Rabbi Shlomo Yehuda Halevi Segal's Ruling on the Crown Heights Eruv

Rabbi Shlomo Yehuda Halevi Segal is a signatory to one of the principal 5776 notices concerning the Crown Heights eruv. In Sivan 5776, he joined Rabbi Avrohom Osdoba in a detailed public warning addressed to Anash, visitors, and residents of Crown Heights. The notice sets out a practical prohibition, invokes the earlier psak of Rabbi Zalman Shimon Dworkin, addresses the role of outside Rabbonim and eruv experts, and speaks in unusually strong terms about carrying under the newly publicized eruv.

"There is no halachically valid eruv"

The notice opens with the status of Crown Heights itself:

"In this neighborhood, Crown Heights, 'here G-d commanded the blessing,' there is no halachically valid eruv anywhere within the boundaries of the neighborhood. It is therefore forbidden for every man and woman, and for the members of their households, to carry out or bring in and to carry from one domain to another. Carrying is forbidden on holy Shabbos and on Yom Kippur, in accordance with the law of our holy Torah."

That is the core of Rabbi Segal's ruling on the page. It is not framed as a temporary objection to one broken wire or one defective pole. The notice says that the publicized construction did not create a kosher eruv for Crown Heights and therefore did not permit carrying.

The earlier psak of Rabbi Dworkin

Rabbi Segal and Rabbi Osdoba did not present the issue as beginning in 5776. Their notice points back to Rabbi Zalman Shimon Dworkin, describing him as the senior Rav and mara d'asra of Crown Heights and referring to an explicit psak from Kislev 5739. It also refers to other American and Canadian poskim, led by Rav Moshe Feinstein, concerning the impossibility of establishing the proposed type of eruv in New York.

The purpose of that paragraph is continuity. The signers were stating that the new publicity did not displace an earlier local and broader rabbinic position.

The claim that recognized experts had built the eruv

The notice then addressed reports that the eruv had been established by recognized and reliable Rabbonim or expert eruv builders. Rabbi Segal and Rabbi Osdoba wrote that they had investigated those reports and found them without substance. According to their statement, the Rabbonim and expert installers whose names had been associated with the project told the signers that they had not participated.

This point is distinct from the general halachic question. The notice was also answering a factual representation about who stood behind the construction.

Local authority

A further paragraph concerns the relationship between outside expertise and the local Rabbonim. The signers wrote that no Rav or posek from another city or country should enter the local jurisdiction and assist an act that conflicts with the Torah, with the wishes of the observant residents, and especially with the psak and daas Torah of the Rabbonim and dayanim of the community.

The principle was especially relevant to an eruv because local facts are part of the halachic determination. Roads, mechitzos, openings, traffic, construction, supervision, and the exact physical route cannot be decided merely from a distant description.

The warning attached to the ruling

The final substantive paragraph states the signers' conclusion in its strongest form. Anyone acting in the matter, they wrote, was acting against the halacha, against the Rebbe's position that an eruv should not be established in Crown Heights, and against the ruling of the local Rabbonim. They wrote that a person who thereby knowingly caused others to carry in the public domain was causing public chillul Shabbos.

The Hebrew page bears Rabbi Segal's handwritten signature beside Rabbi Osdoba's. A two-page PDF preserved from the 5776 publication includes the Hebrew notice and an English free translation.