is there tchumin on a bridge over the water (higher than ten tfachim) and do you know about the bridge from willumsberg to manhattan in new york?
if you walk outside a city and the next city starts more than 70 amos later does the tchum end in middle of the next city?
is there any opinion that you could read the torah with the brochos without ten people listening only being there and six listening and the rest doing something else learning?
Answer:
1. This can involve an issue of techumin, depending of course on whether the length of the bridge is 2000 amos.
I don’t know about the specific bridge, and American authorities should be consulted.
2. The techum of 2000 amos is counted from the “end of the city,” meaning from the last of the houses that are within 70 amos of the urban areas of the city. If there is no house within 70 amos then yet, the 2000 amos techum will end in the middle of the next city.
3. See Mishnah Berurah 55:33 concerning joining a sleeping person for ten, and obviously somebody awake is preferable, so that there is some room for leniency where there are six out of ten who are listening.
In addition, although the Mishnah Berurah (143:1) writes that the reading from the Torah is a davar shebikdusha that requires 10, others write that the requirement for 10 applies to Barchu or the berachos and not to the reading itself (see Toras Chaim 3), and see also Ran Megillah 23b.
Therefore, there is room for leniency, though it is better to announce that all should listen to the reading.
Best wishes.
