Sukkah, Daf Tet, Part 2

 

Introduction

This is a continuation of yesterday’s section.

ובית שמאי נמי מיבעי ליה להכי!

And Beth Shammai also, do not they need the verse for this deduction?

 

The Talmud raises a difficulty on Bet Shammai. They agree that one cannot use the wood of the sukkah for all seven days. So don’t they too need to derive this law from the verse, "a festival of sukkot for seven days to the Lord." If so, they don’t have a verse left to support their disqualification of the old sukkah.

 

אין הכי נמי. אלא מאי טעמייהו דבית שמאי – כתיב קרא אחרינא: +דברים טז+ חג הסכת תעשה לך שבעת ימים – סוכה העשויה לשם חג בעינן.

 

Yes, indeed. What then is Bet Shammai’s reason? -There is another Scriptural verse. "You shall make the festival of Sukkoth for seven days" (Deuteronomy 16:13). This implies that we require a sukkah made expressly for the sake of the Festival.

 

The Talmud answers that indeed Bet Shammai does use the verse from Leviticus in the same way that Bet Hillel used it. Bet Shammai derives the notion that one must make a sukkah specifically for the festival from another verse, this time from Deuteronomy.

 

ובית הלל: ההוא מיבעי ליה לעושין סוכה בחולו של מועד. –

 

And Bet Hillel? They need this verse to teach that a sukkah may be made in the intermediate days of the Festival.

 

Bet Hillel uses the verse from Deuteronomy to teach that one may make a sukkah during any of the seven days, even during one of the intermediate days of the festival.

ובית שמאי סבירא להו כרבי אליעזר, דאמר: אין עושין סוכה בחולו של מועד.

 

And Bet Shammai? They hold the same opinion as R. Eliezer, who said that no sukkah may be made in the intermediate days of the Festival.

 

This section ends finally with another dispute between the two houses. Bet Shammai holds that one may not make a sukkah during the intermediate days of the festival. This is an opinion that we shall explore later in the Talmud where it is attributed to R. Eliezer. It seems that this opinion reads the verse as if it says either build a sukkah that will be used for seven days, or don’t build one at all.