Sukkah 009

1:
In an agricultural society, after the completion of the harvests a farmer is likely to have many bundles of wheat in his fields. He would be leaving them to dry so that during the winter months they can serve as fodder for the animals or straw bedding for his family, and so forth. Also, after having harvested his fruit he will have pruned his trees and vines in preparation for the following year. The foliage from the trees can also serve him. In his commentary on mishnah 5 Rabbi Ovadya of Bertinoro writes:

2:
As the festival of Sukkot arrives the enterprising farmer might have a bright idea: I need thatching for my sukkah and I also need to leave my bundles of wheat and foliage to dry in the sun. Why don't I just lay some of these bundles on top of my sukkah? Thus I shall be killing two birds with one stone, as it were: I shall have s^ekhakh for my sukkah and at the same time I shall be drying out my forage. To this bright idea the sages have an objection.

3:
The Torah [Deuteronomy 16:13] commands:

The Hebrew word here rendered 'celebrate' actually means 'do' or 'make'. The sages understood the command as requiring the s^ekhakh of the sukkah as being made from something especially for the purpose: "'You shall make' — and not from what is already made" [Sukkah 11b]. However, if the farmer unties his bundles he thereby announces, as it were, that he is dedicating this material to the purpose of thatching his sukkah and not for any other mundane purpose.

4:
The last clause of mishnah 5 notes that these same bundles of straw and foliage, when still tied up for drying and storage, may certainly be used to create the panels of the sukkah. It would be as if the farmer were creating the walls of his sukkah from little haystacks. (The farmers would create cubes of hay, smooth the edges and fasten the cube with a tie.)

5:
We now come to mishnah 6. Planks are wood and are derived from trees. Thus, in theory, they meet the criteria of valid s^ekhakh: grown from the ground and not a utensil of some kind. However, by using planks one might create s^ekhakh that was to all intents and purposes a roof! Therefore, the sages limit the use of planks with regards to creating s^ekhakh.

6:
The Gemara [Sukkah 14a] explains the maḥloket [difference of opinion] between Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Me'ir. Both sages are agreed that if a plank of wood is less than three handbreadths wide it may be laid as part of the s^ekhakh. (Three handbreadths are about 25 centimetres.) Also, both sages are agreed that if a plank of wood is four handbreadths wide (a little more than 30 centimetres, about 1 foot) it may not be used as part of the s^ekhakh.

7:
In our mishnah the difference of opinion between Rabbi Yehudah and Rabbi Me'ir is concerned with an ambivalent width which is more than three handbreadths and less than four handbreadths. Rabbi Yehudah would permit the use of such a plank because it is, after all, less than four handbreadths wide. Rabbi Me'ir would forbid the use of such a plank because it is, after all, wider than three handbreadths.

8:
According to the Gemara [Sukkah 14a] it seems that what worries Rabbi Me'ir is, in fact, the fear that an ordinary person may say to himself something like "if I can thatch with planks such as these what difference would it make if I stayed under my own roof at home?"

9:
The last clause of Mishnah 6 shows clearly the problematica of using planks of wood as s^ekhakh. The mishnah states that if one uses a plank that is wider than four handbreadths one must be very careful not to sleep underneath it. Once again, this would be because a plank that wide is more like a roof than simple s^ekhakh, and if one sleeps under the plank (or does anything else of religious significance) it is as if one were doing so under a roof and not under s^ekhakh, which defeats the purpose and invalidates that particular mitzvah.

10:
Halakhah in this case — as in most other disagreements between these two sages — follows the opinion of Rabbi Yehudah. Many ancient and medieval authorities quote a kind of rule of interpretation: