Yonathan Reches
A proposed eiruv for St. Paul, MN and several surrounding communities follows a series of existing mehitzot (partitions), primarily natural bluffs and highway medians. Multiple bridges traverse these mehitzot, connecting the interior of the proposed eiruv to the surrounding cityscape and landscape. Contemporary halakhic practice[1] treats such bridges, when wider than ten ammot (fifteen feet), as peratzot (breaches) that interrupt the continuity of the mehitzah and require repair by tzurot ha-petah (forms of doorways, commonly constructed as two posts with a string between them). Without such a remedy, the eiruv would be invalid.
Such treatment of bridges, while universally practiced today, appears to be relatively recent. Around the eighteenth century, as community eiruvin in Europe grew larger and more commonplace, this topic was one of several hotly contested among rabbinic authorities. Lenient voices, such as Hatam Sofer,[2] Rabbi Yitzhak Moshe Heller,[3] Rabbi Aryeh Hayyim Horowitz,[4] Rabbi Shalom Yitzhak Sternberg,[5] and Rabbi Binyamin Aryeh Weiss,[6] suggested treating bridges as petahim (openings, which do not invalidate the eiruv), at least in certain cases. However, the more stringent voices, beginning with Noda Bi-Yehudah,[7] carried the day and were ultimately codified into the contemporary halakhic practice by Mishnah Berurah.[8]
Example: The westbound Wakota Bridge sits at the southeast corner of the proposed St. Paul eiruv, crossing the Mississippi River into the cityscape outside the eiruv. Here, the southern boundary of the eiruv is a highway median and the eastern boundary is the riverbank. Underlying the bridge is a partition consisting of a wingwall and an adjacent embankment. Does the bridge deck constitute a petah (opening) or a pirtzah (breach) of the eiruv?
At first glance, the treatment of bridges as breaches appears intuitive. A wide bridge crossing over a wall, ditch, or escarpment can seem functionally equivalent to a breach in that boundary, similarly to how a wall breached more than ten ammot loses its status as an effective mehitzah.
Is there room to reconsider the more lenient approach?
In practice, the contemporary practice of treating bridges as peratzot carries substantial consequences. The construction of tzurot ha-petah over bridges frequently requires complex permitting processes, coordination with civil authorities, significant financial expense, and ongoing maintenance obligations. There is no guarantee that permits will be granted, even if appropriately requested. These constraints can place the establishment of eiruvin beyond the practical reach of smaller or geographically dispersed Jewish communities, including St. Paul. More broadly, low-build or no-build eiruvin that rely primarily upon existing topographical and infrastructural features may offer an opportunity to reduce both the financial and environmental impacts associated with Jewish communal infrastructure.
I propose that Jewish communities should feel empowered to establish eiruvin that treat bridges as petahim.
This article argues that the contemporary treatment of wide bridges as peratzot is historically late and rests upon a series of interpretive shifts in the reading of earlier rabbinic sources. Prior to the eighteenth century, a straightforward reading of the Mishnah, Rishonim (medieval rabbinic sources), and early Aharonim (modern rabbinic sources) consistently treats bridges as petahim rather than peratzot, meaning that they do not require any amendment to constitute a valid feature of an eiruv’s boundary.
Importantly, the proposed argument extends beyond cases where the bridge is trivially a petah (e.g., the bridge surface is steep enough to independently constitute a mehitzah, is narrower than ten ammot, or has a tzurat ha-petah over it). Only one limitation is placed on the treatment of bridges as petahim: they cannot cover the underlying mehitzah entirely—but rather, some amount of the mehitzah must remain visible on both sides of the bridge, as in the image above, where embankments extend on either side of the Wakota Bridge in South St. Paul.
Definitions of Boundaries Between Domains
As will be shown below, a careful reading of the mishnah and Rishonim finds that the following terms are used consistently in defining the boundaries between rashuyot (domains):
- Mehitzah – a partition between two domains, specifically a rise or fall in elevation of ten tefahim (roughly 32 inches). A partition may be a wall, a terrace, a ditch (at least four tefahim wide), or a teil hamitlakkeit (a steep slope, rising or falling ten tefahim over four ammot). Two domains separated entirely by mehitzot are considered separate.
