Sukkah, Daf Tet, Part 4

 

Introduction

This section starts the analysis of a new mishnah.

 

משנה. העושה סוכתו תחת האילן – כאילו עשאה בתוך הבית. סוכה על גבי סוכה – העליונה כשרה והתחתונה פסולה. רבי יהודה אומר: אם אין דיורין בעליונה – התחתונה כשרה.

 

Mishnah. One who makes his sukkah under a tree, it is as if he made it within the house.

One [who makes] a sukkah on top of another sukkah, the upper one is valid but the lower is invalid.

Rabbi Judah says: if there are no occupants in the upper one, the lower one is valid.

 

A tree while still attached to the ground cannot be used for skhakh, the roofing of the sukkah. Skhakh must come from a natural source, but it must be detached from the ground. Therefore, if one puts his sukkah underneath a tree it is invalid, just as it would be invalid if one built a sukkah inside a house with the ceiling as his roof.

If a person builds one sukkah on top of another, it turns out that the skhakh of the bottom sukkah is the floor of the top sukkah. Even if the skhakh meets all other halakhic requirements it is still invalid because the fact that someone is living above makes it again similar to a person who builds his sukkah inside a house.

Rabbi Judah holds that if there is no one who is living in the upper one, than the bottom one is valid. The upper sukkah is not considered to be living quarters unless someone is actually living there.

 

גמרא. אמר רבא: לא שנו אלא באילן שצלתו מרובה מחמתו, אבל חמתו מרובה מצלתו – כשרה.

 

Gemara. Rava said: [Our mishnah] was taught only in respect of a tree whose shade is greater than the sun [shining through its branches] but if the sun is more than its shade, it is valid.

 

The mishnah taught that a sukkah that is underneath a tree is invalid. Rava says that this is only so if the tree provides more shade than the sun shining through. But if it allows more sun to shine through, then the sukkah underneath is valid because the tree isn’t like kosher skhakh.

 

ממאי – מדקתני כאילו עשאה בתוך הבית למה לי למיתני כאילו עשאה בתוך הבית? ליתני פסולה! אלא הא קמשמע לן: דאילן דומיא דבית, מה בית – צלתו מרובה מחמתו, אף אילן – צלתו מרובה מחמתו.

 

How [do we know this]? Since it states, "it is as if he made it within the house." Now why did it teach, it is as if he made it within the house? Let it simply state it is invalid ?

Rather this is what it teaches us: the tree [referred to is] like a house, just as in a house the shade is more than the sunshine, so the tree has more shade than sunshine.

 

The Talmud says that Rava derives this halakhah from the precise wording of the mishnah. The mishnah says that a sukkah built under a tree is "as if he made it within a house." The mishnah could have stated simply that such a sukkah is invalid. Usually the mishnah is as concise as possible. According to Rava the reason that the mishnah adds in that such a sukkah is as if it was built in a house is that it wishes to limit the invalidity of such a sukkah to a case that is just like a house. Just as a house would provide more shade than sun, so too in order for the tree to invalidate the sukkah underneath it needs to provide more shade than the sun it lets in.