Sukkah 001

נושא: Sukkah

BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI

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A Sukkah which is higher than twenty cubits is invalid; Rabbi Yehudah validates. One that is not ten handbreadths high, does not have three sides, and whose sunlight is greater than its shade is invalid. Bet Shammai invalidate an old sukkah but Bet Hillel validate. What is an old sukkah? — one that was made thirty days before the festival; but if one made it for the festival it is valid even if [made] at the beginning of the year.

1:
The festival of Sukkot is commanded several times in the Torah and is also mentioned elsewhere in the bible. The festivals that we now habitually call Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles — Pesaḥ, Shavu'ot and Sukkot — were known to the sages in talmudic times as Pesaḥ, Atzeret and Ḥag. Thus, the festival of Tabernacles, Sukkot, was in days gone by the festival [ḥag] of the year, surpassing the others in joyousness.

2:
The Torah institutes the festival several times, as already mentioned. The first mention of Sukkot
[Exodus 23:14-17] introduces several concepts:

Three occasions shall you celebrate for Me annually:

the Festival of unleavened Bread shall you observe: for seven days shall you eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time of the month of spring, because in it you departed from Egypt…
The Harvest Festival, the first-fruits of your labours that you sow in the field;
and the Festival of Ingathering, at the end of the year, when you gather in your labours from the field.

Three times annually shall all your males appear before God the Lord.

We note here that these three festivals are pilgrimage festivals. The first verse quoted above refers to these festivals in Hebrew as regalim, which in this context means 'occasions' (as, for example, when the she-ass of Bil'am castigates him for hitting her three times [Numbers 22:32]). However, since the word also means 'feet' the term was used also to indicate these three pilgrimage festivals. In these verses the festival of Sukkot is to be held at 'the end of the year', and this refers, of course, to the agricultural year in Eretz-Israel. After all the produce had been collected after the end of summer the festival of Sukkot was celebrated and there was no further work in the fields until the onset of spring.

3:
The second time the festival of Sukkot is mentioned in the Torah [Exodus 34:22] the fact that the festival is to occur 'as the year turns' is repeated.

4:
The festival of Sukkot is also mentioned in the last book of the Torah [Deuteronomy 16:13-15]:

You shall celebrate the festival of Sukkot for seven days, when you gather in from your threshing-floor and your vat. You shall rejoice on your festival — you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, the Levite, the stranger, the orphan and the widow that are in your gates. For seven days shall you celebrate to God in the place that God will select, when God blesses you with all your produce and all your labour: just be happy.

A further element is introduced here. The festival of Sukkot is to be a happy festival, an occasion when the people rejoice after a successful harvest. It is hard not to read in this quotation the requirement of happiness and rejoicing on this festival.

5:
But the main institutions of the festival of Sukkot come in the third book of the Torah [Leviticus 23:34-43]. In the book of Deuteronomy the festival was called 'Sukkot' [huts], but it is in the book of Leviticus that the meaning of this term is explained:

You shall reside in huts [sukkot] for seven days — every citizen in Israel shall reside in huts. So that future generations may be aware that I housed the Israelites in huts when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. [Leviticus 23:42-43].

6:
This same section of the Torah institutes yet another mitzvah of this festival:

On the first day you shall take a citrus fruit, palm branches, the branch of a thick tree and willows of the brook and rejoice before God for seven days. [Leviticus 23:40]

This rite of the festival became known as 'Taking the Lulav' or the 'Four Species'. These four species were identified as Lulav (palm branch), Etrog [citrus fruit], Myrtle [branch of a thick tree] and willow.

7:
Thus the main institutions of the festival have been delineated by the Torah:

Residing in huts,
Taking the four species
Being happy and celebrating.

These are the three elements that are detailed in the five chapters of Tractate Sukkah. Chapters 1-2 are concerned with the regulations concerning the construction of a sukkah and residing in it; chapters 3-4 detail the rules that govern the Lulav and the other three species. Chapter 5 describes the celebrations that took place in the Bet Mikdash (Temple) in Jerusalem when it was still standing and functioning.

The fact that the festival of Sukkot originally coincided — and celebrated — the successful conclusion of the agricultural year is not entirely forgotten because many people still have the custom of decorating their sukkah with fruit and produce.

NOTE:
For the sake of accuracy I would like to point out that in my translations above from the Torah I have taken two liberties, and both for the sake of convenience.

In explanation 5 I referred to a 'citizen'. The original meaning of the term probably meant someone homeborn, as distinguished from someone who came from another people to join the nation of Israel. However, in modern Hebrew the term means 'citizen' and that fits neatly into the verse. (The law in Deuteronomy [explanation 4] explicitly included those members of the people of Israel who were not 'homeborn'.)

In explanation 6 I referred to a citrus fruit. The meaning of the Hebrew term etz hadar is not at all clear and the sages offered several explanations of the term. However, the fruit was certainly identified with the citron [etrog] and so the term citrus was a useful substitution, obviating abstruse circumlocutions.

To be continued.

Because of the incidence of Holocaust Day the next shiur will be on May 5th, God willing.

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