- Pirtzah – a gap in a mehitzah, where the length of the gap spans either 1) the entire length of the mechitzah,[9] or 2) at least ten ammot. Two domains sharing a pirtzah are treated as inseparable. Namely, two courtyards breached to one another must eiruv together and cannot form two separate eiruvin; and a private domain such as a courtyard which is breached to a reshut ha-rabbim (public domain) or a karmelit (semi-public domain) may not eiruv unless the breach is closed.
- Petah – an opening in a mehitzah, to include a breach of up to ten ammot, a tzurat ha-petah over a breach, a ladder (or similar structure used to scale a wall), a lockable gate, or a bridge. Two domains sharing a petah are separable. If both domains are reeshuyot ha-yahid (private domains), the residents have the discretion to form one eiruv or two separate eiruvin. If one domain is a karmelit[10] and the other is a reshut ha-yahid, the reshut ha-yahid is not breached, allowing one to carry therein (and allowing it to constitute part of an eiruv).
Sugyot in the Mishnah
The contemporary stringencies around bridges and eiruvin trace back to the Mishnah (Eiruvin 7:3-4). These halakhot consider whether two courtyards separated by a ditch must eiruv separately (i.e., the ditch is a mehitzah), must eiruv together (i.e., the ditch is a pirtzah), or have the option (i.e., the ditch is a petah):
If two courtyards are separated by a ditch, ten tefahim deep and four tefahim wide, the two courtyards eiruv separately and cannot eiruv as one, even if the ditch is filled with straw or hay. If it is filled with dirt or pebbles, they eiruv as one, and they may not eiruv separately. If one places over the ditch a plank at least four tefahim wide (or if one likewise places a plank between two balconies standing opposite one another), then the two courtyards or balconies may eiruv separately—and, if they wish, they may eiruv as one.[11]
Let us consider this mishnah as raising five distinct cases:
[1] Two courtyards separated by a ditch large enough to constitute a mehitzah (i.e., at least ten tefahim deep and four tefahim across);
[2] Two courtyards separated by said ditch, wherein the ditch is filled with straw or hay;
[3] Two courtyards separated by said ditch, wherein the ditch is filled with dirt or pebbles (identical illustration to the above, where the distinction derives from the function of straw/hay vs. dirt/pebbles);
[4] Two courtyards separated by said ditch, wherein the ditch is bridged over with a plank (at least four tefahim in width);
[5] Two balconies across from one another (this case devolves into a number of sub-cases, which are of ancillary importance to this article).
Cases [2] and [3] do not require the ditch to be filled entirely, only enough to reduce its depth below ten tefahim. Notably, the mishnah does not impose an explicit upper limit on the width of either the fill in cases [2] and [3] or the bridge in case [4]. Bridges wider than ten ammot were known at the time of the Mishnah, so this silence is significant.
The key question of this article can be understood as follows: Is there an implied upper size limit on the Mishnah’s treatment of bridges as petahim? I argue no.
The Loud Silence of Early Rabbinic Sources
The table below summarizes the positions of rabbinic sources over the centuries regarding whether a ditch remains a mehitzah or becomes a petah or a pirtzah when either infilled or traversed by a bridge. The table represents only the sources’ explicit rulings—without drawing inference across or within sources. Each of these sources is cited and explained below.
