Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The Kew Gardens Hills eruv is up, after the Tornado! The Forest Hills eruv is NOT!

There was a worry that the eruv in Kew Gardens Hills would not be up by Shabbos. If so, it would be have been forbidden to carry food from the house to the succah, without making your own private eruv. Baruch Hashem, this is not a concern, and the eruv is up.

But last I heard, the Forest Hills eruv is expected to be down this Shabbos, due to the recent tornado. Indeed, it may be down for the foreseeable future, due to lack of funds to reconstruct it. If so, there is a problem carrying 4 cubits outdoors, and there is a problem of transferring items from your house to the outside, and from the outside to the succah.

It is better to eat your meal in the house than to violate Shabbos by carrying, or from your house into the public domain (even if it has the status only Rabbinically), into your Succah. Shev ve'al taaseh adif. The best thing to do is consult your local Orthodox rabbi now, so that you can figure out appropriate steps.

These steps may be -- but consult your local Orthodox rabbi to make sure that the approach is valid, and would work for your specific situation:

  1. construct an eruv which encompasses your house and succah
  2. make an eruv chatzeiros if it is jointly-owned property
  3. make other plans, such as alternate meals
  4. maybe place your succah right next to your window and pass food from the window of the house directly into the window of the succah
  5. finding out if amira le'akum is acceptable in such a situation (shevus de'shevus be'makom mitzvah).
  6. leave the meals for Shabbos inside the Succah before Shabbos begins
If you've been in this situation in the past, then you likely know what to do. But for those of us who grew up with an eruv, we may well want to consult an expert to find out what to do.

Again, this post is not intended to be halacha lemaaseh. Consult your local Orthodox rabbi for some practical advice.

Update: From the Vaad Harabonim of Queens
Please be advised that our updated information is as follows:

Kew Gardens Hills, Kew Gardens, and the Eruv to Booth (NY Hospital) WILL BE in
operation.

Please look out for the updates to come for Forest Hills and others as they come in.

2 comments:

shaul@israel said...

i hope that sukkot in this region will be good and peaceful!chag sameah!

joshwaxman said...

thanks.
chag kasher vesameach.

josh

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