What Does Shishim Ribo Mean?

The phrase shishim ribo means six hundred thousand. In the halachos of reshus harabim, it refers to a well-known position among the Rishonim that compares the Torah's public domain to the encampment of the Bnei Yisroel in the Midbar, where six hundred thousand adult men were counted.

The comparison raises an immediate question. Is six hundred thousand a number that must actually pass through each street, a number that must be regularly present in a city, or a description of the kind of public way that serves a population of that scale?

The earlier sources do not all express the condition in the same way.

The number comes from the Midbar

The Mishnah Berurah explains the reasoning of the shishim ribo position simply: the melachos of Shabbos are learned from the Mishkan, and the public domain in the Midbar was associated with the encampment and movement of six hundred thousand. On this view, a modern reshus harabim must bear the corresponding public character.

But the requirement itself is disputed. In Orach Chaim 345:7, the Shulchan Aruch first gives the ordinary definition of a public street or market and then adds:

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.”

The Biur Halacha there lists major Rishonim who do not make six hundred thousand a condition at all. That broader dispute remains essential background whenever the phrase shishim ribo is used. A city that fails one interpretation of the numerical condition is not automatically free of every possible Torah-level reshus harabim concern.

Rashi: six hundred thousand regularly entering a city

Rashi uses city language in Eruvin 59a. An ir shel yachid, in the context of that sugya, is described as a city:

שלא היו נכנסין בה תמיד ס' רבוא של בני אדם

“into which six hundred thousand people did not regularly enter.”

The emphasis is not on the census form of the residents alone. It is on people regularly entering the city.

The Ritva explains Rashi in unusually clear terms:

רש"י ז"ל אינו מצריך שיתיישבו בעיר ס' רבוא אלא שיכנסו בה

Rashi does not require six hundred thousand to be settled in the city, but that they enter it.

He continues by giving the example of large cities open to many places and regularly frequented by merchants and similar visitors. The Ritva ultimately disagrees with Rashi on the underlying requirement and follows the authorities who do not require six hundred thousand. His explanation is therefore evidence for what he understood Rashi to mean, not an endorsement by the Ritva of the criterion itself.

This is one of the oldest reasons that the modern question cannot be reduced to resident population. Under this reading, people who regularly enter from outside are relevant to the city's public character.

The Shulchan Aruch: “pass through it every day”

The later wording of the Shulchan Aruch sounds more local and more exact: shishim ribo ovrim bo bechol yom, six hundred thousand pass through it every day.

Read in isolation, that can sound like a daily count through the particular street or place being classified. Rabbi Sholom Dovber Levin explicitly acknowledges that this is the initial impression of the wording before arguing against that interpretation.

The Mishnah Berurah, however, warns against assuming that the phrase “every day” is itself the formulation of the earlier authorities. On the words bechol yom, he writes:

חפשתי בכל הראשונים העומדים בשיטה זו ולא נזכר בדבריהם תנאי זה רק שיהיו מצויין שם ששים רבוא

“I searched all the Rishonim who follow this position, and this condition is not mentioned in their words; only that six hundred thousand be commonly found there.”

That observation does not tell us that the Shulchan Aruch's words should be ignored. It tells us that their precise application is a matter of interpretation. The earlier formulations include metzuyin, people being present or commonly found there, and nichnasin, people entering a city regularly. Those expressions are broader than a modern turnstile count at one coordinate.

Another reading: a route fit for a mass public

The Biur Halacha quotes the Ra'ah, through the Ran, as explaining the requirement in terms of a route used by a mass public comparable to six hundred thousand. Under this formulation, the way has the character of a route serving such a public even when all six hundred thousand are not physically there at once.

The Aruch Hashulchan similarly argues that Rashi cannot mean six hundred thousand constantly traversing the same place. He understands the condition as describing a public road capable of serving the passage of such masses, in contrast to smaller local roads.

This capacity-oriented reading is distinct from both a residential census and a literal daily point count. It asks what kind of public thoroughfare the road is.

Rav Moshe: two kinds of measurement

Rav Moshe Feinstein gives one of the clearest later explanations for why city streets and roads should not automatically be counted in the same manner.

In Igros Moshe, Orach Chaim I:139, he notes that the wording “six hundred thousand pass through it every day” is not the usual wording of the central Rishonim. Rashi, for example, speaks of a city in which six hundred thousand are found. Rav Moshe therefore writes that for a city it is enough that the six hundred thousand be in the city, or at most throughout the streets of the city as a whole. He expressly rejects a requirement that six hundred thousand pass through each street separately.

For a road outside the city, however, Rav Moshe says there is no city-wide population to join into the calculation. There the road itself must have the required passage.

He returns to the distinction in Orach Chaim IV:87:

והוא נכון ומוכרח שאיכא שני ענינים בדרכים צריך שיעברו ששים רבוא בכל יום ... אבל בעיר הוא רה"ר בזה שישנם בעיר ששים רבוא

“It is correct and necessary that there are two matters: with roads, six hundred thousand must pass every day ... but in a city it is a reshus harabim by virtue of six hundred thousand being in the city.”

Rav Moshe then refines the city rule. He permits the more lenient formulation that the six hundred thousand should be found throughout the city's streets during the ordinary periods when people go out, while each individual street may have far fewer. He also says that if one road itself has six hundred thousand passing along it, that road can qualify even when the city as a whole does not otherwise meet the city-based test.

That is a dual model, not a contradiction. A city can acquire a public-domain character from the aggregate public presence across its streets, while an exceptionally busy road can be judged on its own traffic.

Residents, entrants, and people in the street

Rav Moshe does not stop at the census population. In Orach Chaim IV:87 he writes that when a city has many people entering it, those who come from other cities must be included. If the total reaches six hundred thousand only by adding the entrants, that can still produce a reshus harabim.

He also revisits a question he had left open in his earlier responsum: should people inside their homes count simply because they are within the city? His later conclusion is that it is more plausible to count those found bachutzos, in the streets or public outdoor areas.

This means that “Rav Moshe counts the population of the city” is too crude a summary. Population is relevant because it helps determine the scale of public presence. Entrants from outside can add to that presence, and in his later formulation he prefers to focus on those actually out in the city's public spaces.

Rabbi Levin: six hundred thousand live there and use the streets

Rabbi Sholom Dovber Levin argues for a somewhat different city-based formulation. In his 2022 discussion he writes that the shishim ribo are not required to walk along one street. Rather:

אלא שיהיו ס' ריבוא גרים שם ומשתמשים ברחובות

“six hundred thousand live there and use the streets.”

His argument is tied closely to his reading of the Alter Rebbe and the Rebbe. The complete textual case belongs on The Alter Rebbe and the Requirement of Shishim Ribo. What matters here is that this is a resident-city model: the city's six hundred thousand residents give its public streets their scale, even though all six hundred thousand do not physically cross each street during the day.

The same words do not produce the same calculation

At least four different questions can therefore hide behind the phrase “Does this place have shishim ribo?”

1. Do six hundred thousand pass through this particular route in the relevant period?
2. Are six hundred thousand regularly present in, or entering, the city?
3. Is this a mass public route of the kind associated with a public of six hundred thousand?
4. Does the city itself contain the requisite population whose residents use its streets?

Those questions require different facts. A traffic count answers the first. A census may be important to the fourth. Commuter and visitor movement becomes important to the second and to Rav Moshe's city-wide treatment. None of those numbers can be substituted automatically for the others.

The halachic definition must be identified before the population of New York or Brooklyn is measured. The separate pages on City Population, Street Traffic, and Daily Passage and How Six Hundred Thousand Is Calculated keep those measurements distinct.