A summary of key rabbinic rulings on how infill and bridges of varying widths affect the status of a ditch as a boundary between two courtyards
| Source | Century (CE) | Infill (using dirt or pebbles to reduce depth or a board or reed to reduce width of ditch) | Bridge across ditch |
| Mishnah | 3rd | Pirtzah | <4 t’ Mehitzah
≥4 t’ Petah |
| Rashi | 11th | Pirtzah | <4 t’ Mehitzah
≥4 t’ Petah |
| Rif | 11th | Pirtzah | <4 t’ Mehitzah
≥4 t’ Petah |
| Mishneh Torah | 12th | Pirtzah | <4 t’ Mehitzah
≥4 t’ Petah |
| Rabbeinu Yonatan of Lunel | 12th-13th | ≤ 10 a’ Petah | <4 t’ Mchitzah
≥4 t’ Petah |
| Meiri | 13th-14th | <4 t’ Mehitzah
4 t’ – 10 a’ Petah >10 a’ Pirtzah |
<4 t’ Mehitzah
≥4 t’ Petah |
| Tur | 14th | Pirtzah | <4 t’ Mehitzah
≥4 t’ Petah |
| Shulhan Arukh | 16th | <4 t’ Mehitzah
4 t’ -10 a’ Petah >10 a’ Pirtzah |
<4 t’ Mehitzah
≥4 t’ Petah |
| Bah | 17th | <4 t’ Mehitzah
4 t’ – 10 a’ Petah >10 a’ Pirtzah |
<4 t’ Mehitzah
≥4 t’ Petah |
| Magein Avraham | 17th | <4 t’ Mehitzah
4 t’ – 10 a’ Petah >10 a’ Pirtzah |
<4 t’ Mehitzah
≥4 t’ Petah |
| Noda Bi-Yehudah | 18th | > 10 a’ Pirtzah | |
| Mahatzit Ha-Shekel | 18th | <4 t’ Mehitzah
4 t’ – 10 a’ Petah >10 a’ Pirtzah |
<4 t’ Mehitzah
4 t’ – 10 a’ Petah >10 a’ Pirtzah |
| Arukh Ha-Shulhan | 19th | <4 t’ Mehitzah
4 t’ – 10 a’ Petah >10 a’ Pirtzah |
<4 t’ Mehitzah
4 t’ – 10 a’ Petah >10 a’ Pirtzah |
| Mishnah Berurah | 19th-20th | <4 t’ Mehitzah
4 t’ – 10 a’ Petah >10 a’ Pirtzah |
<4 t’ Mehitzah
4 t’ – 10 a’ Petah >10 a’ Pirtzah |
The medieval and early modern rabbinic literature follows the mishnah’s silence on an upper limit for the width of bridges as petahim.
In Mishneh Torah (Eiruvin 3:12-14), Rambam codifies the cases of the ditch as follows:
If two courtyards are separated by a ditch, ten tefahim deep and four tefahim wide, the two courtyards eiruv separately. Less than these dimensions, they eiruv as one and may not eiruv separately. If the depth of the ditch is reduced with dirt or pebbles, they eiruv as one, and they may not eiruv separately, for dirt and pebbles tend to remain in place. If one fills the ditch with straw or hay, this does not effectively reduce the depth of the ditch until one fixes it in place. Likewise, if one reduced the width of the ditch using a board or reed laid along the entire length[12] of the ditch, they eiruv as one and may not eiruv separately… If one places a board at least four tefahim wide over the width of the ditch, they eiruv as one—and, if they wish, they may eiruv separately.
Rambam largely reflects the simple reading of the mishnah, substituting the word “board” for “plank,” and clarifying a few edge cases (with Rif ruling similarly). Note that Rambam explicitly discusses two distinct geometries of the board: case [4] above, in which the board bridges the ditch, and a new case [6], in which the board, on-edge (or alternatively a reed) is placed along the lip of the ditch to reduce its width. Though a board is used in both cases, the function is different. In case [4], the board makes the ditch convenient to traverse—but does not diminish its actual dimensions.[13] In case [6], the board is used similarly to an infill of dirt or pebbles in case [3], to diminish the dimensions of the ditch. However, in case [6], it is the width, rather than depth, that is reduced. Once the ditch is narrower than four tefahim, it no longer constitutes a mehitzah.
One might wonder whether it is reasonable to scale the Mishnah’s or Rambam’s treatment of case [4] to a full-sized bridge. Could it be that these sources do not consider a wide board simply because planks wider than 10 ammot didn’t exist in their world? This seems unlikely, given that rabbinic sources regularly rule on matters of physical impossibility,[14] often as a matter of analogs for more complex cases. Indeed, Rashi and Tur explicitly liken the case of the board to a bridge, without imposing an upper limit on its width. Meiri on Eiruvin (78b) provides the broadest reading: “When the length of the plank is placed across the width of the ditch, it functions as a bridge—and a bridge has the status of a petah.”
