Sukkah 12a — the Talmud in English

And the Gemara raises an objection:

If

it is as you say, that you derive these laws from the festival offering, then you should derive:

Just as the festival offering is living creatures, so too the sukkah must be made specifically from living creatures

and invalidate every sukkah that is not made from living creatures. Since it is explicit in the Mishna that it is not necessary to make the walls of the sukkah specifically from living creatures, certainly the laws of the sukkah are not derived from the festival offering.

When Ravin came, he said in the name of Rabbi Yohanan

another derivation:

The verse says: “You shall make for yourself the Festival of Sukkot for seven days,

when you gather from your threshing floor and from your winepress,

when you gather from your threshing floor and from your winepress.”

And the Sages expounded:

With the refuse of the threshing floor,

which is the straw separated from the ears of grain through threshing,

and

with the refuse

of the winepress,

namely, branches and empty clusters,

the verse speaks,

that one should roof with them. And they grow from the ground and do not receive impurity, because they are not “food.”

And the Gemara raises an objection: On the contrary, from where do you know that the verse speaks of the refuse of the threshing floor and the winepress,

and let us say: the threshing floor itself

—the straw together with the ears of grain—

and the winepress itself

—the clusters together with the grapes—for they are food, and the Torah said to roof with them?!

Rabbi Zeira said:

You are compelled to derive that the verse does not speak of the threshing floor and the winepress themselves, but rather of the refuse of the threshing floor and the winepress. For

“winepress” is written here,

which means that the wine has already been made,

and

therefore

it is impossible to roof with it

with wine; rather, certainly the Torah said to roof with the refuse remaining after the wine is made.

Rabbi Jeremiah challenges this:

Is it really impossible to roof with wine?

And let us say that “winepress” means

“winepress” means

congealed wine,

frozen,

coming from Senir,

a place,

which resembles rounds of dried figs

dried figs, and it is possible to roof with it?!

Rabbi Zeira said: This matter was in our possession,

until now we had believed that the reason for our Mishna is derived from the aforementioned verse,

but Rabbi Jeremiah came and cast an axe into it

cut it with an axe, that is, he gave a decisive answer.

Rav Ashi said:

These laws can still be derived from the very meaning of this verse. For the verse says, “when you gather

from your threshing floor,”

which implies that you gather it and take it from the threshing floor. That is, the threshing floor is the principal matter, and from it you gather the refuse,

and not the threshing floor itself.

And likewise, “when you gather

from your winepress”

means that you gather it from the winepress,

and not the winepress itself.

Rav Hisda said,

These laws—that roofing is valid only with something that grows from the ground and does not receive impurity—can be learned

from here:

As it is stated [Nehemiah 8]: “And on the second day the heads of the fathers’ households gathered, and they found written in the Torah that the Lord had commanded through Moses that the Children of Israel should dwell in sukkot, and they proclaimed aloud, saying,

‘Go out to the mountain and bring olive branches, branches of oil trees, branches of myrtles, branches of palms, and branches of leafy trees,’

to make sukkot from them.”

The verse did not mention all these species without purpose. Rather, it comes to teach us that only species like these, which grow from the ground and do not receive impurity, are valid for roofing.

And the Gemara explains the words of the verse: Why did it mention both branches of myrtle and branches of leafy trees? After all,

“myrtle” is “leafy tree,”

they are one thing, for the myrtle is called “leafy tree” in the language of Scripture because of its leaves, which are arranged one upon another like braided cords and chains?!

Rav Hisda said:

The verse spoke of two mitzvot:

the wild myrtle,

whose braided arrangement is not made of three leaves at each level,

for

the roofing of the

sukkah

for it is invalid for taking the lulav,

and the leafy tree,

that is, a three-leaved myrtle,

for

the mitzva of

lulav.

Mishna:

The Mishna now presents a case in which, even if one roofed the sukkah with valid roofing, the sukkah is invalid:

Bundles of straw and bundles of wood,

a bundle of beams tied together,

and bundles of branches—

thin branches, which too are among the species valid for roofing, since they do not receive impurity and grow from the ground—

one may not roof with them,

since they are tied together as a bundle.

The reason for this matter will be explained in the Gemara.

And all of them,

all those bundles that were mentioned,

that

he placed on top of the sukkah while they were still tied, and afterward

untied them

on it, they are

valid

for roofing.

And all of them,

all the invalid materials that we learned concerning roofing—that is, something that receives impurity, or something that does not grow from the ground, or roofing tied together in a bundle—are

valid for the walls.

For these invalidations were stated concerning “sukkot,” and a sukkah written in the Torah refers only to the roofing, and not to the walls, since it is called a sukkah on account of the roofing.

Gemara:

Rabbi Jacob said: I heard two matters from Rabbi Yohanan,

that is, I heard from him the reason for the two invalidations of roofing taught in the mishnayot in this chapter:

One,

the reason for

this

in our Mishna, which says that one may not roof with bundles of straw, bundles of wood, and bundles of branches.

