Sukkah, Daf Yod Bet, Part 1

 

Introduction

Today’s section is a direct continuation of yesterday’s section, which attempted to offer a midrash as to why skhakh must grow from the ground and not be susceptible to impurity. The last midrash we encountered compared the skhakh to animal sacrifices offered on the holiday just as the animal grows from the ground and (while alive) is not susceptible to impurity, so too skhkakh must grow from the ground and not be susceptible to impurity.

 

אי מה חגיגה בעלי חיים, אף סוכה נמי בעלי חיים!

 

But just as the festival offering is a live animal so the Sukkah must be [of something which is] alive.

 

The problem with deriving the laws of skhakh from the laws of the festival offering is that this leads to the conclusion that skhakh too must be an animal. Obviously this is absurd so this midrash is rejected.

 

כי אתא רבין אמר רבי יוחנן: אמר קרא +דברים טז+ באספך מגרנך ומיקבך – בפסולת גורן ויקב הכתוב מדבר.

 

When Ravin came, he said in the name of R. Yohanan: Scripture says, "When you gather in from your threshing-floor and your winepress" (Deuteronomy 16:13). The verse thus speaks of the waste from the threshing-floor and the waste from the wine-press.

 

The Torah says that one should celebrate the festival of Sukkot during the time of year when one harvests one’s grain and grapes to make wine. Ravin reads this verse midrashically as if it says to build sukkot out of the left over products of one’s grain and grape harvest. This would mean that skhakh should grow from the ground and not be susceptible to impurity, since only the food part of the harvest is susceptible to impurity.

 

ואימא גורן עצמו ויקב עצמו!

אמר רבי זירא: יקב כתיב כאן, ואי אפשר לסכך בו.

 

But perhaps it means the actual threshing-floor product and the actual wine-press product?

R. Zera answered: It is written winepress and it is impossible to cover the Sukkah with this!

 

The Talmud asks why we don’t read the verse as mandating the use of the actual product from the threshing floor and wine press. Why do we think it is just the waste product, which is not susceptible to impurity?

R. Zera answers that it would obviously be impossible to use actual wine as skhakh. Therefore we must interpret the verse to mean the waste from the winepress and threshing floor, which is not susceptible to impurity.

 

מתקיף לה רבי ירמיה: ואימא יין קרוש הבא משניר, שהוא דומה לעיגולי דבילה!

 

R. Yirmiyah objected: But perhaps it means the solidified wine that comes from Senir, which resembles fig-cakes?

 

R. Yirmiyah objects that we could still interpret the verse as referring to food products. We could interpret "winepress" as referring to solidified wine coming from the region of Senir, which is similar to fig-cakes. Such material is susceptible to impurity and could be used as skhakh (although I wouldn’t want to sit in a sukkah with congealed wine as my cover!).

אמר רבי זירא: הא מלתא הוה בידן, ואתא רבי ירמיה ושדא ביה נרגא.

רב אשי אמר: מגרנך – ולא גורן עצמו, מיקבך – ולא יקב עצמו.

 

R. Zera said: We had something in our hands, and R. Yirmiyah came and cast an axe at it. R. Ashi replied, From your threshing-floor , but not the threshing-floor produce itself, "from your wine-press , but not the wine-press produce itself.

 

R. Zera laments that he thought they had an answer to the source of the halakhah that skhakh must be from the ground and not susceptible to impurity, but after R. Yirmiyah’s difficulty, we have no answer.

Not to worry, R. Ashi comes to the rescue! The Torah uses the word "from" before threshing floor and winepress. This implies that the skhakh must come from them but not be their main product the actual wine or grain.

 

רב חסדא אמר מהכא: +נחמיה ח+ צאו ההר והביאו עלי זית ועלי עץ שמן ועלי הדס ועלי תמרים ועלי עץ עבות.

 

R. Hisda said: [The law is learned] from here: "Go out to the mountain and fetch olive-branches, and branches of the oily tree, and myrtle-branches and palm-branches, and branches of thick trees" (Nehemiah 8:15).

 

In the book of Nehemiah, after returning to Israel and renewing the covenant, Ezra reads in the Torah and tells the people to go out to the mountain and use these species to build a sukkah.^[1] These branches grow from the ground and are not susceptible to impurity.

היינו הדס היינו עץ עבות!

אמר רב חסדא: הדס שוטה לסוכה, ועץ עבות ללולב.

 

Are not myrtle-branches, the same as branches of thick trees?

R. Hisda said: The wild myrtle [were to be fetched] for the Sukkah, while the branches of thick trees, for the lulav.

 

The problem the rabbis have with the verse is that it mentions myrtle twice, since the rabbis consider the "thick tree" to also be a myrtle tree (see Leviticus 23:40).

R. Hisda therefore interprets the verse to refer to both mitzvot the sukkah and the lulav. One type of myrtle, the wild myrtle, was to be used for the sukkah since all branches can be used as skhakh. The other type of myrtle, the one referred to in the Torah, was to be used for the lulav.