wives in other areas as well? No men have complained here about being stuck home, only the women. Why are the husbands not feeling the wives’ pain? Come on guys man up a bit and stop behaving like bochrim

  • Yakov A.

    Dear Anonymous,

    I agree with those who say you should leave Crown Heights. However, not because I am against the building of an eruv. After reading the hatred and vitriol flung at you by those who oppose your opinion, my question is how can you raise children in such a spiteful and hate-filled neighborhood. After reading the Am horatzus masquerading as lomdus and chasidishkeit my question is how can you live amongst such people.

    If you want to get technical, there are dozens of small eruvim in Crown Heights created by brothers/sisters/parents/neighbors that link two adjoining backyards. Just walk down any street and you’ll see them (then again, I haven’t been in CH in over 10 years). Perhaps you can work a system that links you and your friends that you can run by a halachic authority.

    However, at the end of the day, it seems like our Rebbe did not want his chassidim to use an eruv. As such, you will most likely not find a Lubavitcher rov who will officially condone the building of an eruv in CH. If you choose to build one, then realize that you will be ridiculed and insulted.

    Here is an idea. Get a competent Rov who knows how to build eruvim. Have this rov show the plans to the Crown Heights rabbonim, not for official approval, but rather to demonstrate the halachick reasoning behind the eruv. And then build an eruv. When the Jewish community of Chicago built its eruv, Rabbi Shusterman ZT”L (the father of the Rov and shliach in BH) sent Rabbi Boruch Hertz to represent Bnei Reuven and to make sure that the halacha behind the eruv was sound. As Rabbi Hertz told me many times, the Chicago Eruv is 100% percent Kosher, However our Rebbe did not want his chassidim to use an eruv. That should be your approach.

  • Look within

    If you read up on the history of the maskilim, and how they tried to destroy Yiddishkeit little by little with these little slips and slides down the slope, you’ll see a lot of similarities in these types of articles. I see a lot of angry and disgruntled people who look outside themselves to place their anger. Crown Heights is awful, the people are awful, everything is awful. That kind of attitude is not healed with an eruv, a questionable restaurant, or a skirt above the knees. People who are constantly looking to find fault with Crown Heights and the people in it are avoiding looking at their own state of mind. I say that someone who is always disgruntled, always looking at other people to place blame, have some inner work to do on their own character. People who are at peace within themselves, see peace. People who are happy inside see life with happiness. People who are angry inside, deal with their family, community and world with anger. Let’s go within instead of tearing down the walls that the Rebbeim built to help us serve Hashem beyond the letter of the law.

  • WWAEN

    #176:
    Don’t you realize the absurdity of your words? The fact is it was the Maskilim whom ridiculed eruvin. You and many others who have commented here seem to think that an eruv is a trick. This is Apikorsos. Did you know that there is a Meseches Eruvin and that there is a whole section in the Shulchan Aruch dealing with eruvin? Did you know that there are thousands of teshuvos that deal with eruvin? Eruvin is no trick c”v.

    #175
    Do you realize that many of these private eruvin are passul? This is all the more a reason to estabslish one eruv for the entire neighborhood.

  • Ilana S.

    People who are happy on the inside do not feel threatened by a group of other people who want to build an eruv. People who are happy on the inside and secure in their beliefs will simply not use an eruv they disagree with.

  • look within

    If the Rebbe wanted an eruv in Crown Heights, we would have had one long ago. And being secure in one’s beliefs does not mean that a Lubavitcher should look the other way when members of the community do things that are contrary to the Rebbe’s directives for this community. We are responsible for each other, and when the Nasi HaDor tells/has told us something, who are we to think we are smarter than the Rebbe? Why are the standards of Lubavitch for the past 250 years suddenly not good enough any more? Is comfort, profit, taivos, etc., more important than bringing kedushah into our lives and our community? This is just very sad. To have the merit of being gifted with the Rebbe’s teachings, guidance, advice and directives and then to see them discarded chas v’shalom is heartbreaking.

