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Dear Menachem,
Great comparison! Except that they had to bring the clothing to the other floor….
Dear Avira,
“Also, in your mind, what gave chazal the ability to codify “articles of faith”? And where would we even receive the idea of distinguishing between halacha and drashos, if not from chazal themselves – and if so, where is that stated? The truth is that everything is mesorah.”
Excellent starting point!
Please walk me through how you get from this to your aggressive stance on these issues.
Obviously, the Mesores was not universally preserved. So, how can you make a statement based on anything? Even if you are one thousand percent correct about the issue at hand, it won’t be of use to your opponent because you saying so doesn’t make it mesorah. It being found in claasic source also doesn’t make it mesorah.
Because at some point things become unclear enough that the majority of Jews in all parts of the Diaspora walked out on Judaism. Something must have broken down. Even a unanimity of sources doesn’t help because it still can’t self assert it’s own truth. So even if you and would agree on something being true and universal it wouldn’t have any impact to those whom we disagree with. If they didn’t receive what we did, there is no mechanism to force them of it being so.
Again, what are you fighting about? That you were taught or decided something that the other party doesn’t want to entertain as true. That has no relevance to our shared received knowledge. What you were taught does not mean that your teacher knew it to be true. We could only authenticate our knowledge when we see it echoing itself throughout the generations. There have been many who thought they received better than anyone else, but history and our destiny has shown them to be detached from both the past and the future. One more time. Just the fact that you were taught something has no relevance to our shared received knowledge. If it did, it would be paramount to saying that all our revealed knowledge was contrived throughout time ch”v.
Dear Avirah,
I can’t fathom why you would have such aggression toward learning properly as opposed to yelling from the rooftops. The fact is that a question from the metziyus is dealt with the same as a question from a different gemara. You would never find a Tosofos that says, we don’t bother with such questions.
There wouldn’t be any of these “rationalists” if there wouldn’t be any “fundamentalists” telling everyone how to think about learning instead of actually learning and actually thinking. I really don’t understand your position here. I am not here to correct the record.
Let me contrast two examples.
1) It is taught that washing of the hands after touching Sifrei Kodesh was instituted to prevent the problem of vermin that were attracted to Terumah produce from eating Seforim that were placed alongside them. One can interject that the mitziyus is that more species would be attracted to the Seforim of old then those that are known to eat stored produce. This may seem like a serious problem to the layman. But it is silliness to the real student. Chazal seemingly did not forbid placing Terumah alongside Seforim. This needs to be investigated fully before it would be of any consequence what the actual mitziyus is. Also, every serious person knows that whatever the mitziyus may be, it makes no difference to the present requirement to wash our hands. One who brings up this as a point of interest, is only highlighting their lack of interest in learning the actual sugya.
2) THe first Mishna in B”K lists four Avos Nizekin. Yet, the Gemara brings to larger lists. Also, there seems to be a discrepancy between Rav and Shmuel as to how much these four are comprehensive of anything. However, the first Tosofos does not claim to read the Mishna as specifically being exclusive. Even more, you should have studied the piece that there are no actual avos at all.
We are obliged to apply ourself to all these tangents and none of these seeming contradictions allow us to think that there isn’t a specific and exact method going on here. We keep studying in pursuit of the truth. One who leaves the beis medrash because Rav Chiya/Rav Oyshia/Rav/Shmuel/Rabbeinu Chananel/Tosofos/Pnei Yehoshua/Chassam Sofer/Brisker Rav/Rav Elyashiv/ is seemingly not in accordance with the basic statement of the Mishna, never came to the beis medrash to learn. They just want a “fundamentalist” position and when they saw the nuance and depth they leave for an easier enterprise.It is the same thinking pattern. Learning is attaining new awareness through knowledge. If we deny some new awareness, in effect we are stopping to learn at some level.
No, but thank you.While the “rationalist” and “fundamentalist” camps curse each other out, the real traditionalist camp continues to toil in Torah in obscurity. And they are fine with it. They do not have time for people who do not want to learn anything, new or old.