An obvious challenge of this line of reasoning is that the argument comes from silence. Still, the centuries-long silence in this case is too loud to overlook.
For one thing, the absence of an explicit upper limit on width is asymmetrical: although these Rishonim are fully aware elsewhere of the ordinary ten-ammah threshold separating a petah from a pirtzah, when discussing bridges specifically they all appear to share Meiri’s position that even a wide bridge retains its status as a petah, as its function is to make the underlying mehitzah convenient for use, rather than to eliminate it. Similarly to the mishnah, this omission is difficult to dismiss as unintentional, particularly considering the prevalence of large bridges in both the Roman and medieval worlds.
Early Interpretive Divergences
The argument from silence becomes a bit less tidy when we encounter Rabbeinu Yonatan of Lunel. While he does not rule that wide bridges necessarily constitute peratzot, his commentary on Eiruvin raises some notable questions. Here, for the first time, we find shiurim (halakhic boundaries on measures) for the function of infill:
“If it is filled with dirt or pebbles” – They eiruv as one, as the ditch is completely filled, for dirt and pebbles tend to remain in place, and the two courtyards become one, for there is nothing to separate them. Therefore, they do not eiruv separately. And this is the principle: if only ten ammot of the ditch were filled in, and some of the ditch remains visible on this side and on that side, the boundary becomes like a petah; and if they wish, they may eiruv as one, and if they wish, they may eiruv separately. This matter was not mentioned in the mishnah only because it is uncommon.
“If one places over the ditch a plank at least four tefahim wide” – Like a bridge from one courtyard to the other, that is that one placed the length of the plank over the width of the ditch. Since the boundary becomes convenient to traverse (for a person is not concerned to cross from one side to the other over the bridge), it resembles infill.
The crucial phrase, which ignites later stringencies about wide bridges, is “if only ten ammot of the ditch were filled in,” meaning that filling the ditch with dirt or pebbles up to ten ammot constitutes a petah (and, by inference, more than this presumably constitutes a pirtzah). Rabbeinu Yonatan is thus providing a lenient clarification of the mishnah, allowing discretion in making eiruvin in those cases where the fill is up to ten ammot along the ditch (whereas a simple reading of the mishnah might be understood to treat such cases as peratzot).
Admittedly, Rabbeinu Yonatan notes a similarity between the two cases at the end of the second paragraph. It would be reasonable to read his words – “it resembles infill” – as implying that the shiur of ten ammot applies to both cases [3] and [4]. However, he himself does not explicitly state this. Centuries of subsequent halakhists do not read him thus – or, at least, do not rule thus when interpreting him.[15]
Beit Yosef (Orah Hayyim 372:29) expresses perplexion at Rabbeinu Yonatan’s mention of ten ammot:
Rabbeinu Yonatan wrote, “Even if the ditch was not infilled, but rather ten ammot alone [were closed off], and some of the ditch remains visible on this side and on that side, the boundary becomes like a petah, and if they wish, they may eiruv as one, and if they wish, they may eiruv separately. This matter was not mentioned in the mishnah only because it is uncommon.” And I do not understand why he required ten ammot and also why he wrote that this was not mentioned in the mishnah, for in all such matters four tefahim suffice—all the more so when one places a plank over a ditch four tefahim suffice.
Beit Yosef is perplexed, seemingly because R. Karo thinks Rabbeinu Yonatan is applying the ten-ammah limit to bridges. As petahim, bridges have a minimum shiur of four tefahim but no maximum shiur—so R. Karo cannot understand why Rabbeinu Yonatan is referencing ten ammot. This could be a simple error in indexing – either by the source or R. Karo’s reading – taking Rabbeinu Yonatan’s ruling to apply to bridges, rather than to infill.
