Rav Moshe Feinstein's Brooklyn Rulings

Rav Moshe Feinstein addressed eruvin in New York repeatedly over several decades. His Brooklyn rulings are not one sentence about 600,000 people. They form a sequence in which he considers the city's physical boundaries, the meaning of reshus harabim, the population of a modern city, Flatbush and Boro Park as parts of Brooklyn, and several proposed grounds for leniency.

The full range of Rav Moshe's eruv responsa includes Manhattan, Kew Gardens Hills, Detroit, and other places. The Brooklyn sequence has a narrower focus. It begins with an early question about enclosing Brooklyn, becomes explicit in the Flatbush responsa of 5738 and 5739, appears in a signed Boro Park letter on 17 Teves 5739, and receives an extended treatment in Orach Chaim V:28 in 5741.

Orach Chaim I:138, an early Brooklyn question

Orach Chaim I:138 is titled as a question whether it is possible to establish an eruv in Brooklyn. Rav Moshe discusses the suggestion that Brooklyn might already possess large-scale physical boundaries through the sea, rivers, shore structures, and the principle of pi tikra.

That early responsum is important because it shows that Rav Moshe did not begin with the assumption that every part of New York is automatically impossible to enclose. He analyzes the proposed mechitzos as a real halachic question. At the same time, he does not treat uncertain or partial natural boundaries as a free pass for any later neighborhood eruv.

His Manhattan responsum I:139, printed beside it, develops important elements of his shishim ribo view. The complete Manhattan analysis belongs separately. For Brooklyn, the later responsa are more direct.

Orach Chaim IV:87, Flatbush and the city population

Orach Chaim IV:87 is dated 15 Shevat 5738 and addressed to the Rabbonim involved in the Flatbush question. Its opening deserves careful reading.

Rav Moshe says that when prominent Rabbonim came to him about an eruv in Flatbush, he told them he did not want to intervene. Several shitos existed concerning the definition of reshus harabim and related matters, and the sources were available for qualified Rabbonim to decide. He then explains why he nevertheless wrote the responsum: a report had gone out that Rav Moshe himself was permitting the eruv, which was contrary to his own view.

The responsum therefore combines two propositions that should not be separated. Rav Moshe did not claim exclusive authority over every local Rav. He did insist that his personal position not be represented as a heter.

He then explains his understanding of shishim ribo. A road and a city are not necessarily counted in the same way. In a city, he argues, six hundred thousand can be distributed throughout the city's streets. He bases his model on the encampment in the Midbar and considers an area of twelve mil by twelve mil.

The Brooklyn application is explicit:

Therefore, in Brooklyn, which is one city filled with population, although it may be more than twelve mil by twelve mil, one must estimate, for example, Flatbush extending together with Brooklyn for twelve mil, whether enough people are found there that throughout all the streets of those twelve mil there are six hundred thousand. It is then a complete reshus harabim even according to those who require six hundred thousand.

He adds that if one street itself carries six hundred thousand, that street can be a reshus harabim even without a city of that size. Conversely, his city analysis does not require all six hundred thousand to pass through one road.

Rav Moshe also points to New York's dense apartment housing. Many families can occupy a very small ground area, unlike the dispersed tents of the Midbar. For him, this density materially affects the estimate of how many people may be found in the streets of the relevant area.

Orach Chaim IV:88, "even in one part such as Flatbush"

The printed Orach Chaim IV:88 is dated 4 Shevat 5739. Its opening states Rav Moshe's practical conclusion plainly:

I have already explained orally the reason I hold that an eruv should not be made in Brooklyn, even in one part such as Flatbush.

He says that in a city as large and dense as Brooklyn, one who wishes to permit because the relevant number is absent bears the burden of establishing the facts. He considers multistory housing and the number of people likely to be outside in the streets.

The responsum is not blind to factual qualification. Rav Moshe discusses large summer crowds entering Coney Island and Brighton Beach, reportedly exceeding a million people on some days. Because the Shulchan Aruch's formulation speaks of passage "every day," he recognizes that a non-daily seasonal influx may not be identical to ordinary daily passage. He nevertheless retains his other reasons for prohibiting the Flatbush eruv.

Later he records that a city map showed Brooklyn, as he understood it, to be approximately twelve mil by twelve mil and a little more. He gives an estimate of close to three million permanent residents and close to another million entering for business, visits, and regular work. On that factual premise, he writes that there were certainly far more than six hundred thousand in the streets and that Brooklyn was a Torah-level reshus harabim.