The Bnei Torah know that the vast majority of everybody and anybody agrees with Rabbeinu Avraham. Actually, he is being very traditional. The truth is even more rationalistic than that. The reason why they don’t go around correcting the record, is because it confuses the masses. But the truth is that we can’t study The Torah properly with dogmatic or fundamentalistic views.
I wouldn’t post this so bluntly, but I was recently reading some blather from that fellow who fancies himself a rationalist. Nobody would be offended by my post. They would think I am from his crowd. But really it is opponents of that “rationalistic fellow” that are cut from the same cloth as him. Him and his opponents can’t think straight. The truth is, that The Torah was meant to be studies diligently. That is it’s only dogma. Pontificating about what Chazal may have known or not known about some scientific fact, is not diligent study. It is pure intellectual laziness. Learn the whole sugya from top to bottom and back, and then try to come up with a nafka mina al pi the scientific metzius. Until then, it really doesn’t matter. Obviously, it is just an out to avoid studying entire sugyos. The diligent students that leave the beis medrash because of some doubts, are only diligent in the non-Torah parts of their learning. Look closely and you will find it to be so.
The intellectual left is intellectual, just like the intellectual right. But you are all just populists.
If the border is such an issue, why can’t the Republicans ever come to the table to deal with it? Other than Obama, the Democrats have done more to not allow immigration than the Republicans. Politics is weird like that. Sometimes politicians act in opposition to their own supposed policies.
Don’t take my word for it. Ask any intellectual. Right, Left, or backwards.
Oh. You couldn’t care less about anything intellectual. All that is needed is a good soundbite.
My apologies.
Why should the girls diet? There should be organizations to fatten up the boys! How dare you suggest that the girls should have to shoulder any burden for their single status! Is it even possible that a frum yid can have any considerations that outweigh the great burden the bnos yisroel carry? Just imagine how sad it is for the girls to spend all night on their phones, while the boys get to sit and learn. Send the boys to the dining room and let them stuff their bellies until they promise to stop learning.
That is the real way to attack a problem in our day.
Dear Ujm, this:
https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom
Now we have to put in the individual forum name.
Or Google specific threads.
Hi! I just chanced by right now. The new look does not sit well with my eyes. Maybe I’ll sit out a bit longer.
I have to admit that the camaraderie seems to be the better than any time since I joined.
Maybe they can bring back the old landing page. I can’t even get to it now by entering it straight into my browser.
Regards
Dear Youdont,
It isn’t so complicated. I can’t tell what you mean when you don’t address contradictions. Not being contradictory is the first step in any intelligent thinking pattern. It could be you know Eruvin backward and forwards by heart. But since you don’t see the need to make your opinions fit with what you are stating, you come across as saying whatever fits the most recent post.
I am not claiming that I know more than you.
Nor am I saying that there are things you are ignorant of.
You are just not making any clear case. You have your own story of what anybody said and everybody may say about the eruv, and you give no regard for actual statements. I have a hard time accepting that you are any different when it comes to the Gemara or Shulchan Aruch. Blatant statements are never blatant to you. Either they are true by virtue of agreeing with you, or they are demonstrably false without any demonstrations.
It was hard for me to respond in the beginning. But now that I know the score, it is a lot of fun. I know that I can never be proven wrong, because you don’t have a clear concept of evidence being proven. You can claim that you know which two blatt long sugya I just referenced between the lines here, but you can never say which one because that would run counter to your thinking pattern.
Now let’s make some mudballs.
1) You continue to not address where you stand with Rav Dovid. It’s because Rav Dovid is not entitled to saying what he said if you are going to disagree. It’s the same thing you are trying to pull off with the Flatbush Teshuva. It is an improper way to learn. But you already through your hat/yarmulke/streimel on the side of someone who was on his way out of Orthodoxy, so it isn’t something that I should complain about.
2) Some of your attitude towards talmedei chachamim is more apikorsus than rejecting all eruvin that were ever made. I don’t know why you throw at me every anti eruv personality in North America. I don’t care for them and was never taking their side.