  • Yossel

    Dovid #174 is right, but how many men in CH are willing to give up their booze to spend time with their families on Shabbos? Has anyone come out against the stupid drinking that goes on?

    It’s a rachmones that men don’t know how to show derech eretz to their wives and spend time with their children. Our entire society needs to be overhauled.

    I am in favor of an eruv as long as the Rabbonim approve. However it could open up another can of worms if some Rabbonim say “yes” and others say “no.” I guess the answer is that if you want a nice community where you can go out on Shabbos, you’ll have to go elsewhere.

  • Danny F.

    Post 175 Yakov A.

    Firstly, you used the eruv in LA while you lived there even though the rest of your family that resides there didn’t. At the time, no chabad rabbi condoned the eruv. Clearly, you are partial to eruvim. Secondly, as you so eloquently stated,the Rebbe didn’t want his chassidim using an eruv. End of story. if you consider yourself a chosid, no eruv on shabbos.

  • ch resident

    just a few answers and comments:
    kefar chabad if ofcially enclosed mostly with a actual fence.
    to 149# regarding point 3
    if one does not chas veshalom accept (wether you are a mishichist or an anti) that the relationship bet ween the rebbe and his chassidim has not changed since gimmel tammuz, then ther is no post-gimmel-tammuz era. yes of course we have to take stock and understand there is a different world and therefore the way we go to it has to be different. however we must always think what does the rebbe say about this, and what is his opiniion about this, and if he does not want it iz oib azoi its the end of the story. the rebbe after gimmel tamuz is the same rebbe of before gimmul tammuz.
    to 154#
    “It’s important to note that the Rebbe maintained that when it’s possible to establish an eruv, it is a mitzvah to do so”
    if you mean in a public fasion then it never happened, not at least in all cases.”

    to 155#
    its not a avaira in the sense that you could be held acountable, however the avaira has been done (unlees you would like to explain here the misasek by a din derabanan). just like by a chazaka that this peice of meat is not chelev, and it really is, whereas you are not chayav, however kalapei shamayim galya chelev was eaten and there was no issur na’ase heter.
    for some comunities this a innovation, and this is an age old machlokes for the same time eruvin were started to be used (and no not in every city (un bifrat in belerussia and lita and russia) had an eruv, and no over there i dont need peoof rather you need proof, i am not sure where you get this that in all regions all places had eruvin this just factully not true, as said before it depends on the region ). now for our community its a reform since for 60 years we decided not to have one. bifrat when this innovation is a chelek of many other innovaions which all of us frum yidden understand is are really innovation.

    just one point to 163#
    you chochom of course we follow the rosh but only together with others not as a da’as yochid, just like the rambam. any real posek knows that you cant just pull out one rishon and use it against a whole gamut of others, bifrat when the later achronim (or tur and shulchan aruch ve nosei keilav)basics go back to school and learn the history of torah she’ba’al pe.you sound like a guy who never learned till he came to smicha (maybe not but thats how you sound.)

    and last but not least welive in a frun shechuna, un bemaila we dont just put up op eds’rather we speak to at least one of the rabbanim in the shechuna. only after his approval can one put up an oped, but he has to write that he has the aproval so we know that he has the approval. remember eruvin is something that belongs to rabanim first and then the layman.

  • Arieh

    #163 — “There is no reason today to worry about eruvin ripping on Shabbos. The fact is our monofilament string or plastic coated wire rarely rips. Moreover, we can build back-up eruvin to address this issue”

    Please clarify what you mean. The Eruv (in my city) broke down a few times in its recent history.

  • WWAEN

    #182:
    Please stop masquerading as if you know hilchos eruvin. You simply don’t know the aleph beis of the inyan. I reiterate there is no difference between Kfar Chabad and CH. An eruv for CH would make use of batim that are omed merubeh al haparutz, which would also be classified as a Rambam eruv. Furthermore, there are mechitzos encompassing most of Brooklyn.

    No the Rebbe mentioned more than once that if an eruv can be erected it’s a mitzvah to do so.

    What are you talking about? No one argues on the Rosh, and so he is not a daas yachid. You simply did not realize what you were writing.

