Sukkah 5b (ה:) — the Talmud in English

The Gemara raises an objection:

Perhaps it is like the face

like the face

of the bird Yokhni,

a very large bird whose face is large

?!

The Gemara answers: If you grasp too much, you have grasped nothing; if you grasp a little, you have grasped it.

The Gemara raises an objection to Rav Huna:

Perhaps it is like the face of a small bird,

like the face of a bird,

which is exceedingly small,

whose face is very small, less than a tefach

?!

Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: Rav Huna

derived a gezera shava,

“face” from “face.”

It is written here, “toward the face of the cover,” and it is written there (Genesis 27),

“from before the face of Isaac his father,”

and the measure of a human face is one tefach.

The Gemara raises an objection:

Let us derive it from the “face” Above, as it is written (Genesis 33:10),

“As seeing the face of God, and You have 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

?!

If you grasp too much, you have grasped nothing; if you grasp a little, you have grasped it.

The Gemara raises an objection:

Let us derive

the height of the cover

from a cherub,

whose face is less than a tefach,

as it is written,

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

The Gemara answers:

Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: It is an established tradition that the faces of the cherubs are not less than a tefach, and Rav Huna, too, derived it from here.

That is, the measure of the height of the cover, one tefach, is derived from the cherubs, and the faces of the cherubs also measured one tefach.

The Gemara explains:

And what is the meaning of “cherub”?

Rabbi Abbahu said: Like a child,

like a young child,

as in Babylonia they call a child “ravya.”

The face of a cherub was like the face of a child.

The Gemara raises an objection:

Abaye said to him: If that is so,

if indeed the face of a cherub was like a human face, what is the meaning of

that which is written (Ezekiel 10:14),

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

After all,

isn’t a cherub the same as a man?!

According to you, since the face of a cherub was like the face of a child, the face of a cherub was like a human face; why, then, did Scripture distinguish between them? The Gemara answers: In fact, a cherub has the face of a child, but a “human face” is

a large face,

a large face,

while

the “face of a cherub” is

a small face,

a small face, like that of a child.

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

The Gemara raises an objection:

And from where

is it established that the open space

of the sukka is ten tefaḥim alone,

apart

from its roofing? Perhaps

this measure is

together with the roofing,

including the height of the roofing. But the height of the open space is less than ten, as we find with the Ark and the cover, since the open space of the Ark was not ten tefaḥim.

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

Rather,

the height of a sukka, which is ten tefaḥim,

is derived from the Temple,

from the Temple,

by derivation.

As it is written (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 (I Kings 6:26),

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

That is, the cherubs stood on the ground, and since their height was ten cubits, their height extended to one-third of the height of the House, since the height of the House was thirty cubits.

And it was taught in a beraita: Just as

as

we find in the Temple

that the

cherubs stood at one-third of the height of the House,

so

too in the Tabernacle

that Israel made in the wilderness,

the cherubs stood at one-third

of the

height of the House.

And consequently,

how high was the Tabernacle

in height?

Ten cubits.

As it is written (Exodus 26:16),

“Ten cubits the length of each plank.”

How many

tefaḥim are there in ten cubits?

Sixty pushkhei,

sixty tefaḥim.

One-third of them,

one-third of that number,

how much is it? Twenty pushkhei —

twenty tefaḥim.

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

Subtract,

subtract from this height

ten

tefaḥim designated for the height

of the Ark and the cover,

there remain

from the twenty tefaḥim

ten

tefaḥim for the height of the cherubs. In the Tabernacle, the cherubs were atop the Ark and not on the ground.

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

And it is written (Exodus 25:18),

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

Thus,

the Merciful One called the wings of the cherubs roofing

that were

above ten,

and beneath them there was an open space of ten down to the cover. This proves that for the roof to be called “roofing,” the open space beneath it must be ten tefaḥim high.

But the Gemara rejects this:

From where do you know that their wings,

their wings,

stood above their heads,

above their heads,

were positioned,

with an open space of ten beneath them?

Perhaps they were positioned level with their heads,

parallel to their heads, and their height was ten including the thickness of the wings

?!

Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: “And the cherubs shall spread their wings

upward”

is written,

and

this indicates that they shielded from above their heads.

The Gemara raises an objection:

But perhaps their wings extended very high?

How do we know that the wings did not rise far above their heads

?!