Note also how Beit Yosef quotes Rabbeinu Yonatan as “if the ditch was not infilled, but rather ten ammot [were closed off],” compared to, “if only ten ammot of the ditch were filled in.” This appears to be a girsah (version) issue, which would help explain why R. Karo thinks Rabbeinu Yonatan is discussing bridges. Indeed, Hon Ashir suggests as much (though it appears he may have a third girsah altogether):
However, according to the correct girsah, which I copied from the Sefer Rav Alfasi printed in Sabbioneta, where the text reads “if [it] were filled in,” the matter is straightforward as I explained. For the text teaches us that up to ten ammot its law is like that of four tefahim, since up to that measure it is considered a petah. By implication, more than ten ammot has the status of a pirtzah. Therefore, they may not eiruv separately, just as though the ditch had been entirely filled with dirt and pebbles. And I have no doubt that the [mistaken] girsah quoted by Beit Yosef […] misled him.
R. Karo, like Rambam, ultimately codifies that a bridge constitutes a petah – with no upper limit on width. In Shulhan Arukh (OH 372:17), he codifies (and Rema does not dispute):
If one places over it a plank like a bridge, extending from one edge of the ditch to the other, and it is four tefahim wide, it is considered a petah. They may eiruv as one, and if they wish, they may eiruv separately.
Taz on Orah Hayyim (372:9) adds another layer of interpretive divergence. He quotes both Rabbeinu Yonatan and Beit Yosef above, and responds that R. Karo must have misunderstood Rabbeinu Yonatan, though his reasoning is different to Hon Ashir:
In my humble opinion, Rabbeinu Yonatan’s comments relate to the clause in the mishnah, “If one places over it a plank…” Regarding this, Rabbeinu Yonatan said: one should not say that only where the placement of a plank four tefahim wide leaves the matter dependent upon their discretion, whereas if it is wider than four tefahim they no longer have permission to eiruv separately because each courtyard prohibits the other, since there is now a large breach between them. Rather, Rabbeinu Yonatan teaches us that even if the ditch is closed off up to ten ammot, while portions of the ditch remain visible on this side and on that side, nevertheless it is not considered a pirtzah but rather a petah, and they may eiruv separately. In my humble opinion, this is plainly Rabbeinu Yonatan’s intent.
Importantly, while Taz reads Rabbeinu Yonatan as being more stringent than other authorities, he does not actually rule on the substance of the issue. It would be reasonable (and, in my view, correct)[16] to read him as saying, essentially, “Rabbeinu Yonatan rules strictly on bridges, but we don’t hold by Rabbeinu Yonatan. Beit Yosef may have been confused about how to read Rabbeinu Yonatan, but he got the bottom-line halakhah right.”
A girsah issue could explain all these misreadings—especially an internal cross-referencing error. It is particularly easy to imagine Rabbeinu Yonatan’s explanation incorrectly noted under the case of the plank, which immediately follows the case of infill. We do not have direct evidence of such an issue specifically, though the evidence we do have points to the existence of a substantive variation of girsa’ot available to the Aharonim.
As recently as the seventeenth century, rabbis (even those who relied on Taz) continued to see bridges as petahim. Bah on Orah Hayyim (372:13) continues to apply the shiur of ten ammot uniquely to a closure, not a bridge:
“If two courtyards are separated by a ditch…” — this is the mishnah and gemara there. The matter is straightforward that the same applies if no more than ten ammot alone of the ditch were filled in, and no more, while portions of the ditch remain visible on this side and on that side, for then it has the status of a petah. If they wish, they may eiruv as one, and if they wish, they may eiruv separately. However, if more than ten ammot were filled in, it has the status of a pirtzah, and they eiruv as one and may not eiruv separately. This was Rabbeinu Yonatan’s opinion. Beit Yosef challenged his explanation, but there is no difficulty at all. See what I wrote regarding this in siman 373.
