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Thought for the Day: Bottom Line -- You Don't Need to Make an Eruv Chatzeiros in a Hotel; But Why Not?

[Gleaned from R' Fuerst's Sunday morning shiur, Sept 10 -- last one this year! Any mistakes are mine.]

Take a look at the beautiful set of Mishna Brura on most of our shelves and you'll notice that one volume looks particularly pristine. Right, I don't even have to tell you which one; and it's not because it also happens to be the thinnest volume.

Nonetheless, everyone really does need to know a bit more about eruvin than either (1) I don't hold by any eruv, or (2) I don't know what the fuss about the eruv is. [My two cents: For the (2) people -- the rule is that in case of doubt on a Torah prohibition, you are obligated to rule stringently. If you don't know then you certainly should not be carrying on Shabbos! For the (1) people -- umm... there is an entire masechta eruvin; perhaps you ought to come down from that high horse and get a better view of reality.]

In fact, a hotel fits quite nicely into the definition of courtyards as described by Chazal. So now you have multiple residences (temporary though they may be) opening onto a common area, aka a courtyard. That is the classic case of needing an eruv chatzeros. How does an eruv work? You put something in one residence the basically makes that one residence a shared residence and then we aren't carrying between residences with different owners. However, we only need that if the hotel owner doesn't have any property in each residence which already gives him a share of the ownership. According to some poskim, when you rent a hotel room you are temporarily acquiring the room and everything in it; therefore you absolutely need to make an eruv.

The majority of poskim -- R' Fuerst among them -- hold that you don't need to make an eruv, even l'chumra. There are three different approaches to how that works.

  1. While you are renting the furniture in the room, you do not have the right to do with it as you like. Moreover, you are obligated to pay for any damage. That makes you a שומר/guard and not an owner.
  2. You are not renting the furniture. You are renting a room and the owner is letting you use his stuff. That means he absolutely had his stuff in your room. No eruv needed.
  3. You are actually not even renting a room, you are the guest of the hotel manager. (Yes, you have to pay for the right to be a guest... you are still a guest.) Of course, as a guest you don't need an eruv.

Nonetheless, for the Aguda convention, R' Fuerst does make an eruv chatzeiros; without making a bracha, of course. He uses the manager, as the manager has been given the prerogative to  allow use of the property as he sees fit by the owner. Why, if R' Fuerst holds that an eiruv is not needed, even l'chumra, would he make an eiruv? Because, there are a couple of thousand Jews from all over, and one of them might be makpid like the minority view, so R' Fuerst does a chesed for them to make them feel more comfortable.

Honestly, as much as I enjoyed the shiur, that last bit is what made the biggest impression on me.

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