Eiruvin 55b: Those who live in huts are as if they live in graves, and regarding their daughters it is written, “Cursed is he who lies with an animal.” Why? Because they notice when their neighbors go to the mikvah.

Hagahos Ashri, quoting Agudah: Based on this, women have the custom to be discreet on the night of their immersion, and are careful not to go in a noticeable manner.

Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 198:48, Rema: Some have written that a woman must be discreet on the night of her immersion, and this is indeed the custom of women, to conceal the fact that they are going to the mikvah that night, not to go noticeably or in front of others, so that people should not notice. And whoever does not do so – regarding her it says, “Cursed is he who lies with an animal.”

עירובין נה ע”ב אליעזר איש ביריא אומר: יושבי צריפין כיושבי קברים, ועל בנותיהם הוא אומר (דברים כ״ז) ארור שכב עם כל בהמה. מאי טעמא? וכו’ רבי יוחנן אמר: מפני שמרגישין זה לזה בטבילה. וכתב בהגהות אשרי שם ד”ה יושבי כו’. ונ”ל בשביל זה נהגו הנשים להיות צנועות בליל טבילתן שלא לילך במהומה, אגודה.

רמ”א יו”ד קצ”ח סמ”ח יש שכתבו שיש לאשה להיות צנועה בליל טבילתה וכן נהגו הנשים להסתיר ליל טבילתן שלא לילך במהומה או בפני הבריות שלא ירגישו בהן בני אדם ומי שאינה עושה כן נאמר עליה ארור שוכב עם בהמה.

In the town of Szerdahely, Hungary, there was a woman who operated a small store. Whenever she went to the mikvah, she would have to close the store early, and she feared people would notice. So she asked Rabbi Yehuda Aszod (known as the Mahari Aszod), the rav of the town and one of the gedolei hador, what to do. He recommended that she delay her immersion until Friday night.

Rabbi Shmuel Wosner, the Shevet Halevi, quotes this ruling and concurs, but then he comments: “However, when a young couple eats supper at the home of her parents, the wife should not delay going to the mikvah out of fear that the parents might notice. They should just be as quiet as possible about it.”  

The ruling of the Mahari Aszod seems to support this too, because we see that he recommended that the woman delay her immersion until Friday night. Going to the mikvah on a Friday night would be very noticeable to her children, yet he permitted it. However, we don’t know the situation there: perhaps she had no children, or had only small children who would not notice.

We can also bring proof to Rav Wosner from the Gemara itself. It says that those who dwell in huts notice when their neighbors go to the mikvah, because the huts are so close together. If the obligation to be discreet applies to family members too, then even people who live in mansions, with plenty of space between them and their neighbors, might be noticed by their family when they go out at night at an unusual time. Why is living in huts worse? Clearly, family members are different.

As the reason why family members are different, we can speculate:

1) Perhaps it is because Chazal understood that if they imposed such a high level of secrecy on going to the mikvah, some women (those with older children, or those living with parents) would never go. The story of the Mahari Aszod illustrates that secrecy overrides tevilah in its proper time, but it does not override tevilah altogether.

2) It’s also possible that with family members, there is some benefit in them knowing about the mikvah. Parents of the husband or wife, such as in Rav Wosner’s case, are pleased to know that their child has a happy marriage. And children need to know that they live in a solid home where their parents love each other. Of course, this doesn’t mean they should be told about it as a first choice, but in a case where there is a possibility that they may find out, we don’t delay the tevilah. On the other hand, when people outside the home may find out, we do delay it, since there is nothing positive about that.

Eiruvin 11a: Let us bring proof to Rav Yosef, who held that according to Rav, one may not carry in a courtyard whose openings total more than its solid wall, even if those openings have tzuras hapesachs. “If the walls of the courtyard have many doors and windows, it is good as long as the solid is more than the open.” Rav Kahana responded: That is no proof, because it is referring to openings that are in ruins. Rav Rechumei and Rav Yosef: one explained that “in ruins” means they have no doorposts, and the other explained that it means they have no lintel.

עירובין יא ע”א: לימא מסייע ליה: דפנות הללו שרובן פתחים וחלונות ־ מותר, ובלבד שיהא עומד מרובה על הפרוץ. שרובן סלקא דעתך? אלא אימא: שריבה בהן פתחים וחלונות, ובלבד שיהא עומד מרובה על הפרוץ. ־ אמר רב כהנאֹ כי תניא ההיא ־ בפיתחי שימאי. מאי פיתחי שימאי? פליגי בה רב רחומי ורב יוסףֹ חד אמר: דלית להו שקפי, וחד אמר: דלית להו תיקרה.

