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Parasha & Halacha Shiur Summary on Parashat VaYakhel, by Rav Mordechai Lebhar
One of the 39 Melachot which are forbidden on Shabbat is carrying from a private to a public domain. Enclosing a public domain with an Eruv can sometimes turn it into a private domain.
Even in an enclosed space, in order to carry, all of the inhabitants of the houses must convene and place an “Eruv” – a joined amount of food which is considered to be a community meal. If there are non-Jews in that enclosure, Hachamim required that the Jew rents the Akum’s domain, and thus raise suspicions and discourage intermingling. The Rashba writes that this rental requirement is very lenient and one can even give a symbolic dollar (obviously as per Halacha) to rent the Akum’s domain and fulfill this requirement.
How about a city with hundreds of thousands of Akum? The Halacha is that one is allowed to rent from a worker, or other proxy, of the Akum. Who is an acceptable proxy? The Shulhan Aruch, as well as Rashba and Rivash accept the renting from a Sar Ha’Ir – governor – as he has the right to station his troops and confiscate property in times of war. Maharsham and others accept a police chief. However, Rav Elyashiv held that today’s government officials have to obtain warrants before entering your property, thus renting from a governor or police officer should be a problem.
Nevertheless, Rav Shlomo Z. Auerbach cites the Ginat Veradim (3:22) who states that we can be very lenient with this rental requirement, as in our days we must try to make it easy to live with the Akum (contrary to Hachamim’s original intent) as earning a livelihood is increasingly more difficult. Then he adds, that the government represents all of the people and is not looked at as an individual, thus he can be considered the proxy of all of his constituents. Others rely on renting from a utility company that is permitted to enter your house for various purposes.
Another approach (see Atze Almogim, Divrei Hayim), is to rent from the mayor or tax assessor as they have the right to confiscate the land of those who don’t pay property tax.