Sukkah 002

8:
As previously noted, the first two chapters of this tractate are concerned with the mitzvah of constructing a sukkah and residing in it. (When we reach the last mishnah of chapter 2 it will become apparent why I have translated the verb 'reside' rather than 'live'.)

9:
We should perhaps first ask ourselves what the symbolism of the sukkah might be, for only then will we be able better to understand the details prescribed by the sages. In the previous shiur we quoted the verses from the Torah which institutes the mitzvah of sukkah:

In other words, when the Israelites wandered in the wastelands of Sinai for forty years they were housed in huts or shelters, and the sukkah that we build for the festival is intended to remind us — the future generation — each year of God's beneficence and care for the people of Israel. We remember, as it were, by re-living.

10:
However, the sages were not unanimous in their understanding of the nature of these huts in the wilderness. The work called Sifra is a collection of midrashim that explicate the text of the book of Leviticus. In that work [Sifra Emor 17] we are given two views about the nature of the sukkot:

In another midrashic source [Yalkut Shim'oni Leviticus 23:655] the attributions are reversed:

So, let us just say that one of these two sages held that the Israelites made real huts while the other holds that God enveloped them miraculously in clouds of glory. This latter view presumably derives from the fact that the Torah says that "I [God] housed the Israelites in huts", and that God did so miraculously.

11:
The other view is that the Israelites made real huts for themselves. What were these huts like? During the afternoon of Yom Kippur we read the story of Jonah who was sent to preach repentance to the citizens of Nineveh. When the people actually did repent Jonah was angry and frustrated and

It is worth noting two things here: the hut was to provide shade from the sun and Jonah did not sit in it but under it. In other words, his sukkah was a kind of awning.

In the first chapter of his book the prophet Isaiah describes the city of Jerusalem as standing alone in the kingdom of Judah because her enemies have destroyed every other town:

Here the hut or awning is a shelter for guards who were paid — a pittance — for watching the fields and vineyards so that produce was not stolen.

And a few chapters further on he uses the same image: Jerusalem

Thus the nature and purpose of these huts is clear. Perhaps a better rendition of the Hebrew word 'sukkah' would be 'shelter', but King James' translators in 1611 decided to use the word 'tabernacle' and it has stuck.

12:
It follows that the essential part of the sukkah is its roofing. Indeed, the Hebrew word 'sukkah' is derived from the term used to describe its thatched roof, skhakh. The purpose of the sukkah is to provide shade and shelter and this purpose is achieved by the skhakh, the thatched roof.

13:
After this long introduction we can now approach the first mishnah of the tractate. It divides into two sections. In both the Babylonian Talmud and the Talmud of Eretz-Israel these two sections are presented as two separate mishnahs. The first section of our mishnah is concerned with maximum and minimum dimensions of a sukkah. The second section is concerned with when a sukkah may be constructed. We shall, God willing, study the first section in our next shiur.

To be continued.

Ed Frankel writes:

I find it amazing how many worlds our earliest sages lived in simultaneously. The biblical term, tekufat hashanah, which you translated as end of the year, points this out so well, as the rabbis understood it. Imagine, they saw their year beginning in Nissan because the Bible sets that as the first month, and it marked our becoming free. Yet, they saw their political year beginning in Tishray, the very month in which Sukkot occurs. Still, they saw their agricultural year (clearly for produce reaped from the earth) ending in Tishray as well. When one adds the idea of trees becoming of age in Shevat, it is wonderous to see how much of this one can intuit even without the opening mishnah of Rosh Hashanah.

I respond:

Those interested in taking a look at the first mishnah of Tractate Rosh ha-Shanah will find it here.

Because of the incidence of Memorial Day in Israel the next shiur will be on May 12th. I take this opportunity of wishing everybody a very happy Yom Atzma'ut, Israel's Independence Day.