Sukkah 033

1:
We have already seen (in the previous mishnah) that strictly speaking the four species should be used when the first day of Sukkot falls on Shabbat. (We also noted there that this does not apply to Shabbat Ḥol ha-Mo'ed, but only when the first day of Sukkot falls on Shabbat.)

2:
We also saw in the previous mishnah how arrangements were made for people to bring their lulavs to the local synagogue on Friday for use on the following day. This was in order to obviate the need to carry the lulav from the house into the street (and from the street into the synagogue) on Shabbat. This is because carrying from a private domain into the public domain is forbidden on Shabbat — any Shabbat. (That this was not just a rabbinic 'invention' but dated back to biblical times can easily be verified by reference to Jeremiah 17:19-27 and to Nehemiah's strenuous efforts to preserve the sanctity of Shabbat in Nehemiah 13:15-22.)

3:
What Rabbi Yosé ben-Ḥalafta says in mishnah 14 derives directly from these facts. Since using the lulav on the first day of Sukkot which falls on a Shabbat is specifically mandated by the Torah it is possible that in his eagerness to fulfill the mitzvah someone may forget that different arrangements applied when YomTov falls on Shabbat and might carry his four species from home to synagogue in violation of the prohibition to do so. In such circumstances, says Rabbi Yosé, our forgetful Jew would not be liable for Sabbath violation under Torah law because there was an essential kind of permission to do what he did. But neither can his action be condoned, because it is in violation of halakhah. Therefore, says Rabbi Yosé, such a person, while being guilty of Shabbat violation, is exempted from the concomitant punishment.

4:
In the Gemara [Sukkah 42a] the sages cannot fault his logic (even though they would no doubt have liked to do so!) but they can severely limit the circumstances. For instance, if this Jew had already used his lulav at home then he would be guilty of Shabbat violation if he carries it to synagogue. An even stricter view says that even if he just 'handled' it that counts as 'using' it in fulfillment of the Torah's command. Abbayé points out that if he held the four species the wrong way up — with their roots pointing upwards — he has not yet fulfilled the mitzvah and therefore can be excused if he inadvertently carried them on Shabbat. Another opinion is that if the lulav was carried in a special carrier that would not count as 'using' it.

5:
We have seen previously that according to the sages women (and Canaanite servants and minors) are excused the mitzvah of the four species, because it is a positive time-specific mitzvah. That is to say that it is a "thou shalt" kind of mitzvah and "thou shalt" do it at the specific time of the festival of Sukkot. (There is no religious meaning to waving the four species at any other time of the year.) We have also seen that modern Conservative Judaism in the main equates men and women in their religious duties.

6:
The sages were aware that a case could therefore be made according to which women should not handle the four species on Shabbat since for them they are muktzeh — articles which we are forbidden to handle on Shabbat because we have no use for them. That is why they specifically rule in the first clause of mishnah 15 that a woman may handle the four species on Shabbat. It seems that putting three of them back into a ewer of water, in order to maintain their freshness, was considered 'housekeeping'!

7:
The second clause in mishnah 15 continues the theme of how the three species may be kept as fresh as possible during the week of the festival of Sukkot. Halakhah is according to the view of Rabbi Yehudah ben-Ilai:

• On Shabbat which is also YomTov the species may be returned to the water from which they were taken;
• On YomTov which is not on Shabbat we may also add water to the ewer in which the species are kept fresh;
• During Ḥol ha-Mo'ed (the days of Sukkot which are neither Shabbat nor YomTov) we may even change the water for fresher water.

8:
The last clause of mishnah 15 states that a parent must teach a child how to use the four species as soon as it is able to understand the purport of the mitzvah, and not wait until the child reaches his or her majority.

9:
This concludes our study of Chapter 3 of Tractate Sukkot. God willing, in our next shiur we shall begin to study chapter 4.