Sukkah, Daf Yod Bet, Part 2
Introduction
Today’s section begins with a new mishnah.
משנה. חבילי קש וחבילי עצים וחבילי זרדין אין מסככין בהן, וכולן שהתירן – כשרות, וכולן כשרות לדפנות.
Bundles of straw, bundles of wood, and bundles of brushwood one may not use them as skhakh.
But all of them, if he untied them, are valid.
And they are all valid for the walls.
The Talmud will offer various explanations as to why these things cannot be used for skhakh. Once any of them is untied, they are valid for skhakh because they all grow from the ground and are not susceptible to impurity.
The final section teaches that everything that is invalid for the skhakh is valid for the walls. When it comes to the walls all we are concerned about is that there are walls we are not at all concerned with the material of the walls.
גמרא. אמר רבי יעקב: שמעית מיניה דרבי יוחנן תרתי: חדא הא, ואידך: החוטט בגדיש לעשות לו סוכה – אינה סוכה. חדא משום גזרת אוצר, וחדא משום תעשה ולא מן העשוי. ולא ידענא הי מינייהו משום אוצר, והי מינייהו משום תעשה ולא מן העשוי.
GEMARA. R. Yaakov said: I heard from R. Yohanan [the explanation of] two things, this one, and the following: If one hollows out a haystack to make of it a sukkah, it is not a valid sukkah. The reason for one of them is a decree lest one make his sukkah into a storehouse, and the reason for the other is, "’You shall make , [implying] but not from that which is made;" but I do not remember which of them is on account of a store-house , and which on account of "’you shalt make’ but not from that which is made."
R. Yaakov heard R. Yohanan his teacher explain two mishnayot but he’s not sure which explanation goes with which mishnah. The first mishnah is the one above. The other mishnah is one we will encounter later in this chapter. It teaches that if one hollows out an empty space in a haystack one cannot use the empty space as a sukkah.
There are two reasons given for these mishnayot. The first is that one shouldn’t make his store house into a sukkah. The second is that one must actively make his sukkah. The sukkah shouldn’t be made on its own.
אמר רבי ירמיה: ניחזי אנן; דאמר רבי חייא בר אבא אמר רבי יוחנן: מפני מה אמרו חבילי קש וחבילי עצים וחבילי זרדין אין מסככין בהן – פעמים שאדם בא מן השדה בערב, וחבילתו על כתפו, ומעלה ומניחה על גבי סוכתו כדי ליבשה, ונמלך עליה לסיכוך, והתורה אמרה תעשה ולא מן העשוי. מדהא משום גזרת אוצר, הא – משום תעשה ולא מן העשוי.
R. Yirmiyah said: Let us see: R. Hiyya b. Abba said in the name of R. Yohanan: Why did they say that bundles of straw, bundles of wood, and bundles of brushwood may not serve as skhakh? Because it may happen that a man returns in the evening from the field with his bundle on his shoulder, and he raises it up and places it on his sukkah to dry it, and then he might decide to leave it there as a skhakh, but the Torah said, "You shall make," [which implies], but not from that which is made.
Now since this is a decree lest one use his store-house [as a Sukkah] the other must have been forbidden on the ground of you shall make [which implies], but not from that which is made.
R. Yirmiyah now tries to sort out which explanation goes with which mishnah. R. Yirmiyah is familiar with another tradition stated by R. Yohanan which explains that one cannot use these bundles as skhakh lest one store his bundles up there and then later on decide to use it as his sukkah. It looks as if this is actually the other reason, "you shall make, but not from that which is made." Rashi explains that there are actually two levels of prohibitions here. From the Torah it would be prohibited to put bundles on the sukkah and then change one’s mind and untie them to use them as skhkakh. This would indeed be a violation of the principle, "You shall make, but not from that which is made." Since this is a toraitic prohibition, the rabbis decreed that one can never use these bundles as skhakh, even if one put them up there to use as skhakh from the outset. This is understood as "lest one make one’s storehouse into a sukkah."
Since this mishnah is explained by the principle of "lest one make one’s storehouse into a sukkah" the other mishnah, about digging in a haystack, must be explained by the reason "you shall make, but not from that which is made." If one digs in a haystack and then uses the empty space as his sukkah, he didn’t actually make a sukkah. Meaning he didn’t put skhakh on top of his sukkah. Rather, he created negative space and it just turned out that he had skhakh above his head. This is not considered making a sukkah.
ורבי יעקב – הך דרבי חייא בר אבא לא שמיע ליה.
And R. Yaakov? He had not heard that [statement] of R. Hiyya b. Abba.
The Talmud explains that R. Yaakov hadn’t heard this statement of R. Hiyya b. Abba. That’s why he didn’t know which explanation went with which mishnah.