And the other

reason is what we learned in the Mishna below:

One who hollows out a haystack to make a sukkah for himself,

that is, one who removes sheaves from the haystack below, near the ground, and makes an empty space in it of the measure required for a valid sukkah, so that the roofing is made by itself,

it is not a sukkah.

And the reason for

one

of these mishnayot he explained to me: For by Torah law it is a valid sukkah, and its entire invalidation is only rabbinic,

because of the decree of a storehouse.

That is, if we were to validate this sukkah, a person would never make a sukkah; rather, he would go and eat and sleep in his storehouse of grain, which had never been made for the sake of shade, and this is not a sukkah at all, but merely like a house. Therefore, the Sages decreed and invalidated this sukkah, even though he made it for the sake of shade, lest he also sleep in a place that he did not make for the sake of shade.

And one—

and the reason for the second Mishna he explained to me is that it is invalid by Torah law,

because of “you shall make,

and not from that which has already been made.”

And I do not know

in

which of them

the invalidation is rabbinic, and

because of

the decree of

a storehouse, and in

which of

them

he explained that the invalidation is by Torah law,

because of “you shall make, and not from that which has already been made.”

Rabbi Jeremiah said: Let us examine,

let us consider the matter and determine in which Mishna the invalidation is by Torah law and in which it is rabbinic;

for

indeed

Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba said in the name of Rabbi Yohanan: Why did they say that bundles of straw, bundles of wood, and bundles of branches may not be used for roofing?

Because

sometimes a person comes from the field

in the summer

in the evening, with his bundle on his shoulder, and lifts it up and places it on top of his sukkah

which he made for his animals for the entire year,

in order to dry it

and store it for fuel during the cold winter days; he did not place it there for the sake of shade,

and

when the festival arrived,

he reconsidered it,

and changed the designation of the bundle so that it would be

for roofing.

And

this sukkah is invalid, since

the Torah said, “you shall make,”

and the Sages expounded: “You shall make,”

and not from that which has already been made

in invalidity. Since he placed it there not for the sake of shade but in order to dry it, this is not a sukkah; therefore, now, when he changes the designation of the bundle, the roofing is found to have been made by itself. For this reason the Sages decreed that one may not roof a sukkah with bundles, even if he places them on top of the sukkah for the sake of the festival sukkah, lest he not roof his sukkah at all and rely on those bundles that he placed on it to dry. These bundles are invalid for roofing by Torah law because of “you shall make, and not from that which has already been made.”

And if so, we have learned:

from this—

our Mishna, which invalidates roofing with bundles, is

because of the decree of a storehouse;

it necessarily follows that

this

in the second Mishna, concerning one who hollows out a haystack, the reason for the invalidation is

because of “you shall make, and not

from that which has already been made.”

And Rabbi Jacob,

who was uncertain about this, even though the matter is explicit in Rabbi Yohanan’s own words, was uncertain because

he had not heard this teaching of Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba.

Rav Ashi said

—he challenged—

Rav Ashi

the words of Rabbi Yohanan, who explained that in our Mishna the sukkah is invalid rabbinically, whereas in the Mishna concerning one who hollows out a haystack, the sukkah is invalid by Torah law: Rashi s.v. “Rav Ashi said” wrote: “He challenges Rabbi Jacob.” This is puzzling, for what difficulty is there with Rabbi Jacob’s words?! The Maharshal wrote that Rashi’s words are not precise, and that Rav Ashi’s question is directed to Rabbi Yohanan. This also appears from Rashi’s words s.v. “you shall make, and not from that which has already been made,” where he wrote: “And from where did Rabbi Yohanan hear that the Mishna here is not speaking of a Torah-law invalidation?” It follows that the question is directed to Rabbi Yohanan.

But

is it so that the Mishna concerning

the

bundles of straw and bundles of wood

can be invalidated only

because of the decree of a storehouse,

whereas

because of “you shall make, and not from that which has already been made,” it cannot?

After all, our Mishna too can be explained as referring to those very bundles that he placed to dry and later reconsidered and changed their designation for roofing. Therefore, the sukkah is invalid by Torah law because of “you shall make, and not from that which has already been made”?!

And

likewise, the Mishna concerning

one who hollows out a haystack, because of

“you shall make, and not from that which has already been made,”

there is

a possibility

of invalidating it, whereas

because of the decree of a storehouse, is there no possibility?

After all, this Mishna too can be explained as referring to a case in which it is invalid only because of the decree of a storehouse—for example, he dismantled the haystack upward, moved the upper sheaves, and then replaced them for the sake of a sukkah. Therefore, it should not be invalidated because of “you shall make, and not from that which has already been made”; rather, the reason for the invalidation is the decree, lest he fail to move them, and the sukkah would then be invalid by Torah law. This is analogous to what was explained above concerning bundles of straw and bundles of wood.

The Gemara answers:

And Rabbi Yohanan can say to you:

From the language of the mishnayot one can learn that in our Mishna the reason is rabbinic—because of the decree of a storehouse—whereas in the Mishna concerning one who hollows out a haystack, the invalidation is by Torah law—because of “you shall make, and not from that which has already been made.”