3) I don’t know who required you to answer to every word in every Rishon. But if you don’t want to accept Rav Moshe’s chiddush of rsh”r of a city you have a whole lot of words to explain. But there is a big difference between answering every word and holding the writer’s intentions accountable to the reader’s errors. If we give the writer the right to hold us to his intentions, than many things become very differnt. For example, we have no reason to assume the Magen Avram’s chiddush of mefulash was ever widely accepted. Besides for the problem of it not being sourced. [Sour ced? What’s that?]
4) And now for the real one. why did you make up that 12 x 12 is the chiddush of Rav Moshe? The novel interpretation of the S”A is applicable even if a city has an undefined size as it did before Rav Moshe. The Aruch Hashulchan and every other chiddush here never bothered with an exact size. Rav Moshe wasn’t coming to say 12 x 12. That is a side part.
Now you can go bananas at me. But this last paragraph tells the bystander that I knew the topic from the beginning and you have no chance until you allow Rav Moshe to talk for himself.
Dear Youdont,
I don’t see the purpose in this. It happens to be fun and more stimulating than most threads here.
1) You trust Rav Dovid’s statement about the Chicago Eruv (An eruv even more contentious than Brooklyn. I doubt you know or care about that). Yet, you reject Rav Dovid’s statements about the Brooklyn Eruv and his father’s knowledge of the statistics. And conveniently, you never mentioned Rav Dovid’s statement about the Los Angeles eruv.
2) Rav Elyashiv signed onto Rav Dovid’s letter against the Brooklyn Eruv. As did Rav Chaim Kanievsky and Rav Chaim Pinchos Scheinberg. And I don’t understand why this is problematic for you, if it’s all about learning the teshuvos and knowing the inyan. Why does it matter who disagreed?
3) Rav Moshe says it is all in chelek aleph, yet you find a novel idea in that very letter. If you can’t answer this, you are obviously very wrong here. And there really is nothing else to discuss. But for fun, I’ll divert you from what is clearly the strongest proof against you. I am aware that not all of Iggros Moshe is of the same authenticity. The same is true of virtually every sefer. Including, Mishna Berurah, Aruch Hashulchan, Achiezer, and Chazon Ish. This is why we actually learn things well, instead of just rattling of sources. Your theory that Rav Moshe is saying something else in response to putting on a hat protector is laughable. (I actually laughed.)
4) This thread was a non halachic thread at one point. You either didn’t grasp what was going on when you joined, or you deliberately contradicted yourself so as to not have to answer. I don’t know what you know or don’t know. But I do know what was going on here on these pages and have the reading comprehension to see that you are not answering what you claim you are answering. It is clear to me how Rav Moshe understands what makes a rsh”r. It is also obvious that you think there is many shitos to this and have no clarity on it. It is very straightforward as Rav Moshe puts it into a single phrase. If you didn’t bother to uncover how Rav Moshe understands rsh”r independent from hilchos eruvin, than you really shouldn’t be learning hilchos eruvin. So I am not dismayed by your claim to superior knowledge.
Here is where you have the lesser side in this debate.
” I will post again, as you have comprehension issues. Rav Moshe in this same teshuvah changed his mind from chlek aleph, so please stop with your nariskeit. Rav Moshe needed to formulate, at this time, his opinion, since Manhattan’s metzious was unlike Brooklyn. I reiterate, in his Brooklyn teshuvah Rav Moshe only referred to his Manhattan teshuvah in regards to his chiddush that shishim ribo is conditional on 12 mil by 12 mil.”
So you seem to realize that you need to answer this, and this is your answer.
