Mazkir of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
Rabbi Yehuda Leib Groner's Testimony Concerning the Rebbe and a Crown Heights Eruv
Rabbi Yehuda Leib Groner wrote that the Rebbe strongly opposed making an eruv in Crown Heights and that no one had permission to do so.
No permission to make an eruv in Crown Heights
Rabbi Groner served for decades as one of the Rebbe's mazkirim and was closely involved in correspondence and communal matters brought to the Rebbe. In his written statement on the Crown Heights eruv, he records the Rebbe's words: “I will not permit an eruv to be made here in the neighborhood.”
He adds that the Rebbe strongly opposed making an eruv in Crown Heights and that no person had been given permission to establish one. The statement addresses Crown Heights directly, rather than drawing an inference from a ruling about another city.
The Rebbe's neighborhood
Crown Heights was the Rebbe's own neighborhood and the center of Lubavitch. A public change in its Shabbos practice would be seen by residents and by visitors from Chabad communities throughout the world.
Rabbi Groner's testimony belongs alongside the local Beis Din's psak. The Rebbe's opposition explains the Chabad setting; the Rabbonim responsible for Crown Heights give the operative halachic instruction that carrying is prohibited.
Rabbi Groner's full statement
Rabbi Groner's complete bilingual statement is available here. He writes as the Rebbe's longtime mazkir and records what the Rebbe said about an eruv in Crown Heights.
The decisive sentence is short, but its application is broad: an eruv was not to be made in the neighborhood, and private construction or publicity could not supply the missing permission.