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“The Torah does not want us to worship any Talmid Chacham but to understand his view and the view of the other side.”
I don’t think anyone disagrees with you. The people following Reb Moshe’s psak aren’t “worshipping him” and the people following the matirim aren’t worshipping their ravs either.
I’m not a hardliner on the Brooklyn eruvs. A lot of really frum people hold by the Boro Park eruv. You have to stop making this an issue of emunas chochomim. We’re making an informed decision to follow a certain rav. If a new questions arises (i.e. a change in metzius) we’ll ask a currently living rav, but I’m still not hearing that that’s happened.
Nomesorah: I would like to believe you’re wrong and that we would reevaluate for any metzius change, but I know you’re probably right. You’ll like this story: the first time I spent a Shabbos in LA, I called a rav to ask about using the eiruv because the area it encloses seems at least as trafficked if not more than Brooklyn. When he told me it was fine to use the LA eiruv, I asked out of curiosity what makes LA different than Brooklyn in this regard. He answered, “because Reb Moshe explicitly said Brooklyn can’t have an eiruv.”
“The Yeshivaliet will not approve of an Eruv here even if the metzius would change.”
As a member of the “yeshivish velt” I would contend this point. If a meteor were to fall on Brooklyn and destroy it altogether, then if people moved back and rebuilt a small village on its remains, Reb Moshe’s psak would not apply to that small village.Obviously it doesn’t need to be that big of a metzius change, but you get the idea.
“I thought you saw the nuance”
I don’t deny that there is nuance in that case, but I haven’t seen a satisfying argument to be matir. I guess the best thing that can be said is “the local beis din was matir and we aren’t zoche to understand the reasons.” That being said, the people trying to make logical justifications essentially sound like the post I just made on this thread.Rebdoniel was actually an Avi Weiss/Mark Angel convert by his own admission (not sure if that was on this thread or elsewhere). He renounced his OO’ness on this thread after finding out they don’t hold that the US Constitution was divinely authored. After that, he seemed to stop posting here. I assume he either renounced Judaism altogether after learning we don’t believe that Hashem wrote the Constitution, or he became more frum and realized he shouldn’t waste time on internet forums.
“The Rabonon were given the right to dispense with their gezeros to protect us from greater dangers that can occur because of them.”
Are we talking about a gezeiras d’rabbonon here? Real question because I’m not actually 100% sure either way.“Neville, you are taking it too far. It goes on a case by case basis.”
You guys see to want to say that the only time it’s ever mutar for a Jew to go to the Christian church service is in the exact case where he’s the Chief Rabbi of England attending something for a fake monarchy. This isn’t how halacha works. If there’s room to be meikel, there’s room to be meikel. The reason you guys are uncomfortable with me extending it to other cases is because deep down you all know this was wrong. If anything, a random office worker’s boss, for example, has much more authority over him than the king of England has over anyone.Is the heter because he would lose his job and incur a monetary loss by not going? Is it that he doesn’t want to upset the goyim? Anything you can say would apply to other cases as well. How are people supposed to explain to non-Jewish acquaintances that we aren’t allowed to even attend a secular function within a church sanctuary, but for the Rabbi of England it’s magically okay?
Finally, let’s assume there is a valid heter the logic of which is kept a carefully guarded secret by the London Beis Din. You don’t go around boasting about a heter to break the normative halacha. If I was starving and had to eat chazir, I wouldn’t go out of my way making public videos about how excited I am and how great it is.
Shailah:
Some missionaries came to my door the other day and tried to get me to start attending church. I would like to make them happy, but I’m worried it might be a halachic issue. What should I do?Teshuvah:
You have a rare opportunity to make a kiddish Hashem and prevent future violence against the Jewish people by attending the church. The inyan of looking good by the non-Jews is a matter of pikuach nefesh and therefore is matir all issurim. The more they like us, the less they kill us. Therefore, by attending the church service, you will merit to save lives, and one who saves a life is as though she saved the entire world. If you do not make it to the church, it is as if you have shed the blood of innocents and you are postponing the coming of the symbolic, non-literal moshiach that exists collectively within all of our hearts.“The reason a Teshuva is not written or publicized should be obvious.”
