Transcript (unedited) of Rabbi Heller's speech
BH
Part 1: Using an Eruv anywhere
1. To explain a concept which needs an explanation for yidin, for chassidishe yidin, יראים ושלמים which want to understand the proper thing. Not only to do the right thing, but to understand this right thing.
If we would understand it, then we may also be able to explain it to other yidin also.
2. Many yungerlait ask: they are going away to this or that place for Shabbos, over there exists an eruv, may he carry there? Or may he not carry? Does lubavitch hold of an eruv or does not use an eruv? And if I may not, may my wife or kids carry within it? May I ask a goy to use it for me?
3. An eruv was made by the chazal. Someone who does not hold of an eruv is an apikores. There is no such a thing, that one does not hold of an eruv. Rather one says: that he does not hold of this or that specific eruv.
4.Only very few people know how to make an eruv properly in a city. One has to be a very very big expert. It is harder than making a heart surgery. To make a heart surgery, one needs to be a special expert, a regular doctor cannot make it.
There singular individuals in this generation that know how to make an eruv in a city. Singular people. Yechidim. (eruvin is one of the hardest mesechtes). One has to be a very very big expert to make an eruv.
5.One has to know who made the eruv
“men hot gemacht” “IT WAS MADE”
The first thing I answer to a yungerman who is traveling to a place:
First you have to know if there is even an Eruv. Before you ask if you may carry, you have to know who made it: a name and an address.
This is not enough (If one made an Eruv ten years ago): who is MAshgiach today, every shabbos on the eruv?
An eruv breaks: one builds a road, a goy can break it, or the eruv rips on its own. There has to be the same type of expert who is responsible and achro’I on the eruv every week.
So we need to know two things: who built the eruv, and who is the responsible for the eruv.
6.The same thing is in regards to a mikvo.
In order to build a mikvo, one has to be able to be a בעל הוראה.
And it is not enough, that this or that person built the mikvo ten years ago, one has to know who is responsible for the mikvo today.
7.Someone told me a story:
He went to a mikvo in a city in Italy, and saw that there was no rainwater. So he asks the rabbis of the city: what is going on here?
So the rabbi answers: what do you mean the great rabbi, reb avrohom sofer (the one who printed the Mei’iri) built this mikvo.
Very nice, then there was rainwater, today there is no rainwater, the rainwater was let out.
One has to know who is mashgiach on the mikvo as of today.
8.Afterwards one has to ask the person who is a בר סמכא who made the eruv, and is responsible for the eruv: tell me, what type of eruv did you make? Did you make an eruv which is kosher lemehadrin min hamehadrin, without any questions?
Did you make an eruv which is only good in extraneous cases (sha’as hadechak)? Is this eruv, kosher be’sha;as hadechak, bhefsad meruba l’tzorech orchim For erev Shabbos ?
One type of eruv was made here?
9.In Toronto there is an eruv. It was made by a godol betorah a yid by the name of shlomo miller.
I (,yself asked R. Sholomo Miller about an eruv he made and he told me it is one of the most best (sheinste) Eruvin in America, but Bnei Tora hshouldn’t use it. Bnei Torah means those who are Mehadare B’mitzvos.
He made the eruv, and by him it is poshut, that a mehader should not use the eruv.
10.After one knows who made it, and who is responsible, and that it is an eruv that is kosher for mehadrin according to all shitois and specifically according to the alter rebbe, then in such a case one may carry.
There is also a personal chumra that some individual chasidim have not to use an eruv if it was made with strings (it depends how it is made: there are those that are made with metal. However if it was made with strings), they were חושש that maybe the ruv might rip on Shabbos.
even if it was mehadrim min hamehadrim, because if it is made with strings it may have broken etc.
But this is just a chumra of individuals.
(This wouldn’t apply in a bungalow where you can always see the whole time if it broke or not, however in a big city.).
This was a personal chumro for those that were choishesh.
Part 2: The Eruv in Crown Heights
1.They say that an eruv was made here (in crown heights).
To explain the idea, I want to be makpid:
One time someone had a kid and didn’t make a pidyon haben. When he was asked why he didn’t make a pidyon haben he answered that there are 3 reasons why he didn’t. 1) My wife is a bas levi. 2) There was a miscarriage before and 3) the baby is a girl.
It’s understood that the first two factors are moot when the third factor is present.
2. So too about the Eruv here in Crown Heights. There are 3 problems with it.
1) No one knows who made it.
People speak, yungelait made it, people made it….
If someone (mister …) came from new jersey, and opened up a butcher shop and we had no idea who the schochtim, mashgiach, rav hamachshir, menakrim, bodkim etc. are no one would think of eating from the meat.
So too the Eruv in crown heights, not one person knows who actually made the Eruv and who is responsible for its building
.
2) Even if we would know who built the eruv, however There is no one taking responsibility for the continued kashrus of the Eruv after it was built. It could be that by the next shabbos it was broken, by bochurim, by…, by weather etc. maybe they built something there, maybe a big truck had to go through, and they took down the eruv?
This is the second reason:
The third reason is:
3) You can’t make an Eruv in crown Heights. You can’t period.
It is a Reshus harabim de’oiraiso.
Eastern Parkway and Empire Blvd is mufulash and open.
Over here, one cannot make an eruv.
3. It is not like Borugh Park. Over there big Rabbonim made the eruv, and there is a makhlokes if you can make an Eruv or not. Big Rabonim say you could make an Eruv there and other . there was always a machlokes.
