The Rebbe's Response Concerning the Proposed Melbourne Eruv, 5 Iyar 5741

The question of an eruv in Melbourne was brought to the Rebbe more than once. The first surviving response, from 5 Iyar 5741, addresses the danger created when a publicly known eruv later becomes invalid. A later response addresses a different question: what the local Rabbonim should do when communal pressure to establish an eruv returned.

Read together, the two responses preserve both parts of the Melbourne record. The first states the Rebbe's concern about publicity and habituation in unusually strong terms. The later response leaves the immediate communal decision in the hands of the Rabbonim of Melbourne.

The response of 5 Iyar 5741

Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner, the longtime shliach and Rav in Melbourne, asked the Rebbe about the proposed construction of an eruv in the city. The surviving source dates the response to Motzaei Shabbos Parshas Emor, 5 Iyar 5741. The question concerned the general proposal before a specific route had been settled.

The Rebbe wrote:

My opinion is well known that in our generation, when a recognized individual or organization establishes an eruv and knows that the matter will eventually become public, this is a terrible stumbling block. It is impossible that there will not be one Shabbos when the eruv is invalid. By the nature of things, once people have become accustomed several times to carrying on Shabbos, no proclamation or announcement that the eruv is invalid and carrying is forbidden, and so forth, will cause them to stop carrying.

An eruv should therefore be made only in secrecy.

The Hebrew concludes with the words "ואין לעשות עירוב אלא בסודיות", "an eruv should be made only in secrecy."

The response looks beyond the day the eruv is opened to what happens after carrying becomes normal. An eruv is a physical enclosure whose validity can change. If it becomes invalid on a later Shabbos, the people who have already become accustomed to carrying may not hear, understand, or act on an announcement that carrying has again become forbidden.

The wording also explains why publicity is central to the response. The Rebbe describes the problem as arising when a recognized person or organization establishes an eruv knowing that it will ultimately become public knowledge. The final instruction about secrecy directly answers that concern.

What happened in Melbourne afterward

A later published account relates that Rabbi Groner consulted the other Rabbonim in Melbourne after receiving the response. It says that the Rabbonim issued a joint proclamation against establishing the eruv and that no eruv was established there for several years. Rabbi Mordechai "Mottel" Krasniansky, who had worked on the subject with Rabbi Groner, is among the Melbourne figures later cited as a witness to that history.

The first response itself has a substantial publication history. It appears in a later Teshura with photographic reproductions of the handwriting, and it was printed earlier in Tzadik LaMelech, volume 7. That volume states that the response had already appeared in the Melbourne booklet An Eruv in Melbourne in 5748 and identifies it as a response to the Rabbonim of Melbourne. The original sheet in the Rebbe's files has not been located in the material presently available.

When the proposal returned

At a later point, pressure to establish an eruv returned. Rabbi Yehuda Leib Groner wrote the question on behalf of his brother, Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner. The note recalls that Melbourne had previously received a response against making an eruv and that, until then, no eruv had been established.

It continues that several people, primarily from the Mizrachi circle, were pressing the local Rabbonim to establish one. If the local Rabbonim would not agree, they were prepared to bring in an outside Rav who was an expert in making eruvin. The Rabbonim had consulted among themselves and wanted to know whether they should strongly oppose the project or refrain from becoming involved.

The Rebbe answered:

[The decision on this matter] depends on the Rabbonim on site.

תלוי' בהרבנים שעל אתר

This response does not say that an outside group could decide the matter over the heads of the local Rabbonim. It places the decision with the Rabbonim who were there and dealing with the local circumstances. It also does not erase the earlier response about publicity and habituation. The question itself expressly invokes that earlier response and asks how the local Rabbonim should act when the issue arose again.

Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Groner later related how his father understood the follow-up. According to that family account, Rabbi Groner understood that he should not wage the fight alone without the support of the other local Rabbonim. That is a later account of Rabbi Groner's understanding, not additional wording in the Rebbe's answer.

The follow-up is reproduced in a Teshura published in 5782, which prints the question and says that the answer is reproduced from a photograph of the Rebbe's handwriting. That publication does not give the date of the exchange or the custody history of the original paper. Those details should therefore not be supplied from inference.