In siman 373, he wrote:
Likewise regarding two balconies: where the separation between them is less than four tefahim, if they wish they may eiruv separately, and if they wish they may eiruv as one. This may be resolved by explaining that the separation of less than four tefahim extends along the entire length of the balconies for more than ten ammot. For similarly in the case of a ditch, when it is filled in such that it is no longer four tefahim wide along a span greater than ten ammot, while portions of the ditch remain visible on this side and on that side, they eiruv as one and may not eiruv separately, as I wrote in the previous siman, se’if 9. And the same law applies to balconies. However, if this separation of less than four tefahim extends only along a span of ten ammot and no more, it has the status of a petah. If they wish, they may eiruv as one, and if they wish, they may eiruv separately.
If so, Bah takes the analogous case [5] of the two balconies and, similarly to case [6], reduces their separation below four tefahim by attaching some spacer to one of the balconies. This creates a new case [7]. In such a case, once again, the span of the gap is insufficient to create a pirtzah, so that the status of the boundary depends on its length, like case [3] of the infill.
Magein Avraham (OH 372:29) rules similarly to Bah, citing the above rulings from Bah to extend his assertions of case [7] back to case [6]:
And if one reduced the width of the ditch using a board placed lengthwise for more than ten ammot, they may not eiruv separately. (Bah; Rambam)
One might be tempted to read Magein Avraham as saying that a bridge wider than ten ammot constitutes a pirtzah. However, a careful reading reveals that he is discussing the width of the ditch, not the width of the board. This is case [6], where the ditch is narrowed, rather than traversed. Note how Magein Avraham cites Rambam and Bah. Neither of them applies a shiur of ten ammot to a bridge, while both apply it to a pirtzah narrowed to less than four tefahim. He would not have cited them if he had intended to rule that wide bridges constitute peratzot.
When the Halakhah Finally Shifted
Despite the interpretive divergences noted above, no halakhic authority prior to the eighteenth century explicitly ruled that wide bridges constitute peratzot. That ruling first comes from Noda Bi-Yehudah, in a responsum on Orah Hayyim 42:
Let His Honor know that I do not agree with him regarding this leniency. For if this was indeed the intention of the Tosefet Shabbat, he should have explained the source of this principle—that a bridge does not prohibit because it constitutes a pirtzah…
And you may know that this is indeed so, for Magein Avraham writes in 372:29 that if one reduced the width of the ditch by means of a board placed lengthwise along the ditch for more than ten ammot, the two sides may not eiruv separately.
Quite simply, Magein Avraham is describing case [6], which Noda Bi-Yehudah misreads as case [4]. It’s an easy mistake to make, given that both cases use similar terms to discuss a board and a ditch—but the inverted reading ends up creating unneeded stringency. While he does not cite Rabbeinu Yonatan or Taz, it does seem plausible that Noda Bi-Yehudah was aware of their writings and may have thought he was building on solid halakhic ground to treat wide bridges as peratzot.
Mahatzit Ha-Shekel, Mishnah Berurah, Arukh HaShulhan, and later Aharonim consistently follow Noda Bi-Yehudah on the treatment of bridges, and this has become the common way of ruling on contemporary eiruvin. However, if contemporary halakhic stringency does, in fact, stem from a misreading and possibly a copyediting error, it may be worth reconsidering a more lenient approach.
Considering the trajectory of all the sources as summarized in the above table, a clear halakhic picture emerges:
- We see a ditch that is infilled with permanent material (dirt/pebbles that reduce its depth or a board/reed that narrows its width) according to its actual dimensions—rather than its original dimensions. If the filled-in section is sufficiently long, it becomes a petah (at least four tefahim), then a pirtzah (more than ten ammot). Such a reading would be consistent across all sources and only assumes that the Mishnah and some Rishonim wrote in an economy of language.
- We see a ditch that is bridged as a petah, provided that the bridge is at least four tefahim wide. Such a reading would be consistent with all authorities up to and including Magein Avraham. Only in the eighteenth century do sources begin to break from this principle, apparently due to ambiguous wording in Magein Avraham and potentially multiple girsa’ot of Rabbeinu Yonatan.