One knows who are the rabbonim for every side. We knows names of big rabbonim who made, and we know of those who argue with it.
However, there is not one reliable Rov who says that is possible to make an Eruv in Crown Heights. There is not one rov, who has עפעס וואס א שייכות to הוראה who says that it is even possible in metzius to make an eruv here.
4. Therefore there is bichlal no eruv here.
One should explain to the people, that there is no eruv.
The Eruv is not posul, there is no eruv. The same way A Mikve without rain water is not a posule Mikve, it is not a Mikve in the first place. It may be a beautiful mikvo, a boir with a shower, and all good things, but it is missing rain water. It is not posul, rather it is not even a mikvo. The eruv is not posul, rather it is “gornishit mit gornisht”. this has to be explained to people.
5. And even if one will teach himself how to make an eruv: he will take lessons, learn how to make an eruv and his parnosso is: that he is travelling all over America making eruvin: it does not work.
A heart surgeon can’t just start and learn about making a surgery on the heart. he has to first be a general doctor, and he first has to learn about all the limbs and how the body works, and only then when he knows it well, can he become a specialist in this field.
An am ho’oretz gomur who taught hiself how to make an eruv or mikvo? It can’t be, it can’t be such a thing.
A mikvo has to be made by a בעל הוראה, not by a choshuve askan who taught himself how to make a mikvo. We have to give him kovoid, because he is a choshuve askan, and all such things.
However if he is not a בעל הוראה and he does not learn גמ' מיט תוס' מיט מלחמות און בעל המאור , and this is not his inyan, which he learns his whole life, then he has no שייכות to making a mikvo. And one cant ask him sha’alois, or rely on his to be responsible for a mikvo.
6. Even if he was in Yeshiva the best bochur, but hasn’t learned anything in 30 years, he cannot be relied upon. Having learned once upon a time is not enough.
With regards to the defense policy in Eretz Yisroel the Rebbe said that you have to ask those in the army. The Rebbe was answered that the politicians were once in the Army. The Rebbe said that those politicians are not currently in the army, but are in politics and therefore mix politics into to everything so you can’t rely on their opinion about defense.
If he is someone who learnt once upon a time, but today he sits and involves himself only in building eruvin, is gornisht and is not שייך to this.
7. Even if one would say he learns. But here we are talking about a case: where a guy without a name made it, and a guy without a name is responsible for it, and everybody admits that one can’t make an eruv here.
Not one reliable person (Bar Samcha) has said that you are able to make an eruv in Crown Heights.
Even if there would be a machlookes, and one reliable person who said it is possible and another reliable person who said you may not, it would still be a sofek dorisa of chilul Shabbos.
In actuality there isn’t even one reliable person who said it is doable. (ed. Note :And this was repeated).
But even if there was, and another disagreed (it was half and half and not a רוב and מיעוט), even in such a case it is a sofeik de;oiraiso.
So how can one carry? How can one carry?
This is aside from the fact, that this is going against the alter rebbe, and this is going against the rebbe. All this together.
This is a very very dangerous thing.
8.I think, that if one explains this to people who … I think that good amount will accept this.
It depends how this is explained.
Part 3: Our obligation in the current situation:
1. If one goes in the street and sees someone carrying one Shabbos, and one does not say anything, is he giving them his hoskoma. one must say something. One must not let it go, that is called giving it a haskomo.
It should be bdarchei noam uvdarchei sholom, but you must say something. One has to make it clear to the עולם.
2. Someone who was educated here, someone grew up here and was educated here …
If someone who grew up somewhere else and yesterday he came here from the ,ערי חושך, and doesn’t know anything about rabonim etc. he is a poshite person and hears there is an eruv here and carries, he is considered a Mechale Shabbos Bshogeg.
However, If someone who grew up in our Mosdos, he knows everything, he knows what all the Rabonim say and still uses the Eruv, he is considered a Mechale Shabbos Bmeizid.
( He probably carried before there was an Eruv also when no one was looking).
He is a mechalel Shabbos be’meizid.
I do not want to say, but it is a רחמנות גדול
Of course there is a mitzvo of ahavas yisroel, and one has to be bring him closer and be mekarev him, but it is a רחמנות גדול א גרויסע רחמות מיט אלע גדרים.
We have to to explain to the oilam what this all is:
The Eruv is non-existent (gor nit mit gor nit).
3. When a bochur gets married, he has to make sure there are no questions on the ed kidushin, if he is called a mechalel Shabbos or he is not called a mechalel shabbos.
When someone goes to eat in a restaurant or from another’s house he has to make sure the bread is considered pas yisroel, and the wine isn’t considered yayin nesach.
He has to make sure to be mevarer this, so there is no shaalo, it should not be that the guy is cholilo a meizid.
4. I hope there aren’t such people, one has to be very much carefull in such things. This is a very serious matter. Cholilo if one plays with the Shabbos!
There are enough other things that have been played with, but now are we going to play with the Shabbos?
This is a great danger if one plays with the Shabbos.
To play with the Alter Rebbe and the Rebbe in his daled amos is a gread pachad, a great pachad.
We have to see that one person makes it clear to the other, and explain this to the people bdarchei noam vdarchei sholom.
Hashem should help that there should be Sholom Al Yisroel.
*** (from someone elses account as posted in a comment on collive.com.)
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