    You have no idea what you are talking about. Most cities in Russia had eruvin including those in the Lita. There was an eruv in Brisk, Vilna and Radin to name a few. There was no difference of opinion between any of the areas in the world where Yidden resided; everyone erected eruvin where the government allowed them to do so.

    Your claim that an eruv is a reform issue for CH shows you up to be an Apikoros. An eruv is never a new invention c”v. This is the problem with you guys. Because you believe that the Rebbe never would allow an eruv you project into his writings your opinion. Please keep your opinions separate from the Rebbes.

    #183:
    I am involved with many eruvin, and I can say with authority that the string only rips when a construction crew does so intentionally or when there is extreme weather. In any case, this can be rectified, we can erect additional back-up eruvin in CH. These are all excuses.

  • Milhouse

    #182, What do you mean “the avaira has been done ”? If every person did as Hashem told him he could, then where is the aveira? You seem to think an aveira is some sort of objective phenomenon, as if Hashem doesn’t want things carried in a RHR, and if something is carried in a RHR then Hashem is somehow offended. That’s ridiculous. What does it matter to Him whether something is carried or not? An aveira is not something that happens, it’s something a PERSON does when he disobeys Hashem. Hashem doesn’t care whether things get carried or not; He cares whether WE carry them when He told us not to. In this case He didn’t tell us not to. On the contrary, He told us that if we have good reason (chazokoh) to believe that we are in a RHY then we may carry; therefore we may carry. Hapeh she’osar Hu hapeh shehitir.

    The same thing applies to chelev; Hashem doesn’t care whether we eat chelev or shuman, He just wants us to obey Him. So if we eat chelev that was bechezkas shuman we have done no aveira at all. However there MAY BE one difference: because He forbade the chelev, and it hasn’t physically changed, perhaps it’s still metamtem halev. That’s why there’s a machlokes whether, if one found out afterwards that what one ate was really chelev, one has to do teshuvah. As far as I know the majority opinion is that there is no need for teshuvah, because no issur was done, and there is also no timtum halev. But some hold that the very act of eating something that was objectively ossur is metamtem halev and one must do teshuvah. But that whole machlokes only applies to maacholos ho’asuros, not to other laws.

    #184, mechitzos habatim would require that you negotiate with the owner of each corner house, to allow the tzuras hapesach that crosses the road to be attached to it. That seems like a lot of work, though if it can be done it would definitely be kedai.

  • We Want An Eruv Now

    #185:
    It can be done. In Boro Park they did it. In any case, once the area is encompassed by mechitzos habatim it’s not imperative to connect the houses to satisfy shitas haRambam (see Kaf haChaim, 362:92).

  • Milhouse

    #186, the Kaf Hachayim doesn’t say what you claim. If you don’t connect the corners of the houses, then how do you have a mechitzah at all? Every street is a pirtza!

    The Kaf Hachayim says something completely different – that if you have a series of parallel dead end streets, you can count their entire perimeters as “omed”, and thus allow a tzuras hapesach on the main road off which they all run.

  • We Want An Eruv Now

    #187:
    Each row of houses is omed merubeh al huparutz hence you have four mechitzos encompassing any neighborhood. Of course you have to enclose the area with a tzuras hapesach. However, since you have omed merubeh (and even dead ends) within these tzuras hapesachim you would not need to place them on the houses; it would suffice to run them along the streets. Moreover, most poskim (besides for the Bais Shlomo) maintain that we can satisfy shitas haRambam with two mechitzos omed merubeh, so on at least on two sides we would not need to run the tzuras hapesachim on the houses. In any case, we would be able to run them between the houses on all four sides.

  • Milhouse

    #188, That doesn’t work. Each row may be omed merubeh, but it has pirtzos which must be fixed with tzuras hapesach. If you don’t fix the pirtzos then the whole mechitza is possul, and a tzuras hapesach that you place around the whole shebang doesn’t help.