The original eiruv of Antwerp did not include the southern neighborhood of Berchem. In 1972, some from the Berchem community came to complain to the rav, Rabbi Chaim Kreiswirth, who appointed Reb Pinchus Kornfeld to survey the area and see if an eiruv was possible. After the survey, Reb Pinchus went over his questions and proposals with Harav Kreiswirth, who took into account the needs of young women with babies to get out of the house on hot summer Shabbosim. He inspected it at the beginning of Nissan so that it would be ready for Pesach.

The eiruv was based on the mesorah Rav Kreiswirth had: to rely on the Shaarei Tzion (siman 3), who permitted the eiruv of Warsaw based on the argument that you can place one lechi at one end of the telegraph line and one at the other, and you need not place one at every pole in between, because although the wire zigzags, the lintel of the tzuras hapesach is allowed to be crooked. The main posek opposing the Shaarei Tzion was the Mishkenos Yaakov.

The eiruv in the main part of Antwerp, on the other hand, was on a higher level of stringency, not making use of the Shaarei Tzion’s kula.

The Shaarei Tzion brings proof from a diyuk in Rashi on the above Gemara in Eiruvin 11a. On the opinion that defines “a ruined door” as one without doorposts, Rashi explains it means the sides are uneven, with some bricks missing and some jutting out. On the opinion that defines it as a door without a lintel, Rashi explains that it has no lintel at all. Why didn’t Rashi say the lintel is crooked, as he explained the doorposts? Clearly, Rashi held that a lintel is allowed to be crooked.

The Mishkenos Yaakov brings a counterproof from a Gemara on the same blatt (Eiruvin 11b) which proves that the lintel of a tzuras hapesach does not have touch the two doorposts, based on the case of an arched doorway, where the two doorposts are vertical for at least 10 tefachim and then start to curve. The curved part separates the doorposts from the lintel, yet it is considered a door requiring a mezuzah. But if a crooked lintel counts, what is the Gemara’s proof? Here the whole arch is a crooked lintel and is contiguous with the doorposts!

The Shaarei Tzion responds that Rashi would answer this based on another position of his (l’shitaso). On the halacha about an arched doorway and mezuzah (Yoreh Deah 287:2), the Taz says that according to Rashi, the two doorposts do not actually have to be vertical for 10 tefachim. They can start curving from the ground up, as long as by 10 tefachim in height they still have 4 tefachim of horizontal space between them. Thus Rashi holds the arch is actually part of the doorposts until that point. Then it becomes the lintel. But this lintel is not kosher, since by that point it is less than 4 tefachim wide! So we must use the horizontal bricks or beam above the arch, which is not contiguous with the doorposts, as our lintel; hence the proof that the top of a tzuras hapesach does not have to touch the sides.

Some time later, a talmid chacham came to visit Antwerp, and decided on his own to inspect the new Berchem eiruv. He began to challenge Reb Pinchus Kornfeld, saying that the eiruv was posul according to the Mishkenos Yaakov. What right did Harav Kreiswirth have to adopt the Shaarei Tzion’s kula? Reb Pinchus retorted with a posuk (Tehillim 87:2), אוהב ה’ שערי ציון מכל משכנות יעקב – “Hashem loves the Shaarei Tzion more than all the Mishkenos Yaakov!”

Source: Mayim Chaim p. 141

Eiruvin 44b: One may form a wall out of people to permit carrying on Shabbos, but only if the people don’t realize they are being used as a wall. Once, Rava had some bottles that were lying in the street of Mechuza. As Rava walked home from his shiur, surrounded by talmidim, his assistants picked them up and carried them inside. Next Shabbos, they wanted to carry them in again, but he forbade them, because it was as if the people knew.

עירובין מד ע”ב: כאן לדעת, כאן שלא מדעת… הנהו זיקי דהוה שדיין בריסתקא דמחוזא, בהדי דאתא רבא מפירקיה אעלינהו ניהליה. לשבתא אחריתי בעי עיילינהו. ־ ואסר להו, דהוה ליה כלדעת, ואסור.

The Gerrer Rebbe once left a rare sefer in shul, and on Shabbos he wished to bring it home. So he told his gabbaim to announce that he would be walking home at a certain time. The Chassidim came to greet him, forming two lines along the street. The Rebbe, with the sefer hidden in his pocket, walked between the lines all the way to his house.

Source: R’ Eli Stefansky

Eiruvin 62a: All agree that we may rent a courtyard from a non-Jew (to permit carrying on Shabbos) even for less than a perutah. The disagreement is on whether we need a strong rental, or even a weak rental suffices. “Strong” means that the Jew must stipulate that he is allowed to fill the courtyard with chairs. “Weak” means that he need not make this stipulation.

