Rav Moshe Feinstein's Responsa Concerning Manhattan

Rav Moshe Feinstein's position on the Manhattan eruv has to be read from his responsa as a whole. He examined substantial grounds for leniency, reached a practical conclusion that he could not permit the eruv, and at the same time declined to claim authority to silence qualified Rabbonim who ruled differently. Later correspondence makes clear that this restraint toward other poskim was never permission to cite Rav Moshe himself as supporting the eruv.

The principal Manhattan discussion appears in Igros Moshe, Orach Chaim I:139. Its background begins in the preceding siman, I:138, written on Erev Shavuos 5712 to Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Eisenstadt. Rav Moshe says there that he had previously discussed with him the proposed eruv arrangements in Brooklyn and Manhattan and was now setting down his view. Siman 138 analyzes the proposed use of Brooklyn's physical structures. Siman 139 turns expressly to Manhattan.

Manhattan's enclosure was taken seriously

Rav Moshe begins I:139 with the retaining wall at the water's edge. He regards the wall rising more than ten tefachim from the water to the higher land and surrounding the city as a complete mechitza. He then addresses whether it was made for residential use, the bridge openings, the status of public passage through those openings, and the possible use of a tzuras hapesach or doors.

This is an important starting point for understanding the responsum. Rav Moshe did not reject Manhattan because an island boundary was halachically meaningless. He accepted that a substantial part of the perimeter had the force of a wall and then asked what effect the city's openings and public use had on that enclosure.

Six hundred thousand did not have to pass one street

Anaf 5 contains one of Rav Moshe's most consequential discussions of shishim ribo. He notes that the Shulchan Aruch describes the opinion that a place is not a reshus harabim where six hundred thousand do not pass there each day. Rav Moshe argues from Rashi and other sources that, within a city, the number can refer to the city as a whole rather than requiring six hundred thousand people to pass through every individual street.

He writes that it can be sufficient for the six hundred thousand to be present in the city, and he further suggests that residents can be joined with those entering the city each day. The streets of such a city can therefore be affected by a city-wide shishim ribo even though the entire number does not use each street separately.

Rav Moshe applies this directly to the bridges. He had already observed that Manhattan's traffic was divided among thirteen bridges and additional tunnels, so no individual bridge necessarily carried six hundred thousand people each day. He then asks whether the bridges should be considered part of Manhattan. If they are part of the city, the city's shishim ribo can become relevant to them. If they are outside roads, each route requires its own calculation.

The broader definitions and competing views of shishim ribo are treated separately in the six-hundred-thousand section.

The Yerushalayim concern

Rav Moshe adds another consideration near the end of anaf 5. He asks why an eruv was not made in Yerushalayim when the city had walls and doors. One possibility he proposes is the large number of visitors who came from other places. People could become accustomed to carrying in Yerushalayim and later carry in their home communities even where a proper enclosure was unavailable.

He then applies that concern to Manhattan, a city drawing people from many places and located near areas that, in his analysis, could not necessarily be repaired. Even if Manhattan itself could be technically enclosed under a particular approach, he saw reason to fear that the resulting practice would spread beyond the limits of the enclosure.

Rav Moshe returned to this visitor consideration in the later Igros Moshe, Orach Chaim V:28, where he discussed how broadly it should be applied. That later qualification is important when the principle is used beyond Manhattan and belongs to the fuller treatment of Rav Moshe's rulings on large-city eruvin.

Orach Chaim IV:89 states his practical position

On 3 Chanukah 5721, Rav Moshe wrote to Rabbi Eliyohu Jung in a responsum titled “Whether to protest those who are lenient to make an eruv in Manhattan.” He referred Rabbi Jung back to the lengthy discussion in Orach Chaim I:139 and summarized his conclusion.

Rav Moshe wrote that Manhattan was unlike the ordinary places where communities had traditionally relied on lenient opinions. In his judgment, they had no basis to permit Manhattan against the opinions that prohibited, and the example of Yerushalayim was an additional major consideration. He therefore saw nothing that would change his own view.

He then repeated a distinction he had made before. He did not claim authority to protest qualified Rabbonim who, after their own halachic decision, held that the eruv could be established. He described them as great Rabbonim fit to rule. Rav Moshe nevertheless wrote of his own participation: “I myself cannot assist in this.”

His reason was practical as well as halachic. An eruv might reduce the violation of those who were already carrying, according to the opinions that accepted it. At the same time, observant people who had previously refrained from carrying could begin to carry in reliance on an arrangement that Rav Moshe considered impermissible according to many opinions.

Non-protest was not a heter from Rav Moshe

The distinction became especially important during later efforts to establish the Upper West Side eruv. A memorandum from a December 31, 1963 meeting records that Rabbis Eliyohu Jung, Immanuel Jakobovits, Norman Lamm, and Sholom Langer understood Rav Moshe's position as allowing them to proceed according to their own view because he would not protest qualified Rabbonim who were lenient.

After a subsequent visit, Rav Moshe sent Rabbi Norman Lamm a Western Union telegram dated March 18, 1964. He stated emphatically that in his opinion the Manhattan eruv was osur, referred to his sefer and to the Agudath HaRabbonim psak that he had signed, and instructed Rabbi Lamm: “Do not cite my name as one upon whom you rely.”

Rav Moshe's own position is therefore clear. He acknowledged the right of qualified poskim to rule according to their judgment and said that he was not in a position to prevent them. He did not give his own heter for Manhattan, and he expressly objected to his name being used as support for one.

His responsa and the communal rulings

The sequence is consistent. Orach Chaim I:139 contains the detailed halachic analysis. Orach Chaim IV:89 states both Rav Moshe's personal refusal and his unwillingness to protest qualified dissenting Rabbonim. On 18 Sivan 5722 he signed the Agudath HaRabbonim ruling prohibiting carrying in Manhattan despite eruv repairs. His 1964 telegram confirmed that this communal psak reflected his own practical view. In 5726, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis again publicized its Manhattan position after an emergency meeting in which Rav Moshe participated as a member of the presidium.

Taken together, the responsa and telegram preserve both parts of Rav Moshe's position. His writings contain genuine avenues of leniency and serious technical discussion, together with his conclusion that he could not permit the Manhattan eruv. His respect for other qualified poskim did not turn their heter into his own.