    If you can in fact put a tzuras hapesach on each corner house, that would be wonderful, and it would surely be kosher lechol hadeios (or very close to it), and would also make checking easier. But getting permission from each house owner would be a lot of work, and if one akshen refuses permission you have to reroute the eruv to go around them.

  • WWAN

    Who says it doesn’t help? This is the point of the (Kaf HaChaim) Minchas Yehuda [see his words inside] (even though b’pashtus I would say otherwise). We can argue on how many sides running a tzuras hapesach along the streets would be allowed, but it would help on at least one or two sides. [As a matter of fact some would argue that you would need to put the tzuras hapesach on the inside corner, and not the outside corner; see the teshuvah from R’ Rosner in le’arev eruvo.] In any case, as I mentioned Boro Park has tzuras hapesachim running from house to house, there is no reason why this can’t be done in CH. So the inyan is a moot point. You wrote, “The Park Slope and Flatbush eruvim are kosher according to the Rambam,” how is it that you have a shitos haRambam eruv in Park Slope? Your eruv mostly runs on the streets on all four sides.

  • Milhouse

    The Park Slope eruv’s perimeter is 10 km, of which 6 is wall and 4 is tzuras hapesach.

  • Milhouse

    The Kaf Hachayim that you cited is not relevant to this question. He is talking about using a tzuras hapesach on one side, with a mechitzas habatim WITH NO PIRTZOS on the other side. It has no pirtzos because all the alleyways on that side of the street are dead ends. And because of these alleyways he says you can count their entire perimeter towards the “omed”, which makes it much greater than the “porutz”. None of this is relevant to our case, where you want to use the houses as a mechitza while not closing the gaps between them where the cross street goes through. To fix those gaps you need tzuras hapesach going from one corner house to the opposite corner house, and to do that you need permission from the owners, who will be nochrim (if you want to enclose the whole shchuna) and some of them might not want to allow it, or might demand more money than you can afford to pay them.

  • WWAEN

    Right and the Park Slope eruv walls have many pirtzos and the tzuras hapesachim run along the street not between the houses. So according to your unsubstantiated opinion it would not be classified as a Rambam eruv.

    You are simply wrong. Go read the Minchas Yehuda inside, the source of the Kaf Hachaim. He is referring to eruvin that were made to encompass the community of Lvov. The eruv was made outside of the city. Also he does not say that there was no pirtzos on the other sides. He does not say they were dead ends. In any case, you must agree that on at least one side the Kaf Hachaim would allow the tzuras hapesach to run along the street. So according to your understanding of this shita why would that be allowed? Stop making statements as if it’s the pashtus. You have no proof to you argument. I reiterate, they did it in Boro Park, so it can be done in CH. In Boro Park many of the tzuras hapesachim are on non-Jewish homes. This argument is simply ridiculous.

  • Milhouse

    Not true. Wherever a wall is used as a mechitza, each pirtza is closed with a tzuras hapesach.

    The Kaf Hachayim says that when you have an UNBROKEN mechitza on one side that’s very long, then it’s a rov, and the other side which is short can have a tzuras hapesach. He doesn’t say that it doesn’t have to connect to the mechitza. His only chidush is that we count the twisting and turning of the mechitza side, as it runs in and out of each dead-end alleyway. One could think that we ignore all of that, and only count the length from one side to the other, in which case it’s not a rov, so he tells us that we do count it, and therefore it is a rov.

  • WWAEN

    No. According to you, even if one tzuras hapesach didn’t run between the houses they would render the eruv not a Rambam eruv. In fact, you have many tzuras hapesachim in Park Slope that do not run from house to house; they run along the streets on the poles. How do I know this? Well, because I know the Mashgiach very well. You forgot that your argument can also be used against your eruv. Stop making up excuses. I reiterate, you have no proof to your stance.

    No. The Kaf haChaim is referring to carrying in front of houses that are not encompassed by the mechitzos of the houses. This was the situation there. You argue just for the sake of arguing, and it’s irrelevant. As I mentioned previously, if a Rambam eruv is the issue in CH, it can be done just like in Boro Park (and you admitted that it can be done).

