Sukkah, Daf Yod, Part 4

 

Introduction

Today’s section continues to deal with the decorations of a sukkah.

 

אתמר, נויי סוכה אין ממעטין בסוכה.

 

It was stated: The decorations of a Sukkah do not diminish [the height of] the Sukkah.

 

If one hangs decorations from the sukkah it doesn’t diminish the height of the sukkah. Thus if the sukkah was 10 handbreadths high, the minimum height, but then he hung some decorations that brought the height lower than 10 handbreadths, the sukkah is still kosher.

 

אמר רב אשי: ומן הצד ממעטין.

 

R. Ashi said: But at the side, they do diminish [the size of a Sukkah].

 

R. Ashi limits this rule to decorations hung from the middle of the sukkah. But if one puts decorations at the side of the sukkah and thereby reduces the dimensions of the sukkah from the minimal 7 handbreadths, the sukkah is invalid. The difference between the top and the side is that these decorations are not valid as skhakh, so we can’t consider them too-low skhakh. But these decorations can count as walls, so they would reduce the minimum size of the walls.

 

מנימין עבדיה דרב אשי איטמישא ליה כתונתא במיא, ואשתטחא אמטללתא. אמר ליה רב אשי: דלייה, דלא לימרו קא מסככי בדבר המקבל טומאה.

 

Minyamin, the servant of R. Ashi, had his shirt soaked in water, and he spread it out on their Sukkah. R. Ashi said to him, Remove it, lest they say that it is permissible to use as a covering something which is susceptible to impurity.’

 

In this story Minyamin has his shirt soaked in water and wants to spread it on top of the sukkah to dry it out. A shirt is susceptible to impurity. To prevent the impression that one could use such material as skhakh, R. Ashi, a prominent amora, tells him to take it down.

 

והא קא חזו ליה דרטיבא! – לכי יבשה קאמינא לך.

 

But can they not see that it is wet? I mean [the first answered] when it is dry.’

 

Minyamin (or the Talmud on his behalf) responds that people will see that it’s wet and they’ll know that he wasn’t using it as skhakh. So why should he have to take it down?

R. Ashi answers that he doesn’t have to take it down right now. He only has to take it down once it dries. If he leaves it up there people will think that he is using things that are susceptible to impurity for his skhakh.

אתמר, נויי סוכה המופלגין ממנה ארבעה. רב נחמן אמר: כשרה, רב חסדא ורבה בר רב הונא אמרי: פסולה.

 

It was stated: The decorations of a Sukkah which are removed four [handbreadths from the skhakh]

R. Nahman declares them valid,

And R. Hisda and Rabbah son of R. Huna declare them invalid.

 

This debate is about a decorated sheet that was put underneath the skhakh to serve as decoration, but it was four handbreadths away from the skhakh. According to R. Nahman, the sukkah is valid because we will know that it was put there for decoration and not to serve as skhakh.

R. Hisdah and Rabbah son of R. Huna say that they are invalid because they form a barrier with the real skhakh.

רב חסדא ורבה בר רב הונא איקלעו לבי ריש גלותא, אגנינהו רב נחמן בסוכה שנוייה מופלגין ממנה ארבעה טפחים, אשתיקו ולא אמרו ליה ולא מידי. אמר להו: הדור בהו רבנן משמעתייהו? – אמרו ליה: אנן שלוחי מצוה אנן ופטורין מן הסוכה.

 

R. Hisda and Rabbah son of R. Huna once came to the house of the exilarch,

And R. Nahman sheltered them in a Sukkah whose decorations were separated four handbreadths [from the skhakh]. They were silent and they didn’t say a word to him. He said to them, Have our rabbis retracted their teaching ?

They answered him: We are messengers performing a mitzvah, and [therefore] we are free from the obligation of the Sukkah.

 

This story is told about the very two rabbis who rule that a sukkah whose decorations were separated from the skhakh by four handbreadths is invalid. When they get to the exilarch’s house (the political leader of the Babylonian community) he has them sleep in such a sukkah. They sleep there for the night and don’t say anything to him about it.

This leads the exilarch to think that they have changed their mind about the validity of the sukkah.

They respond to him that they are exempt from the mitzvah of sukkah because they are on their way to perform a mitzvah. Later in the tractate we will learn that if people are on the way to perform a mitzvah, they are exempt from the mitzvah of sukkah.