The Agudath HaRabbonim Rulings Concerning the Manhattan Eruv

The Manhattan eruv was addressed both in individual responsa and through formal action of the Agudath HaRabbonim, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada. The Union's public actions include the 5722 Manhattan notice and a 5726 notice in HaPardes reaffirming its position. Rav Moshe Feinstein's 1964 telegram refers directly back to the Union psak that he had signed.

Together these documents clarify an important point in the history of the Manhattan discussion. Rav Moshe's statement that he would not protest qualified Rabbonim who ruled leniently did not become the position of the Agudath HaRabbonim, and it did not mean that Rav Moshe himself permitted the eruv.

The ruling of 18 Sivan 5722

A Union notice dated Wednesday of Parshas Behaaloscha, 18 Sivan 5722, states that a meeting of the Agudath HaRabbonim resolved to publicize an instruction that the organization had issued previously. Its central wording says:

שא״א בשום אופן לתקן עירוב במאנהעטן, ואסור לטלטל במאנהעטן

That is, the Union declared that there was no way to establish an eruv in Manhattan and that carrying there was forbidden. The notice adds that the prohibition remained even after repairs that some Rabbonim had made or might make, and it describes reliance on such an eruv in severe terms.

The surviving facsimile bears five handwritten signatures identified as Rav Aharon Kotler, Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Rav Chaim Bick, Rav Gedalia Schorr, and Rav Moshe Feinstein. The copy now available is a later fax reproduction rather than a first-generation archival sheet, although the text and signatures are plainly visible.

The wording also shows that the 18 Sivan meeting was publicizing an instruction that had already been issued by the Union. The notice is therefore one point in an earlier Manhattan debate rather than the beginning of it.

Rav Moshe's position before and after the ruling

Rav Moshe had already published his lengthy analysis of Manhattan in Igros Moshe, Orach Chaim I:139, and his later responsum to Rabbi Eliyohu Jung, Orach Chaim IV:89, distinguished between his own conclusion and the right of qualified Rabbonim to reach a different one.

That distinction later created room for misunderstanding. A memorandum from a meeting with Rav Moshe on December 31, 1963 records that four Rabbonim understood him to remain with his published position that he would not protest those who were lenient. They took this as allowing their synagogues to proceed under the rulings on which they relied.

Rav Moshe then gave a direct clarification of his own position. On March 18, 1964, he sent Rabbi Norman Lamm a telegram stating that his opinion remained that an eruv in Manhattan was osur. He referred both to his sefer and to “the p'sak din of the Agudas Harabonim” that he had signed. He then instructed Rabbi Lamm not to cite his name as a basis for a heter.

The distinction is exact. Rav Moshe did not claim the ability to prevent other qualified poskim from acting according to their own ruling. He also did not authorize his own name to be presented as supporting their heter.

The 5726 reaffirmation

The Union returned publicly to the matter four years after the 5722 notice. HaPardes, year 40, issue 8, printed a notice headed “Concerning Establishing an Eruv in Manhattan,” dated 23 Nisan 5726.

The surviving scan is heavily blotched, but its heading, date, and identifying lines are legible. The notice is issued by the Agudath HaRabbonim and reports an emergency meeting of its executive committee on Sunday of Chol Hamoed Pesach. Rav Moshe Feinstein is named as participating as a member of the Union's presidium, and the notice reaffirms the organization's opposition to the Manhattan eruv.

The 5726 notice confirms that the Union maintained its Manhattan position four years after the 5722 ruling and again publicized it.

From Manhattan to the large-city proclamation

The later Union proclamation of Kislev 5739 explicitly anchors itself to the Manhattan prohibition of 18 Sivan 5722. It recounts the earlier action and then states that the prohibition includes every large city, adding that there is no distinction between Manhattan and another city.

That later notice has its own provenance limitations. The available copy is a later reproduction, and the fifteen names beneath it are printed rather than surviving autograph signatures. Among those printed names is Rabbi Zalman Shimon Dworkin, identified as Av Beis Din Lubavitch, together with Rabbi Meir Greenberg.

For Crown Heights, the Manhattan material is therefore relevant in two ways. It records the public position taken by leading Rabbonim concerning a large modern city that possessed unusually favorable physical boundaries. It also became the stated foundation for a later Union declaration extending its large-city conclusion beyond Manhattan. Crown Heights itself is governed by the psak of its own Rabbonim, whose rulings are treated in their dedicated section.