Neville Chaim Berlin,
“With all due respect, I’m going to trust their counts over your’s. Obviously it isn’t purely quantitative.”
Your just shooting from the hip, and have no idea what I am referring to. The Mishkenos Yaakov (and the Mishnah Beruarh, who followed him), was the one who argued that it is quantitative, because in his times there were more Rishonim published. It was the Bais Ephraim who insisted it is minhag. [However, the Bais Ephraim did argue that in fact the Mishkenos Yaakov is incorrect regarding numbers as well.] Hence, either one follows the Bais Ephraim who argues that it is the minhag, or one follows the Mishkenos Yaakov and seeks out all the Rishonim that have been published to date. In fact today we know that the Mishkenos Yaakov’s tally has been greatly superseded.
“Unless they were time travelers, they didn’t say anything about reshusei harabim “today.”
This is a made up argument by people who never learnt the inyan, and don’t realize that the Rishonim and Achronim meant not just in their times, but forever. I will just quote Rav Shlomo Kluger:
זה לשון “ספר החיים” לגאון ישראל הגר”ש קלוגער ז”ל (סי’ שמ”ה סעי’ ז) שהשיב לחכם אחד שהקשהו מיבמות (קי”ג ע”ב) דר’ יצחק אתאביד לי’ מפתחי ברה”ר, הרי מוכח דאף בזה”ז יש רה”ר, והשיב: “אבל הבל יפצה, דאטו לא משכחת לה בימי הש”ס לאחר החורבן שהיה מקום שעוברין בו ס’ רבוא… והרי דעת רש”י הוא זה דאין בזה”ז רה”ר, אלא ודאי דבימי חכמי הש”ס היה שכיח מקומות שיהיה נחשב רה”ר שהיה בו ס’ רבוא, וזה פשוט”. דברי קדשו אלו נאמרו בזמן שעדיין היו עיירות גדולות כמו לונדון ופאריז שהיו בהם יותר מס”ר אוכלוסין ואעפ”כ כתב דבזה”ז אין רה”ר
“You can’t confidently say “we” when you have no idea what the questioner is. Hence why I told him he needs to go by his mesora/rav. You did the same thing with n0mesora regarding the OP; why can’t this discussion just be theoretical for you? Why do you insist on trying to convince people to be more meikel in actuality?”
You are obfuscating. You clearly meant that the issue is cut and dried, and that is why one should ask his rav. I argued that there are many reasons to allow, and hence there are really no reasons to be machmir. [However, I do not disagree that one should follow his rav.] Regarding shihsim ribo, unless he is Sfardei, we follow the Rema. I am pretty sure that the OP, you and n0mesora are Ashkenazim. Even for Sefardim it is not that simple what is the opinion of the Mechaber. Many poskim maintain the Shulchan Aruch accepts shishim ribo lechatchilah.
The question is not why I try to convince people to be mekil, but only why are people trying to argue that one should be machmir. From the get go, people make statements that a reshus harabbim cannot be encompassed by a tzuras hapesach, and that the only heter for cities is shishim ribo. All these declarations demonstrate that people simply do not know the inyan, and are seeking chumros. Why?
“Call it what you must.”
Sorry you are witness number one. It is comical that so many people shoot their mouth off regarding eruvin without admitting that they simply do not know the inyan.