The question I posed was that Rav Moshe wrote here that “it is all written at length in every single detail in my sefer Iggros Moshe siman 139 (Which you refer to as the Manhattan Teshuva ).” Yet you say that he changed his opinion immediately after writing that he didn’t. So you didn’t solve the actual issue at all. You have a reason for this, that Rav Moshe was formulating his opinion about Brooklyn. [It is funny to think that Rav Moshe had not had an opinion about Brooklyn when he wrote the teshuva in Chelek Aleph. As if someone of Rav Moshe’s stature has to figure out his general ideas about an eiruv when the question arises. It is even funnier when we note that the first pert of the Manhattan teshuva is about Brooklyn. And a clear understanding of the entire letter will reveal (the assumption) that Manhattan had a more solid basis for an Eruv at the time.] According to you Rav Moshe’s 12 by 12 is a standalone idea of his Manhattan Teshuva. [I think you are very mistaken on that. That teshuva is very interconnected. Again, I don’t know if you realize what I think you are missing here, or just ignoring it again and again. But it doesn’t really matter. See the next point.] And then you finish off your response by saying that Rav Moshe “only referred to his Manhattan teshuvah in regards to his chiddush that shishim ribo is conditional on 12 mil by 12 mil.” What are you doing here? Even if you are correct about everything else, Rav Moshe is still changing that very Chiddush from being about 600,000 people around town within a specific perimeter to the population of it’s residents. This would require a completely different basis that what brought about his chiddush in chelek aleph. So how could reference a teshuvah that does not back up this new novelty that you claim is his his new formula regarding Brooklyn? [You may say that it is a question on Rav Moshe, but it is solely a question on you. Rav Moshe is saying that all these numbers are just short math for coming to the chiddush in his first teshuva. And it doesn’t matter the exact count because once we get close to this number we have no precedent for building eruvin, as Rav Moshe showed from the Yerushalmi (After he already proved the concept. Which you never addressed because you {possibly or purposely or purportedly} misread the major teshuva as a bunch of disjointed parts.) And even though we can point to eruvin earlier in the century, Rav Moshe would counter that they were either not accepted, not built, or came about in a very unique way. Again, the question is on you as to what could possibly be Rav Moshe’s basis for counting the population of the residents.
The above paragraph is just to highlight how you are contradicting yourself while not even answering the question on either side of the contradiction. You have done this countless times. I have no indication that you realize what you are saying. There were many points here that had nothing to do with halacha, and you still contradicted yourself. Your goal regarding the eruv seems to be clouding your mental grasp. This is why I am comfortable having this debate with someone who quite likely knows far more about eruvin than I do. The actual debate is below.
My point is clear. Rav Moshe writes that it is explained at length in every single detail…
This fits with my saying that the Manhattan Teshuva is interconnected with it’s many parts and Rav Moshe is not writing anything new in 1979 besides for the what kind of city he would not promote eruvin in regardless of the actual halachic details. According to you none of the length of The Manhattan Teshuva is relevant. And it certainly wasn’t explained in detail. It is actually a new detail! Which runs counter to the ideas behind Rav Moshe’s chiddush in The Manhattan Teshuva. Moreover, Rav Moshe brings no basis for why the population size should matter as a stand alone measure. He rejected that in chelek aleph. He doesn’t even hint that he changed his mind after writing; “it is all written at length in every single detail in my sefer Iggros Moshe siman 139.” The inconsistencies of your method are astounding!
I think that this is the part of the Mishna that is most relevant to college:
רַבִּי מֵאִיר אוֹמֵר: לְעוֹלָם יְלַמֵּד אָדָם אֶת בְּנוֹ אוּמָּנוּת נְקִיָּה וְקַלָּה, וְיִתְפַּלֵּל לְמִי שֶׁהָעוֹשֶׁר וְהַנְּכָסִים שֶׁלּוֹ. שֶׁאֵין אוּמָּנוּת שֶׁאֵין בָּהּ עֲנִיּוּת וַעֲשִׁירוּת, שֶׁלֹּא עֲנִיּוּת מִן הָאוּמָּנוּת, וְלֹא עֲשִׁירוּת מִן הָאוּמָּנוּת, אֶלָּא הַכֹּל לְפִי זְכוּתוֹ.
Rav Meir is saying not focus on a specific method of earning your livelihood. Rather we should focus on what we are physically doing with our time. (…נְקִיָּה וְקַלָּה וְיִתְפַּלֵּל….)
According to most interpretations of the Mitzvah of Limud Hatorah, a person is not obligated to work less so that he can learn more. The obligation of a working individual is to keep the Torah on his mind even while he works. Whereas one who is idle, is obligated to study with all his diligence.
