Sukkah, Daf Yod Zayin, Part 1
Introduction
Today’s daf begins with a new mishnah.
משנה. הרחיק את הסיכוך מן הדפנות שלשה טפחים – פסולה. בית שנפחת וסיכך על גביו, אם יש מן הכותל לסיכוך ארבע אמות – פסולה. וכן חצר שהיא מוקפת אכסדרה. סוכה גדולה שהקיפוה בדבר שאין מסככין בו, אם יש תחתיו ארבעה אמות – פסולה.
Mishnah. If one removed the skhakh three handbreadths from the walls, it is invalid.
[A roof of] a house which was opened, and he placed skhakh over it: if there is a distance of four cubits from the wall to the covering, it is invalid.
Similarly in the case of a courtyard which is surrounded by columns.
A large sukkah which was surrounded with material which is invalid for skhakh, if there is a space of four cubits beneath it, it is invalid.
The walls of a sukkah must be no less than three handbreadths horizontally removed from the skhakh. Otherwise there is a three handbreadth gap in the roof of the sukkah, which would mean that that wall could not count as one of the walls of the sukkah.
In the second case described in the mishnah a person opened a hole in the roof of his house and covered the hole with valid skhakh. This is a valid sukkah as long as the hole which has been filled with skhakh is less than four cubits from the walls. [Three handbreadths is the maximum empty space, four cubits the maximum filled space]. This space between the walls and skhakh is not open, but rather has a regular roof (plaster and wood). The roof is considered as if it is part of the walls, at least for a distance of four cubits. As an aside, there are people who actually do this. They have a retractable roof, less than four cubits from the walls and they open it up on Sukkot and have a sukkah in their house!
The mishnah then notes another possible circumstance in which this halakhah is applicable. A courtyard is surrounded by a section of columns and covered with a roof. This covered roof is made of invalid skhakh. In such a case, the open space is slightly removed from the walls. If he covers the open space with valid skhakh and the walls are no more than four cubits from the skhakh, then the sukkah is valid.
The final case is pretty much the same halakhic situation as that in the first two. Again, a person has a sukkah in which there is some distance from the skhakh in the middle to the walls on the side. If he fills in this gap with material that is invalid for a sukkah (perhaps he does not have enough kosher material which he can use) than the sukkah is valid. Obviously, in all three cases in the mishnah, when he goes to sit or dwell in the sukkah, he must sit underneath the valid skhakh for it is only there that we can consider him to have a sukkah.
גמרא. כל הני למה לי?
Gemara. Why are all these [rulings] needed?
The mishnah seems to repeat itself several times. The three cases in the mishnah (the house with the opening, the courtyard or the sukkah distanced from the walls) all teach the same principle. In order for the walls to be considered part of the sukkah they must be no more than four horizontal handbreadths from the skhakh. So why teach this same principle three times?
צריכא, דאי אשמעינן בית שנפחת – משום דהני מחיצות לבית עבידן, אבל חצר המוקפת אכסדרה, דמחיצות לאו לאכסדרה עבידי – אימא לא, צריכא.
It is necessary [to state them all].
For if he had only informed us of [the roof of] a house which had been opened, [one would have said that the validity applied to this case only] because the partitions are made for the house, but in the case of a courtyard which is surrounded by columns, where the partitions are not made for the walls are not made for the columns it does not apply.
The Talmud will now explain why we need all three cases. If we had only learned the case of the house we might have said that those walls can count towards the sukkah because those walls were made to enclose that which is in within them. However, the courtyard’s walls were not made for the area with the columns. They were made for the house inside. Therefore, you might have thought that we can’t count with the sukkah put on top of the columns. The mishnah teaches us that we can.
ואי אשמעינן הני תרתי – משום דסככן סכך כשר הוא, אבל סוכה גדולה שהקיפוה בדבר שאין מסככין בו, דסככה סכך פסול הוא – אימא לא, צריכא.
And if he had informed us of those two, [one would have said that the validity applied to these cases only] because their skhakh is valid, but in the case of a large sukkah which is surrounded with a material which is invalid for a sukkah-covering, since the skhakh itself is invalid, it does not apply, [therefore it is] necessary [to mention all].
If the mishnah had included just the first two examples, then we might have thought that if he puts up invalid skhakh around the outsides of his large sukkah, the sukkah would be invalid. Invalid skhakh would be problematic because someone who sees it would think that one can sit in a sukkah with this material as skhakh. Therefore the mishnah teaches us that this case is also valid. As long as this gap is filled and the walls are no more than four cubits from the valid skhakh, the sukkah is valid.