עירובין סב ע”א: הוו יודעין ששוכרין מן הנכרי אפילו בפחות משוה פרוטה… אלא בריאה ־ במוהרקי ואבורגני, רעועה ־ בלא מוהרקי ואבורגני. פירש רש”י: למלאות החצר בספסלין וקתידראות אם ירצה.

When Rabbi Moshe Heinemann made the eiruv in Baltimore, he went to rent the rights to the city streets from the mayor.  The state’s attorney protested, “If you rent it to them, they could block the streets and stop traffic!” Chaim Wallin, an observant Jew who worked in the state’s attorney’s office, spoke up and said, “Don’t worry, they’ve been doing this for centuries in cities all over the world, and it never happened that they blocked traffic.”

Then Rabbi Heinemann and his colleagues went to the County Executive, since some parts of the eiruv were outside the Baltimore city limits, and he agreed to rent the county. Then one of the rabbanim suggested they rent from the State of Maryland as well. The logic of renting from city officials is that they are in charge of the fire department and police, who have the right to enter anyone’s house in an emergency. Here, he argued, the state is an even greater authority because they can declare a state of emergency and send the National Guard to anyone’s house. So they went to the office of the governor. “I’ll sell you the whole state of Maryland,” he said. “But I can’t take any money from you.” The rabbis were not sure what to do: the halacha requires that the streets be rented for some amount of money, even if it be less than a perutah. Then they came up with an idea: they made a plaque of appreciation for the governor, with a silver dollar framed inside. The governor accepted it and agreed to hang it on his office wall, where it could never be construed as a bribe.    

Source: Shiur by Rabbi Heinemann

[It seems from this story that they needed to use actual money, and giving an item worth money – like the plaque alone – would not have sufficed.

We also see that when the mayor objected that the rabbis might block the traffic, the rabbis did not promise not to do so. It was only a bystander who assured the mayor that they would not block traffic. This would seemingly be against Rashi, who explains that a “weak rental” means that the Jew need not ask for the right to block the street with chairs. Tosafos quoting the Aruch says that “weak rental” means without a written document. The Beis Yosef says that the halacha follows the opinion that a weak rental is enough, according to all explanations. Perhaps Rabbi Heinemann understood that one need not explicitly ask for the right to block the street, but one should not explicitly waive that right either.]

Eiruvin 44b: All those who go out to save lives may return to their places.

עירובין מד ע”ב: כל היוצאים להציל חוזרין למקומן.

וכתבו התוס’ שם הא דלא חשיב ליה בפ״ק דביצה (דף יא:) גבי הנך ג׳ דהתירו סופן משום תחילתן דזה אינו חידוש וכל הנהו צריכי כדאמרינן התם. ומזה למד הגר”מ פיינשטיין (או”ח ח”ד סימן פ’) דכל היוצאין להציל לא מיירי דוקא במלחמה שיש סכנה גם לאחר שנצחו, אלא אפילו בחכמה הבאה לילד וכדומה שלא יהיה עוד סכנה ובכל זאת התירו סופן משום תחילתן.

There is a doctor in Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikvah who became observant 30 years ago. This is his story. A religious Jew called him on Shabbos to come and take care of his sick wife. When the doctor arrived at his door and saw that the man was religious, he said, “I’m afraid if treat her, you won’t pay me after Shabbos. Either pay me on Shabbos, or find another doctor.” The man said, “Yes, I’ll pay you on Shabbos.” So he treated the man’s wife, and then said, “You own me 250 shekel.” The man took out his checkbook and wrote a check for 1000 shekel. The doctor was puzzled, so the man explained: “The word אלף (1000) is only 3 letters while מאתים וחמשים (250) is 11 letters. I wanted to minimize my chillul Shabbos.” The doctor took the check and left.

On Thursday he called the man back and said, “I must tell you that I couldn’t sleep for the last few nights, I was in awe of your dedication for Shabbos. My wife and I have decided that we want to learn more about Shabbos. Can you teach us?” [This is based on the Tosafos in Eiruvin quoted above, which says that chillul Shabbos after the life has been saved is permitted because of the rule that “they permitted the end to facilitate the beginning”: if the people going out to save lives knew that they would not be allowed to return home, they might not go to save lives in the first place. This is the basis of R’ Moshe’s heter for Hatzolah members to drive home after a call – Igros Moshe O.C. 4:80. Here too, if this man had not paid the doctor, he would not go to help the next religious Jew who called him on Shabbos. Here the heter is more clear, since the doctor made that condition explicitly.]