Dear Ujm,
That is a great reason except for the minor details that this is well before the advent of seforim; the dreidel wasn’t introduced to the region until much later; the Yivanim weren’t searching for them learning Torah privately; and they would have killed them simply because they weren’t hellinized,
Aside from that this is a terrible reason to play dreidel. We should just learn because that is what they wanted to do, but couldn’t.
So perhaps one answers the other. If the ideas behind your reason were true, we would learn non-stop on Chanukah and not play any games. But instead we spin the dreidel to demonstrate that it this legend is false.
There are some amazing families in Lakewood that make ends meet on a few thousand dollars per month. Some of them are not on any government programs. The only expense that is covered for them is tuitions.
The Lakewood system works because the money moves around much faster than say, Teaneck.
Dear Lake,
Is this how you celebrate?
Thanks Common!
I really enjoy coming back to your one-liners!
Dear Coffee,
1) That is why she is out to lunch. Staying in learning forever is a reflection of circumstance. Nothing else. She doesn’t need a shidduch. She is already married to that circumstance – waiting for her learning husband to come.
2) I reread all our posts. My mistake. I apologize.
Better question.
Do all Jews use the kind of thinking that is so self-affirming in face of any evidence, or is Neturei Karta more extreme?
Dear Lake,
“n0mesorah hidden around the world are doing Daf Hayomi Dav Hashvua Amud Yomi MB Yomi Mishna Yoma. Every shul has series of different shiurei Torah. You can find a Shiur on any Daf of Gemara online with a multitude of Rabbeim to choose from. Torah Anytime has classes on every topic.”
How many of the participants in these wonderful daily programs are baal habatim? Is it more than half?
I wish every shul had even one daily shiur.
Available shiurim does not make more Torah Study. I can show you Roshei Yeshivah giving brilliant Shiurim or basic shiurim to small crowds.
I wonder what percentage of a great resource like Torah Anytime is worthy of being used as Torah Study that wards off danger.
Dear Jay,
You are conflating merits that bring about salvation, with Torah study that protects from danger.
Dear Yabia,
Why isn’t your question that there a thousand times more available printed gemaras than ever before?
Dear Sechel,
It depends where you place your window.
One could say the average Jew today is not religious.
Or one could point out that the average is much lower than a hundred years ago because there is a major lack of gaonim at the top.
Dear Huju,
As can be seen by that most of the tools mentioned are geared to the uninitiated.
Dear Always,
Daas isn’t halachic. You have to actually know what is going on. The predicate is contained in the subject. It means ‘daas’ and not ‘halacha’. If you would follow through on it, you would follow the intent and not the literal meaning of his words.
We do not have papal decrees. I don’t understand your possible positions.
Dear Coffee,
1) My point is that the learner she wanted is probably a learner who also works at this point in his life.
2) I don’t see that the real learners are the more yeshivish type. They are too busy just learning. If the guy isn’t a learner than he isn’t. but it’s not necessarily because he isn’t yeshivish.
Jew-hating is bi-partisan.
Some Jews are more political partisan than Jew-lover.
Dear Yabia,
While the tools you mentioned are useful, they are not broad enough to make anyone a Gaon.
Another Ohio or Bust, because of open carry and tuition vouchers?
Dear Baltimore,
You expect to much critical thinking of people that don’t think before blaming others. Us who grow up among Jews, have no idea how these people react to a challenge.
Every time I think of going out to campaign for a Republican, I recall these threads and realize that I could do something better. For example, I could do laundry instead.
Dear Coffee,
Why would not being yeshivish mean that he is not a learner?
Or the reverse.
And the girl in her high thirties who wants a ‘shtark learner’ is out to lunch. just like most of the young girls who claim to want strong learning boys. Almost every boy is out of learning at that age. The only ones who stay that long are both very committed and have had good mazal with their social life, family life, and finances.
Girls have no idea what a learner is.
Being registered in a yeshiva doesn’t make a learner.
Being a regular in Bais Medrash does.
I think the guy in number one is entitled to keep looking. There are people who stay off social media for practical reasons. Just that he can’t expect to find her through social media! He has to go looking for this cyber-shy girl.
Dear Sechel,
So obviously it’s a good question as Hashem did not give an answer.
