Sukkah 5b — the Talmud in English

And the Gemara raises an objection:

But perhaps like the face

like the face of

Davar Yochni,

a very large bird, whose face is large?!

And the Gemara answers:

You have grasped the large, you have not grasped; you have grasped the small, you have grasped.

And the Gemara raises an objection against Rav Huna:

But perhaps like the face of a small bird,

like the face of a bird,

which is very small,

whose face is very small, less than a handbreadth?!

And the Gemara answers:

Rav Aḥa bar Yaakov said: Rav Huna

derived a gzera shava,

“face” “face” he derived.

It is written here, “toward the face of the cover,” and it is written there [ [A0019]]Genesis 27],

“from before the face of Isaac his father,”

and the measure of a human face is a handbreadth.

And the Gemara raises an objection:

And let us derive it from the “face” above, as it is written [ [A0024]]Genesis 33:10],

“as one sees the face of God, and You accepted me,”

and just as the face above has no measure, so too the cover has no measure, and it should be made up to the roof of the Tabernacle?!

And the Gemara answers as above:

You have grasped the large, you have not grasped; you have grasped the small, you have grasped.

And the Gemara raises an objection:

And let us derive

the height of the cover

from a cherub,

whose face is less than a handbreadth,

as it is written,

“Toward the face of the cover shall be the faces of the cherubs”?

And the Gemara answers:

Rav Aḥa bar Yaakov said: It is received by tradition that the faces of the cherubs were not less than a handbreadth, and Rav Huna too derived it from here.

That is to say, the measure of the height of the cover, a handbreadth, is learned from the cherubs, and the measure of the faces of the cherubs was also a handbreadth.

And the Gemara explains:

And what is a cherub?

Rabbi Abbahu said: Like a child,

like a baby,

for in Babylonia they call a child “rabya.”

And the face of the cherub is like the face of a child.

And the Gemara raises an objection:

Abaye said to him: If so,

if indeed the face of the cherub is like a human face, one must understand

that which is written [ [A0052]]Ezekiel 10:14],

“The face of the first was the face of the cherub and the face of the second was the face of a man,”

behold,

cherub is the same as man?!

And according to your words, that the face of the cherub is like the face of a child, then the face of the cherub is like a human face, so why did Scripture distinguish them? And the Gemara answers: In fact, the cherub has the face of a child, but “the face of a man” is

a large face,

a large face,

and

“the face of the cherub” is

a small face,

a small face like the face of a child.

The Gemara’s conclusion now is that the height of the cover is learned by a gzera shava from the cherubs, whose faces were a handbreadth, and the height of the sukka is learned from the cover.

And the Gemara raises an objection:

And from where

is the empty space of the sukka

ten handbreadths apart

alone,

from its roofing? Perhaps

this measure is

together with its roofing,

together with the height of the roofing. But the height of its empty space is less than ten, as we find regarding the Ark and the cover, for the empty space of the Ark is not ten handbreadths high.

Therefore the Gemara retracts and says that indeed it is impossible to learn the height of the sukka from the Ark and the cover.

Rather,

the height of a sukka, which is ten handbreadths,

from the Temple,

from the Temple,

he derived.

As it is written [ [A0089]]I Kings 6:2],

“And the House that King Solomon built for the Lord: its length was sixty cubits, its width twenty, and its height thirty cubits.”

And it is written [ [A0092]]I Kings 6:26],

“The height of the one cherub was ten cubits, and so was the second cherub.”

And that is, the cherubs stood on the ground, and since their height was ten cubits, their height ended at one-third of the height of the House, for the height of the House was thirty cubits.

And it was taught in a beraita: Just as

like

we find in the Temple

that the

cherubs stood at one-third of the House,

so

also the Tabernacle

that Israel made in the wilderness,

the cherubs stood at one-third

of the height of

the House.

And consequently,

how much was the Tabernacle

its height?

Ten cubits.

As it is written [ [A0114]]Exodus 26:16],

“Ten cubits the length of each board.”

How much did they have

handbreadths in ten cubits?

Sixty handbreadths,

sixty handbreadths.

One-third,

of them

how much was it? Twenty handbreadths —

twenty handbreadths.

It follows that the height of the cherubs in the Tabernacle was twenty handbreadths, which was one-third of the height of the Tabernacle.

Subtract,

subtract from this height

ten

handbreadths designated for the height

of the Ark and the cover,

there remain,

there remained from the twenty handbreadths

ten

handbreadths for the height of the cherubs.

In the Tabernacle, the cherubs were on the Ark and not on the ground.

And it is written [ [A0136]]Exodus 25:18],

“And the cherubs shall spread their wings upward, sheltering with their wings over the cover.”

Thus,

the Merciful One called it roofing

the wings of the cherubs, which were

above ten,

and beneath them there was an empty space of ten up to the cover. And it is proven that in order for the roof to be called “roofing,” the empty space beneath it must have a height of ten handbreadths.

But the Gemara rejects this:

From where

their wings,

above their heads,

above their heads,

were standing,

and there was an empty space of ten beneath them?