Umm, doesn’t seem obvious to me. Without them publicly explaining their reasoning, it leaves many people (as you can see on this forum) assuming they have no real reasoning.“There is such thing as darkei shalom.”
You surely realize this doesn’t apply. When the Greeks told us to bow to idols, should we have done so for darkei shalom? Why not just make a huge kiddish Hashem and mass convert to Christianity for darkei shalom? Making the goyim happy by any means necessary is not a real thing outside of the delusional pipe dreams of Coffeeroom posters. The fact that we exist and keep the Torah inherently makes them unhappy, so if we start worrying about what does and doesn’t please the goyim then there can be no Torah or mitzvos.“Rav Moshe was mattir on peanut oil for Pesach. Do those who cite him on eruvim also argue for peanut oil?”
By this logic, nobody can ever cite anyone. There are a handful of well-known cases where the American community breaks from the trend and does not follow Reb Moshe’s psak (eg. peanuts on pesach, shabbos timers, arba kosos davka being wine).
The minhag of most, but not all, of the frum tzibbur is to follow Reb Moshe’s psak regarding the Brooklyn eiruvin. In Manhattan, the entirety of the frum, non-MO tzibbur follows his psak regarding the eiruv.
Yes, we know there are those that are matir Brooklyn eiruvs. The discussion here is that the OP seems to be suggesting that even those of us who don’t should change our shittah due to some new change in metzius that he has been suspiciously unable to specify with a halachic source. Is it possible that this situation happened? Sure. Brooklyn could be deserted like Gary Indiana and no longer be a reshus harabim according to anyone, but I see no evidence that anything like that happened.
Actually you would address a letter to “Flushing” if writing to someone in Kew Garden Hills, and he definitely wasn’t matir an eiruv for all of Flushing.
From their website, it seems like it has to do with the highways. This being said, I heard they connected the KGH and Forest Hills eiruvin in recent years, which would mean crossing over the Van Wyck. That expansion cannot claim to have the backing of Reb Moshe.
“leading to the king being good to Yidden for the remaining 46 years of his monarchy… Do you really think such shailos should go to the most esteemed litvishe poskim who dealt with Russian kings and comissars or to London beisdin who are boke in Anglican kings marriage minhagim from the time of Henry the 8th?”
He’s not a real king. He could be a neo-Nazi and it wouldn’t matter because he can’t actually do anything to us. I’m not taking a position on whether or not there’s a valid heter, but if there is, it’s definitely not to appease the monarchy that’s purely symbolic.
Since you bring up Henry the 8th, presumably because he started the Anglican Church, you probably know that he made the reigning monarch the head of the church as a replacement for the pope. Now that the monarchy has no political relevance, being head of the church is the primary significance of the monarch. Thus, people need to understand that this ceremony is a lot more comparable to anointing a new pope than it is to inaugurating a new president.
“it is a big world. People die all the time. Even those that are young and perfectly healthy. I know it’s scary. Your mommy can explain it to you.”
Where was this logic in 2020?
“Avira, the Rav Haflaah says on הכהן אשר יהי-ה בימים ההם we cannot question the ruling of the gedalim from one generation to another, so chutzpah does not apply.”
Nobody would argue that we should trust the Rabbonim of the current generation, but waiting anxiously for a gadol to pass on so that we can ignore his psak halacha immediately certainly seems like chutzpah to me. If we’re talking about a change in metzius that would allow an eiruv in Manhattan or Brooklyn today (decades later) then fine, but they put these eiruvs up when there was absolutely no change in metzius other than the unfortunate loss of the posek hador, Reb Moshe. Some were erected while he was still alive, blatantly ignoring his answer on the matter.
As for the main discussion here, Reb Moshe did not wholesale asser eiruvin in the NY metropolitan area. He was matir the Kew Garden Hills eiruv as they proudly display on their website. The reason being (I think) that it’s partitioned off by highways dividing it into a smaller reshus. If there has been a recent change in Brooklyn’s urban layout (which I have not heard of) then theoretically it could actually make a difference. That being said, I haven’t seen anyone actually make that claim here or elsewhere.