Rav Moshe zt"l and the Walking Stick

The detractors of eruvin have always claimed that when Hagaon Harav Moshe Feinstein zt”l stated that there is no reshus harabbim today because we rely on the heter of shishim ribo (Igros Moshe, O.C. 3:94, 5:24:10), he certainly did not mean Boro Park or Flatbush. The most illuminating of all his teshuvos is this final one on the issue, regarding a blind woman using a walking stick on Shabbos (ibid., vol. 8, O.C. 5:19). Rav Moshe ends this teshuvah by stating that today we rely on the fact that there is almost no true reshus harabbim. In Kovetz Am HaTorah (1986 no. 11), where this teshuvah was first printed, it clearly states that this woman lived in Boro Park. This very important fact was purposefully omitted from the teshuvah when Igros Moshe volume 8 was printed posthumously!

* Note the omission of the woman’s place of residence.