Perhaps they were standing level with their heads,

they were parallel to their heads, and their height was ten together with the thickness of the wings?!

And the Gemara answers:

Rav Aḥa bar Yaakov said: “And the cherubs spread their wings

upward”

is written,

it is written,

and it implies that they sheltered above their heads.

And the Gemara raises an objection:

But perhaps they were raised very high?

From where is it known that the wings were not much higher than their heads?!

And the Gemara answers:

Is it written, “upward, upward,”

which would then imply that they were much higher? It is written only once! And it implies that their wings were slightly above their heads, close to them.

And the Gemara raises an objection:

This works for Rabbi Meir, who says that all the “cubits”

in the Tabernacle, that is, the measuring units,

were

according to the measure of

intermediate

cubits, which is six handbreadths. And it is called an intermediate measure because there is one smaller than it, a cubit of only five handbreadths, and there is also a measure larger than it by the length of half a finger. It is indeed possible to learn from the Ark, the cover, and the cherubs that the measure of a sukka is ten handbreadths, since the height of the Ark was nine handbreadths, which is one and a half cubits, and the cover was a handbreadth.

But according to Rabbi Judah, who says that a cubit of

building

construction

was

six handbreadths

and

of

measuring

vessels

was

five handbreadths

and

what can be said?!

For according to his words,

how much were the Ark and the cover

their height? Only

eight and a half,

eight and a half handbreadths. For the Ark’s height was one and a half cubits, and according to the measure of a five-handbreadth cubit they are seven and a half handbreadths, while the cover’s height was a handbreadth. It follows that up to a height of twenty handbreadths, [which is one-third of the height of the Tabernacle measured by a six-handbreadth cubit, as is the law regarding construction],

there remain

there remained

eleven and a half,

eleven and a half handbreadths, and this was the height of the cherubs.

If so,

perhaps a sukka

will not be valid

until it is

its height

eleven and a half handbreadths?!

And the Gemara answers: Indeed, according to Rabbi Judah, the measure of the height of the sukka is not learned from the cherubs.

Rather, according to Rabbi Judah —

it is a halakha that he received by tradition.

It is a halakha given to Moses at Sinai.

And similarly,

as Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Ashi said in the name of Rav: The measures

of prohibitions—for example, eating prohibited food in the measure of an olive, and eating on Yom Kippur, whose measure is the size of a date—

and likewise

intervening substances —

for an intervention invalidates immersion—

and partitions —

the laws of partitions of Shabbat and sukka—

all of them are

a halakha given to Moses at Sinai

they are.

That is, it is a tradition in our hands that a partition less than ten handbreadths is not a partition. Therefore, a sukka that does not have partitions whose height is ten handbreadths is invalid.

And the Gemara raises an objection: Is it so that

these measures

are a halakha given to Moses at Sinai? They are

from the Torah, for it is written [ [A0224]]Deuteronomy 8],

“A land of wheat and barley, and vine and fig and pomegranate; a land of olive oil and honey.”

And Rav Ḥanin said: This entire verse

was stated to teach

measures.

That is, this verse, which speaks of the praise of the Land of Israel, comes to teach that even the prohibitions of the Torah must be measured with its fruits, as explained below:

“Wheat” —

teaches

about a stricken house.

A “stricken house” is a house in which a mark has appeared, resembling greenish or reddish depressions, through which the house becomes impure with the impurity of marks.

A person who enters a stricken house while wearing clothes, and remains in the house for a period equal to the measure of “eating a peras,” has his clothes become impure. And the time of eating is measured according to the time appropriate for eating a peras [half a loaf], according to the time required for eating wheat.

As it is written [Leviticus 14:46]: “And the one who enters the house, all the days that he has confined it, shall be impure until evening. And the one who lies down in the house shall wash his garments. And the one who eats in the house shall wash his garments.” And the Sages said: From this verse we have learned only that one who enters a stricken house, eats, and lies down inside it requires the washing of his garments. From where do we know that even if he lay down inside it but did not eat, or ate but did not lie down, he is impure and requires the washing of his garments? The verse states, “he shall wash his garments,” in any event.

And the Sages add and say: If so, what does “and the one who eats” come to teach? It teaches you that he does not require the washing of his garments until he remains inside it for a period sufficient for eating. But if he did not remain in the stricken house for the measure of eating, he does not require the washing of his garments. Nevertheless, his body becomes impure immediately.

This law is explained in the Mishna in tractate Nega’im [13:9] and at length in the Chavruta to tractate Nega’im:

For we learned in a Mishna: One who enters a stricken house, with his utensils

his clothes

on his shoulders,

but he is not wearing them,

and

likewise

his sandals and rings

held

in his hand,

and they are not placed on his body, behold,

he and they become impure immediately,

without remaining there. For it is stated: “And the one who enters the house shall become impure.” And even the clothes found on his shoulder are included in “everyone who enters the house.”

And what was explained above, that his utensils do not become impure until he remains in the house for the time of eating, applies specifically when he was wearing them, for then they are subordinate to his body and are not significant in themselves; and in this the Torah innovated that they do not become impure immediately.