Reflecting the Conflicting Readings Back on the Mishnah
Ideally, a good interpretation should uncover the true intent of the mishnah. With the benefit of this broad historical reading, how do the stringent vs. lenient interpretations match up with the mishnah’s intent?
The mishnah treats case [3] of infill as distinct from case [4] of the bridge. In the former, the infill forms a pirtzah, and the two domains become contiguous. In the latter, the bridge forms a petah, and the two domains become separable at the discretion of those forming the eiruv. Per the table above, that distinction collapses if we accept the logic of Noda Bi-Yehudah and those who follow him. If we follow their reasoning, the two cases are determined exactly alike. Why, then, would the mishnah articulate them both—much less conclude that the two cases function differently? That distinction must mean something.
I propose that the distinction consists in that, in the case of infill, the mehitzah of the ditch is eliminated (or, at least, its dimensions are reduced so that it is no longer an effective mehitzah). In the case of the bridge, the mehitzah remains, but there is now a convenient way to traverse it. Such a reading would be consistent with the Rishonim, such as Meiri’s requirement that “the ditch remains visible on this side and on that side.” If the ditch were entirely bridged over, it would not be discernable as a domain, and then the ditch is considered as infilled. This function of a bridge as a convenient means of traverse is analogous to that of a lockable gate, a ladder, a set of zizim (protrusions), or any other means used to scale a wall (discussed in Mishneh Torah, Eiruvin 3). Such features become petahim, even if they are extremely wide, because the underlying mehitzah of the wall remains. I propose that the same should hold true for the mehitzah of the ditch.
The Impacts on Real-World Eiruvin
As the new St. Paul eiruv prepares (please God) to permit thousands of Jews to carry on Shabbat by relying on bridges as petahim, our community’s case may provide precedent for addressing a broader challenge. Existing topography and infrastructure often provide substantial mehitzot to establish eiruvin, while bridges introduce a potential sticking point in the urban environment. There is a real temptation to satisfy all opinions by putting up tzurot ha-petah over every bridge—but what if we could accomplish the same objective by force of argument instead?
Better yet, could we ground such a halakhic move in intention, rather than necessity? Standing on the shoulders of the lenient, heretofore dissenting voices of the last three centuries, we are, ironically, seeking to innovate by returning to a much older practice. We believe that our reliance on bridges as petahim has brought us not only closer to our goal of establishing an eiruv but to a better understanding of the Mishnah’s vision of the world.
[1] See, for example, the 2020 Orthodox Union pamphlet on the subject and two recent responsa.
[2] Responsum on Orah Hayyim 89.
[3] Letter to Binyan Olam, Orah Hayyim 14.
[6] Responsa Even Yekarah #57.
[7] On Orah Hayyim 42.
[9] In some cases, more than half.
[10] The case of a true reshut ha-rabbim differs in treatment depending on the type of petah and the halakhic source. In modern practice, almost no areas are considered as reshuyot ha-rabbim, so that petahim (commonly posts and wire) are often used to enclose eiruvin.
[11] All translations are my own.
[12] The “entire length” appears to be shorthand for multiple dimensional cases, like the case of infill explored in the table above.
[13] Importantly, this principle is found not only in the rabbinically-derived laws of eiruvin, but also in the laws of mehitzot at a Torah level. See Mishneh Torah, Shabbat 14:22, where items resting in a ditch invalidate its force as a partition, but water and objects floating upon the water do not.
[14] E.g., a bill of divorce written on an olive leaf in Mishnah Gittin 2:3, a flying tower in Hagigah 15b, or a man who falls off a roof and thus accidentally impregnates a woman betrothed to him for levirite marriage in Yevamot 54a:1.
[15] Taz and possibly Beit Yosef appear to have read Rabbeinu Yonatan as referring to bridges, as discussed below, but, halakhically speaking, they did not rule according to their (mis)understanding of Rabbeinu Yonatan.
[16] Later authorities who rely on Taz, such as Bah and Magein Avraham (discussed below), continue to rule like Beit Yosef and are silent about an upper shiur for the width of bridges. This indicates that they do not see Taz as ruling stringently on this matter.
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