Shishim Ribo and the Requirement of Six Hundred Thousand
Shishim ribo means six hundred thousand. In the halachos of reshus harabim, it refers to the view that the Torah-level public domain described by Chazal must in some way correspond to the six hundred thousand adult Jewish men counted in the Midbar.
That short formulation is familiar, but it leaves two separate questions unanswered. First, is six hundred thousand a necessary condition for a reshus harabim at all? Second, according to the Poskim who do require it, what exactly must number six hundred thousand: the people who pass through one street, the people who are present throughout a city, the residents of the city, or the residents together with people who regularly enter it?
Those questions cannot be collapsed into a single traffic count.
The requirement itself is disputed
The Shulchan Aruch first defines reshus harabim by reference to public streets and markets that are sixteen amos wide and not enclosed in the manner of a private domain. It then adds a second position:
ויש אומרים שכל שאין ששים רבוא עוברים בו בכל יום אינו רשות הרבים
“There are those who say that wherever six hundred thousand do not pass through it every day is not a reshus harabim.”
(Orach Chaim 345:7)
The words “there are those who say” are important. The condition of shishim ribo is not an uncontested part of the definition. The Biur Halacha there surveys major Rishonim on both sides. Among those who do not require six hundred thousand are major authorities including the Rambam, Ramban, Rashba, and others. The Mishnah Berurah nevertheless explains that the authorities who do require it are sufficiently numerous to account for the widespread reliance on that position, while adding that a yerei shamayim should be stringent.
The present discussion therefore addresses the meaning of shishim ribo within the position that uses that criterion. It does not imply that every Rishon or Posek agrees that the criterion is necessary.
“Six hundred thousand” can describe different things
Even within the shishim ribo position, the sources do not all yield one simple method of measurement.
| Approach | What is being measured? | What the source emphasizes |
|---|---|---|
| Literal daily passage | Passage through the place under discussion | The Shulchan Aruch says “six hundred thousand pass through it every day” |
| Regular presence or entry | People regularly found in, or entering, the city | Rashi speaks of a city in which six hundred thousand are regularly present or enter |
| A road fit for mass public use | The character and capacity of the public route | The Ra'ah, as quoted by the Ran and Biur Halacha, is read as describing a route suitable for the passage of a mass public comparable to six hundred thousand |
| City-wide public presence | The streets of the city considered together | Rav Moshe Feinstein distinguishes the public domain of a city from a road outside the city |
| Residents plus entrants | The people of the city together with people entering from elsewhere | Rav Moshe explicitly says entrants from other cities can be included |
| Resident-city model | A city with six hundred thousand residents who use its streets | Rabbi Sholom Dovber Levin argues that this is the correct reading of the Alter Rebbe and the Rebbe |
These definitions call for different measurements. A traffic counter on one avenue may be highly relevant under one reading and largely beside the point under another.
Rashi speaks about a city
Rashi's words in Eruvin 59a are one of the central texts behind the discussion. Explaining an ir shel yachid, he writes that it is a city:
שלא היו נכנסין בה תמיד ס' רבוא של בני אדם
“into which six hundred thousand people did not regularly enter.”
The Ritva, while explaining Rashi's position, makes the implication explicit. He says Rashi does not require that six hundred thousand actually be settled as residents of the city. It is enough that they enter it, as occurs in important cities open to many places and regularly frequented by merchants and others. The Ritva himself ultimately follows the authorities who do not require the threshold of six hundred thousand, but his explanation remains significant for understanding Rashi.
This language already shows why “city population” and “street traffic” are not interchangeable terms. Rashi's formulation can include people who come into the city without living there.
Does “every day” mean every day?
The Shulchan Aruch's wording says that six hundred thousand pass “every day.” The Mishnah Berurah, however, comments that he searched the Rishonim who follow the shishim ribo position and did not find this daily condition stated in their words. What he found was the condition that six hundred thousand be metzuyin sham, present or commonly found there.
That does not erase the words of the Shulchan Aruch. It does mean that the phrase “every day” has to be studied in light of the earlier formulations on which the ruling is based. One cannot simply take the modern hourly count at a single point, multiply it by twenty-four, and assume that every authority who mentions shishim ribo has thereby been addressed.
Rav Moshe distinguishes a city from a road
Rav Moshe Feinstein develops this distinction at length in Igros Moshe. In Orach Chaim I:139, after comparing the wording of the Shulchan Aruch with Rashi and other Rishonim, he writes:
ולכן אני אומר שודאי סגי בזה שישנם בעיר ולכל היותר שישנם ברחובות כל העיר ס' רבוא
“Therefore I say that it certainly suffices that they are in the city, and at most that six hundred thousand be in the streets of the entire city.”
He immediately distinguishes between a reshus harabim created by a city and one created by a road. On a road outside the city, the six hundred thousand must pass along that road. In a city, he rejects the need for six hundred thousand to pass through every street separately. He compares the city to the encampment in the Midbar, where the six hundred thousand were distributed throughout the camp and were not all passing through every individual route.
In Orach Chaim IV:87, Rav Moshe returns to the issue and sharpens the formulation. He says that in a city it can be enough for six hundred thousand to be found throughout the streets of the city during the ordinary times when people go out, even though each individual street contains far fewer. At the same time, if one particular road itself carries six hundred thousand, that road can be a reshus harabim even when the city does not otherwise reach the threshold.
Rav Moshe also states expressly that in a city with many people entering from elsewhere, those entrants must be taken into account. In that later responsum he considers it more plausible that the count should concern those actually in the streets, rather than simply counting everyone inside homes.
Thus, Rav Moshe's city-wide treatment is not a bare census rule. The city's population is part of an estimate of public presence, and people entering from elsewhere can be part of that estimate as well.
Rabbi Levin's city-based reading
Rabbi Sholom Dovber Levin reaches a more population-centered formulation in his writings on large-city eruvin. He argues that the requirement should not be read as six hundred thousand people physically crossing one narrow street each day. In his 2022 pamphlet he states the model concisely: the requirement is that “six hundred thousand live there and use the streets.”
His fuller argument belongs together with the Alter Rebbe's wording and the Rebbe's statements, which are treated separately on The Alter Rebbe and the Requirement of Shishim Ribo. For present purposes, the important point is that Rabbi Levin's reading is a city-based definition, not an anonymous alternative traffic formula.
What a calculation can and cannot establish
A numerical calculation has meaning only after the halachic unit has been defined.
If the question is whether six hundred thousand people physically cross a single point in one day, the relevant figure is passage at that point over the chosen period. If the question is the public use of an entire city, one must instead ask how the Posek defines the city, who counts as present, whether entrants are included, and whether people inside buildings are included. If the test is residential population, a traffic count does not answer it at all.
Rabbi Levin illustrates the difficulty of the narrow point-count reading by converting 600,000 daily passages into a per-second rate. His published illustration uses rounded clock figures. How Six Hundred Thousand Is Calculated gives both his arithmetic and the exact clock calculation.
The separate question of how the various definitions apply to the actual population and movement of New York, Brooklyn, and Crown Heights requires verified modern figures. That is treated on New York and Brooklyn: Population, Commuters, and Visitors.