The Gemara you brought is about receiving gifts from above (rain). That is different than being protect from danger. As the Study of the Torah is the most significant protection we still have.
Dear Coffee,
I think colleges create a vacuum of knowledge. Those that live in this vacuum just protest everything because they are frustrated by their own lack of understanding.
Just a few years ago, all these colleges could talk about was safe spaces for their student body.
Dear Lake,
You are not backing up your opinion at all. I know of too many Baal Habatim that learn less than their wives.
Dear Always,
You claim that ‘lack of terms’ seems strange to you. Well, check out this site that I occasionally post on: http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/
You should notice that most of the major issues suffer from a lack of agreed upon definitions of terms. Such as, Zionism, MO, Yeshivish, Democrats, Communism, Morals, Belief, Orthodox, and Trolls.
I would like to repeat the point of my post as a question. Do you doubt that people are allowed to turn to others for personal advice? And do you have any logic why a Torah Leader’s advice would be less significant than mine?
One real old timer brought in another.
I don’t think this type of issue has much online currency anymore.
Some mentors of teenage boys today will promote any hairstyle that does not fade to a zero.
Rashi’s father only had this question after the Sifsei Chachamim claimed it to be so.
Dear Akuperma,
You are incorrect. I know of many barely-frum Republican-leaning Jews. And just as many very frum Jews that vote Democrat.
I suggest you meet more Yidden.
“Buying The New York Times is as sinful as eating pork on Yom Kippur”
I would like a source for that.
Dear Youdont,
This is my first time binge-posting since before Sukkos.
You literally have a contradictory answer to every statement.
You use Rav Dovid while saying his psak is irrelevant.
Rav Elyashiv was personally very close to Rav Dovid, yet you say he had nothing to do with him.
Rav Moshe was very clear about his opinions about Brooklyn Eruv, yet look at everything you post.
Rav Moshe wrote that he is forced to respomd, yet you say he agrees.
I’m getting bored of laughing at you,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I could answer every point, but there is no reason to.
We reached the end of the debate last time I posted and you didn’t even realize.
You have proven yourself a hypocrite.
I will post it again.
Rav Moshe clearly writes in the teshuva from 79 that it is all explained in Chelek Aleph. So clearly Rav Moshe’s opinion was not fluid. You just learned everything wrong.
I could go on about Odessa, Warsaw, Paris, Chicago, and LA. But I will save it for someone who appreciates honest criticism.
I don’t think I am right about anything. And I only know general ideas. But as soon as you entered this thread I saw that you were contradicting yourself. (As you have done in the past. But this thread was never really about halacha. You totally missed that. And it revealed to me, that you probably missed the halacha in all the other eruv threads as well.) So I took you to task. Once I realized that there would be no isolating your opinions from whatever anyone else posts, I started posting Rav Moshe’s opinion to hold you to some standard. I never imagined you would be so innovatively incapable of digesting Rav Moshe’s shitta.
I’m really lost here.
I think the debate is around if the Gedolim can advance an idea that has broad implications for the community without having to ‘sell’ the idea. And is one allowed to be critical of the idea if it seems to be insufficiently thought out.
But everything here is about an individual seeking or receiving personal advice. What could be debated about that? Why can’t you have a full discussion with somebody on whatever the issue is? Why would the Rav or Mentor just dictate and not advise? And why would anyone think that a Torah Personality is less able to give advice then some other human?
I’m more interested in hearing about why we need a source for personal advice, than bringing up public leadership questions. The position that the OP seems to be abandoning, is that an individual has no right to personal advice from ?????. I never realized that that was even under consideration.
While I agree that the internet should be a catalyst for Harbatzas HaTorah, the fact is that it is not being utilized much.
Also, I seriously doubt that there much Torah today compared to the recent past.
Nearly every yeshiva I know (Admittedly, only a handful.) has lowered their standards since the last decade. Roshei Yeshiva openly encourage their bochurim that six hours a day is full time learner.
Baal Habattim looking up practical halacha online is not the Limud HaTorah that guarantees our protection. Even women are obligated to know practical halacha.