    I am just about done arguing with you. You are simply intractable and can’t admit that you did not realize that your arguments would render Park Slope’s eruv not a Rambam eruv (your statement there about Flatbush can’t be supported either; you do not know the metzius there at all).

  • Milhouse

    WWAEN, you are misrepresenting both the facts and the law. You either count the houses as part of the mechitza or you do not. You can’t have it both ways. If they are part of the mechitza then the pirtzos in them need to be fixed. If they are not part of the mechitza then the pirtzos are irrelevant. The Park Slope eruv does not rely on houses for its mechitzos. 60% of its perimeter is made up of actual mechitzos, and every gap in those mechitzos, no matter how small, is filled with a tzuras hapesach. Once you have omed merubeh, you can use tzuras hapesach for the rest.
    All the Kaf Hachayim is saying is that you don’t just say that one side of the street is omed and the other side is porutz, so they’re equal. You count the entire perimeter of the omed side, going in to each dead-end alley all the way to its end and back to the street and on to the next alley. Thus the omed side is much much bigger than the porutz side, so you can attach a tzuras hapesach to each end of the omed side and run it across the street and then from one end to the other, and not worry about the length being more than 10 amos or the fact that it appears to be porutz on three sides.

  • WWAEN

    You are being dishonest about Park Slope. I know the facts at least as well as you do. You are forgetting that the Minchas Yehuda allowed carrying in front of the houses which were only encompassed by tzuras hapsachim. I will not argue with someone who can’t admit he is wrong.

  • WWAEN

    “Once you have omed merubeh, you can use tzuras hapesach for the rest.”
    According to your shita this would not work, you would need to run the tzuras hapesachim between the houses on all sides. In any case you have no proof to your shita.

  • WWAEN

    Oh, and according to your argument it would be sufficient if only two sides of the boundaries the tzuras hapesachim would run from house to house (since this is the accepted requirement for a Rambam eruv). Again this is your own sevara, and you have no support for your argument.

  • WWAEN

    One more time. If the Rambam’s requirement is that it’s sufficient to have omed merubeh (on two sides), who says that the tzuras hapesachim need to run between the houses to close the pirtzos. The requirement to rectify the pirtzos is not the Rmabam’s issue anymore; the issue at this time is only d’rabbanan [since there is also omed merubeh beyond these tzuras hapesachim; see Magid Mishna, Shabbos 16:7 were he argues that in a karmelis (d’rabbanan) the Rambam would allow tzuras hapesachim on all sides]. I have some misgivings even regarding one side, but I don’t believe that it’s a simple matter as you make it.

  • Mark my words

    The day an Eruv goes up. CH will change for ever.
    (Not in a good way)

  • DPA

    I don’t know Chabad (other than the nice things about the movement) though I do know that Chabadniks tend to not hold by an eruv. What I do know is that in the Chabad siddur put out in the last 10 years or so, there is an entire section in the back of the book about how to build an eiruv.

    I did not see a section about how to eat gentile dairy products or how to eat pas akum. Therefore, I must conclude that on some level, an eiruv is acceptable to Chabad, even if they themselves don’t hold by it. In Boca Raton, I know that there are two Chabads that have eirvun, or at least did when I lived there almost 10 years ago.

    My question to the naysayers is simple: you like to quote different things that oppose the erection of a communal eiruv, what about the pasuk that says “Do not stand idly by the blood of your brother”? Do you not know that by not having an eiruv, you are willfully causing Jews to sin? I am confused: I thought Chabad believed that anyone born of a Jewish mother is a Jew. If that’s really true, shouldn’t you be doing everything you can to protect your brothers and sisters from breaking Shabbos? And what chutzpah you have to degrade the newlywed who wrote the original e-mail. Shouldn’t we be making yiddishkeit as pleasant as possible in order to bring more Jews to Torah-observance? Or are you so cloistered in your close-minded haughtiness that you care more about “being right” than about saving hundreds of thousands of Jews from spiritual oblivion?

    How sad. And please don’t assume I am a “Modern Orthodox Jew.” I am not. And keep your nasty comments to yourselves.