Is “upward, upward” written,

which would indicate that they were very high? It is written only once, indicating that their wings were only slightly above their heads, close to them.

The Gemara raises an objection:

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

in the Tabernacle, that is, the measuring units,

were

according to cubits

of medium measure,

which was six tefaḥim. It is called a medium measure because there is a smaller one, a cubit of only five tefaḥim, and there is also a measure larger than it by half a fingerbreadth. According to Rabbi Meir, it is certainly possible to derive from the Ark, the cover, and the cherubs that the measure of a sukka is ten tefaḥim, since the height of the Ark was nine tefaḥim, which is one and a half cubits, and the cover was one tefach.

But according to Rabbi Yehuda, who says that the cubit of

measurement for

construction

was

six tefaḥim

and the cubit

of

measurement for

vessels

was

five tefaḥim,

then

what can be said?!

For according to his view,

how high were the Ark and the cover

in total? Only

eight and a half,

eight and a half tefaḥim. The Ark was one and a half cubits high, which according to the five-tefach cubit is seven and a half tefaḥim, and the cover was one tefach. Thus, to a height of twenty tefaḥim [which is one-third the height of the Tabernacle, measured in six-tefach cubits, as is required for construction],

there remain

eleven and a half

tefaḥim,

which is the height of the cherubs.

If so,

perhaps the sukka

should not be valid

until it is

its height

eleven and a half tefaḥim?!

The Gemara answers: Indeed, according to Rabbi Yehuda, the measure of the height of a sukka is not derived from the cherubs.

Rather, according to Rabbi Yehuda —

it is a halakha that he received.

It is a halakha transmitted to Moses from Sinai.

And this is similar to

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

of prohibitions, such as the consumption of a forbidden substance in the measure of an olive-bulk, and the consumption on Yom Kippur, whose measure is the amount of a date-bulk,

and likewise

interpositions —

an interposition invalidates immersion,

and partitions —

the laws of partitions concerning Shabbat and sukka,

all of them

are a halakha transmitted to Moses from Sinai

.

That is, we have received a tradition that a partition less than ten tefaḥim is not a partition. Therefore, a sukka whose partitions are not ten tefaḥim high is invalid.

The Gemara raises an objection: Are these

measures

indeed a halakha transmitted to Moses from Sinai? They are

from the Torah, as it is written (Deuteronomy 8),

“A land of wheat and barley, and vine, 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 using its produce, as explained below:

“Wheat” —

teaches

the house afflicted with a plague.

A “house afflicted with a plague” is a house in which a nega appeared, resembling greenish or reddish depressions, through which the house becomes impure with the impurity of nega’im.

A person who enters a house afflicted with a plague while wearing clothes and remains in the house for a period equivalent to the time required to eat a portion of bread becomes impure, and his clothes become impure. The time required for eating is calculated according to the time appropriate for eating a portion of bread [half a loaf], based on the time required to eat wheat.

As it is written [Leviticus 14:46]: “And whoever enters the house during all the days that it is shut up shall be impure until evening. And whoever lies down in the house shall wash his clothes. And whoever eats in the house shall wash his clothes.” And the Sages said: From this verse we have learned only that one who enters a house afflicted with a plague, eats, and lies down inside it must wash his clothes. 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 must wash his clothes? The verse states: “He shall wash his clothes,” in any event.

The Sages add and say: If so, why does the verse state “and whoever eats”? To teach you that he is not required to wash his clothes until he remains inside for the time needed to eat. But if he did not remain in the house afflicted with a plague for the time required for eating, he is not required to wash his clothes. Nevertheless, his body becomes impure immediately.

This halakha is explained in the Mishna in tractate Nega’im [13:9] and at greater length in the Chavruta on tractate Nega’im:

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

— his clothes —

on his shoulders,

without wearing them,

and

likewise

his sandals and rings

held

in his hand,

and not placed on his body,

he and they become impure immediately,

without any waiting. As it is stated: “Whoever enters the house shall become impure.” Even his clothes that are on his shoulder are included in the phrase “whoever enters the house.”

What was explained above, that his utensils do not become impure until he remains in the house for the time required for eating, applies specifically when he was wearing them. In that case they are subordinate to his body and are not significant in their own right; and in this regard the Torah innovated that they do not become impure immediately.