Many in-person shiurim and kollelim never restarted after covid. I doubt there is more daily learning today than a generation ago. It is much less common for people to have an uninterrupted hour on their schedule.
In sum, available content does not make more Torah actually being Learned.
That is a very weird thought to be having at this time.
Dear Coffee,
Take it easy o the omens. Rain in Eretz Yisroel is uncommon this time of year. It is not universally the same significance.
“the mussar will break through and the Talmud will do teshuva”
Mussar is the antidote to everything! it can even salvage The Talmud!
Dear Youdont,
“Your insistence on arguing that the eruv battle aligned with the attack on Orthodoxy, demonstrates your meager knowledge regarding the inayn.”
You have no clue what I am talking about, yet you invoke the mysterious ‘inyan’ again.
If anybody cares to know, in between the first teshuva and the Flatbush teshuva, Conservative Judaism started driving on Shabbos and abandoned their ‘eruv until the suburbs’ project. For further information, you can still find all kinds of silliness among Conservative teshuvos written this year about the concept of eruvin.
Dear Youdont,
I am not arguing that people should not use eruvin because of this battle. I’m pointing out that there were brilliant minds pushing for eruvin at this time, that were not long for Orthodoxy.
In case anyone is trying to follow, I understand that Rav Moshe was saying that in his opinion they couldn’t build an eruv. And if they do, it should not be used. But if they wanted to build an eruv, based on someone else, he wouldn’t stop them.
It undermines the Brooklyn Eruv that they keep trying to align themselves with Rav Moshe.
Dear Youdont,
Rav Moshe’s shitah is clear and constant: Six hundred thousand people on a street makes that street a reshus harrabim. The same number out and about in a city, makes the public places of the city into a reshus harrabim. Precisely how to count a city is of no consequence, because if it is close than we are unable to guarantee that the eruv will contribute to shemiras Shabbos and are exempt from building one.
Now to our little mudfest:
1) So you are left wondering about Rav Moshe’s intentions with his Flatbush teshuva. Because there is no chance that you are wrong here. But you won’t wonder about it either. We should ask Rav Moshe to wonder for you.
2) Rav Moshe writes that he is forced to write about Flatbush, because people think he permitted it. What compelled him? Is it possible that he believed that people are not allowed to carry with an eruv based on a mistaken belief of Rav Moshe’s permission?
You can split hairs now.
3) Comprehension alert! Without Rav Moshe’s opinion, there is less of a reason to build an eruv in a mega-city. The simple understanding was that a population of 600,000 makes the city into a rsh”r. Rav Moshe is bringing about new ways to be lenient throughout his teshuvos. So take away his chiddush and try to use the Aruch Hashulchan. (Except that the Aruch Hashulchan is trying to incorporate the Mishkanos Yaakov into the accepted halacha. [Meaning, that the sugyos go according to the Mishkanos Yaakov, but the halachah is different because of his chiddush.] But I doubt that matter is a factor to you.) Nobody is adding to Rav Moshe’s opinion to forbid the eruv. And there is no way around it. His shitah is very straightforward, as it appears in chelek aleph.
4) A thourough review of Rav Moshe’s writings, show that many of his rulings were not given with a horaah lasos. Rav Moshe was very humble about forcing his opinion on others.
You can still build any eruv you want. You can even put up an eruv in a bungalow colony, that nobody will check for years on end. You can build an eruv without knowing the topography. I don’t care. But don’t go around proclaiming that Rav Moshe’s shittah is not definitive, when Rav Moshe clearly says it is. As he told Reb Tuvya, you can disagree with him. But at least make the effort to properly understand the teshuva.
Dear Youdont,
“Your the one who takes many days to answer, because you are playing catch up, but I am the one who does not bother to respond?”
Sorry, but I am not always online.
There is nothing for ne to catch here. We got to the end. You aren’t saying anything.
You are the one who has not responded to anyone who really knew their stuff. Throughout this site, on a bunch of different threads, going back years. Now you are stuck with me.
And, the point that Rav Elyashiv et all backed Reb Dovid, and nobody was able to get him to agree with their arguments, is a sore point to any gibberish you dream up. A sore point which you never addressed.