Chabad askan and member of the Crown Heights community
Rabbi Hirshel Chitrik and the Crown Heights Eruv Discussion With the Rebbe
The Chitrik family relates that Rabbi Hirshel Chitrik discussed a Crown Heights eruv with the Rebbe and was told not to proceed.
A proposal brought to the Rebbe
Rabbi Hirshel Chitrik was active in Crown Heights communal affairs. According to the account preserved in his family, the practical difficulty of taking young children to shul led him to consider establishing an eruv in the neighborhood.
He brought the proposal to the Rebbe in yechidus. The family relates that the Rebbe rejected it and that Rabbi Chitrik did not proceed. The episode concerns Crown Heights itself and a real proposal by a communal figure, not a general discussion about whether eruvin can ever be valid.
The account preserved in the family
In a public discussion in 2023, a Chitrik grandson said that he had heard the account repeatedly from his grandfather. He also recalled hearing the same essential point independently from his grandmother, who stressed that the matter could not be allowed to proceed after the Rebbe had told her husband not to establish the eruv.
That family transmission gives the episode a named and audible source. The wording should be understood as their recollection of the yechidus, not as a verbatim transcript of the Rebbe's sentence.
Listen to the discussion
The full public conversation is hosted here, including the surrounding discussion at approximately 15:07 and 18:32. The family speaks naturally about the proposal, the yechidus, and the way the episode was remembered at home.
The account joins Rabbi Yehuda Leib Groner's statement and the signed rulings of the neighborhood Rabbonim in describing a consistent Crown Heights practice: proposals for an eruv were not accepted, and the later route did not alter the prohibition on carrying.