The official 1970 census counted 2,602,012 Brooklyn residents, and the 1980 census counted 2,230,936. Rav Moshe's "close to three million" should therefore be preserved as his stated estimate, not silently converted into an exact census figure.

The letter of 17 Teves 5739

A separate letter on the stationery of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis addresses the Boro Park eruv. The facsimile surviving in the 2006 Community Eruvin booklet visibly carries Rav Moshe's handwritten signature.

Rav Moshe writes that he had joined the leading Rabbonim of the Union and other Rabbonim in holding that no eruv may be established in Brooklyn because it is a reshus harabim min haTorah. He then rejects newspaper publicity saying that the Boro Park eruv could be relied upon and closes with an explicit warning:

Therefore I warn that no eruv should be established in any neighborhood of Brooklyn, and it is forbidden to carry on the eruv that was made in Boro Park.

There is a small but real dating problem in the surviving texts. The 17 Teves letter refers to an earlier responsum as written on 4 Shevat 5738, while the printed IV:88 is dated 4 Shevat 5739. The available record does not justify silently choosing one and rewriting the other.

Orach Chaim V:28, the extended answer

Orach Chaim V:28, dated 2 Adar I 5741, is titled Asiyas Eruv B'Krachim Gedolim, establishing an eruv in large cities. Rav Moshe begins by restating that no eruv should be made in Brooklyn even in a part such as Flatbush, and that the same applies to Boro Park.

He says that some Rabbonim had nevertheless established eruvin in Flatbush and Boro Park relying on Rav Menashe Klein, who had set out a series of reasons for permitting. Rav Moshe then answers those arguments in detail.

Flatbush and Boro Park as independent public areas

Rav Moshe writes:

But Brooklyn, every significant section such as Flatbush and Boro Park and the like, is a reshus harabim in its own right, since in each one, within an area even smaller than twelve mil by twelve mil, there are six hundred thousand.

That is stronger than merely treating the neighborhoods as appendages to Brooklyn. In his stated factual analysis, they could independently reach the public-domain threshold.

Motorists count

Rav Moshe rejects the argument that people in cars disappear from the calculation because the car itself can be a private domain. A car exists to move people through the public street. He therefore counts the people traveling in vehicles as part of public passage.

Traffic regulations do not remove public access

Red lights, stop signs, and other traffic laws do not make a street nonpublic. They are rules that permit a crowded public transportation system to function safely and predictably.

Sidewalks are part of the public domain

He writes that sidewalks are part of the reshus harabim itself because they were made for public walking. Parked cars are temporary and do not permanently narrow a street, while moving cars do not form stable enclosing walls.

Brooklyn's claimed surrounding boundaries require proof

Rav Moshe addresses proposed mechitzos around Brooklyn and says that, as far as he knew, the claimed surrounding walls were not established. The question was factual and could be checked. He did not permit the neighborhood eruvin on an assumption that Brooklyn was already surrounded by valid Torah walls.

A straight street through the whole city is not required

One major issue is whether reshus harabim must run straight and mefulash from gate to gate. Rav Moshe's conclusion in V:28 is that the aligned-gates requirement belongs to a walled city, where the walls would otherwise make the city private. In Brooklyn and similar American cities without surrounding walls, he does not require one straight road leading from one city gate to the opposite gate.

This point is especially important in a grid that bends, terminates, intersects, and changes direction. Rav Moshe did not consider the absence of one perfectly straight cross-city boulevard sufficient to remove Brooklyn from reshus harabim.

What Rav Moshe's Brooklyn rulings establish

The responsa show a consistent practical position even while preserving important nuance about authority and factual proof. Rav Moshe did not want his name used as a heter for Flatbush. He held that Brooklyn was a Torah-level public domain under his understanding of the facts. He rejected attempts to solve the issue merely by drawing smaller neighborhood lines, excluding motorists, relying on ordinary traffic controls, or requiring a straight gate-to-gate street in an unwalled city.

His complete position on eruvin cannot be reconstructed from Brooklyn alone. Manhattan, Kew Gardens Hills, Detroit, the role of local Rabbonim, and his treatment of differing shitos all qualify simplistic summaries of his view. But when the question is what Rav Moshe himself ruled concerning Brooklyn, Flatbush, and Boro Park, the direct texts are clear enough to be read in their own words.