King Solomon's Takanah: Rambam's Eruv - Hakirah.org

King Solomon’s Takanah: Rambam’s Eruv : 209
Such a stance would be consistent with the opinion of the Rosh, that
the 600,000 is a function of travelers on the road rather than people
in the vicinity. Rav Menachem Kasher does find several references to
this language, even in the original source of the shittah, the Baal
Halachos Gedolos—
"
Nevertheless, he concludes, as it does appear, 69 that even in these
cases the language is לאו דוקא and the 600,000 need be only in the
‏.רה ר דוכתא דדשין בה שית מאה אלפי גברי בכל יום
area. However, the opinion of the Rosh 70 would make a literal
interpretation of the mechaber viable and opens the gates for
permitting eruvin almost anywhere.
Rambam’s conceptualization would seem to explain another
Rashi as well. Rashi (Eruvin 6a) and Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim
71
345:7) speak of מפולשים משער לשער as a requirement of ‏"ר only
within a walled city. This can be explained with Rambam’s concept
that רשויות are particular structures and not just defined by a
collection of rules. Rashi here refers to the main-street concept that
existed in historic towns, and even today in many places, in which an
outside road passes straight through the center of a town and
constitutes its main street. 72
In Ramban as well, we find shades of Rambam’s thought.
Ramban was open to Rambam’s principle that מחיצות are not uniform
in their halachic effect. He suggests that Rav Yehudah only
considered two מחיצות sufficient to remove an entity from being a
when they surround a road, but for a large square where people רה ‏"ר
69 Some of those quoting this language are only quoting it to reject it.
70 ‏.רא ‏"ה Also voiced as a possibility by the
71
" 71
. רש ‏"י — 72 This is essentially the point of the Aruch HaShulchan 345:20. See,
however, how Rav Moshe Feinstein, in Iggeros Moshe 5:28, explains it in
terms of Diglei Midbar. In any case, the roads do not generally go
absolutely straight, and as Rav Moshe explains, it is difficult to take the
meaning as requiring the city gates to be facing each other. It is
הילכך כל מבוי 59a) informative to note the language of Ramban (Eruvin
‏"ר
. This would seem to be Rashi’s shittah, that in a non-walled city the streets generally are accessed
from outside the city and thus are ‏"ר , but in a walled city only the
main street that passes through the city gates and is accessed from
outside the city is considered a ‏"ר as long as access is not cut off by
101a, See Rashi Eruvin ‏.דלתות
" רה
רה
‏"מכוון משער לשער שיהא מפולש"‏ ועי'‏ בריטב"א שיש לגרוס ‏"או
מפולש בשני ראשין ומכוון עד חוץ למדינה...‏ הוא רה
רה
‏.ד ה חייבין