Sukkah, Daf Zayin, Section 4

 

Introduction

Section four deals with three statements/leniencies issued by Rava in connection with the sukkah.

 

גופא, אמר רבא: סיכך על גבי מבוי שיש לו לחי – כשרה.

 

[Reverting to] the main subject: Rav said: If one placed skhakh over an alley-way which has a side-post it is valid.

 

This statement appeared in yesterday’s section. There we explained that if one puts skhakh up on an alleyway that has a post on its end, the sukkah is valid. This post is part of the eruv system and it allows one to carry from the courtyard to the alleyway.

 

ואמר רבא: סיכך על גבי פסי ביראות – כשרה.

 

And Rava further said: If one placed skhakh over the [upright] boards around wells it is valid [as a sukkah].

 

This is Rava’s third statement (the first was in the beginning of section 3). The situation revolves around boards set up at four corners around a well. These boards are used to allow one to draw from the well on Shabbat without transgressing the prohibition of taking something out from one domain to another. According to the Talmud, this is a specific leniency intended to make life easier for people who are traveling to the Temple on a pilgrimage. The boards are at four corners around the well. Each board is a handbreadth in each direction. Rava rules that if one puts skhakh up over these boards, a proper sukkah can be formed. This is another leniency because in this case there aren’t any real walls.

 

וצריכא, דאי אשמעינן מבוי – משום דאיכא שתי דפנות מעלייתא, אבל גבי פסי ביראות דליכא שתי דפנות מעלייתא – אימא לא.

 

And [all the three laws were] necessary.

For if he had mentioned only [the law relating to] the alley-way one would have assumed [that there the sukkah is valid] because it had two proper walls, but that in the case of partitions of wells, which do not have not two proper walls, the sukkah is not valid.

 

The Talmud now does what it often does when it has multiple statements from a single source. It asks why we need all three statements. Couldn’t we have sufficed with just one or two of them and derived the others from the first or second? The Talmud will now give an extended answer to this question.

If Rava had just mentioned the case of the alleyway, we would have assumed that this sukkah is valid because it has at least two real walls, the walls of the alleyway. But the case of the wells the sukkah doesn’t have any real walls, just four one handbreadth walls at the corners. Therefore, Rava teaches us that even this is a valid sukkah.

 

ואי אשמעינן פסי ביראות – משום דאיכא שם ארבע דפנות, אבל סיכך על גבי מבוי, דליכא שם ארבע דפנות – אימא לא.

 

And if we had been informed of the boards around wells only, one would have assumed [that there the sukkah is valid] because there are four walls, but that if one placed skhakh over an alleyway, where there are not four walls, it is not [valid].

 

If Rava had said only that he could put the skhakh over the boards around the alleyway, we might have thought that this sukkah was valid because there are four, albeit fictional walls. But an alleyway has only two walls. Therefore, Rava has to issue both of these statements.

 

ואי אשמעינן הני תרתי – מחמירתא לקילתא, אבל מקילתא לחמירתא – אימא לא, צריכא.

 

And if we had been informed of both those laws [but not of the third,] one would have assumed that from the more stringent to the less stringent [we apply the rule of since ] but not from the less stringent to the more.

[Therefore all the three rules were] necessary.

 

If Rava had made those first two rules, we would have thought that both of those sukkot are valid because they involve a case of allowing one to make a sukkah in a place where carrying on Shabbat has already been allowed (the well and the alleyway). Thus if for the more stringent matter it counts as a sukkah, all the more so it counts for the less stringent matter, fulfilling the mitzvah of sukkah. But we wouldn’t have thought that he would allow one to carry in a structure on Shabbat only because it has been made into a valid sukkah by the addition of a third one handbreadth wall. That’s why he had to issue that statement as well.