On yesterday's daf we saw several Tan'aim who are attributed with holding that Sukah is meant to be kevah (as Tosfos points out - they aren't all consistent with each other, but they have the common denominator of assuming that Sukah must have kviut). One of those was Rav Shimon (3 walls plus tefach), about whom the daf 2 days ago gave numerous explanations, the last of which was that he's based on a pasuk in Navi that states that a Sukkah is meant to protect from the elements. Yet on today's daf, in explaining the potters' inner and outer sukkah, Rashi, clearly stating that we're not requiring a sukkah to be l'shem chag, but we do require it to be l'shem tzel and chorev - a clear allusion to that pasuk.
But that pasuk had been used to buttress Rav SHimon's Sukat Keva philosophy...but I thought we paskin Sukat Arai. The truth is that - and I am at work now, without my daf in front of me - that of those numerous shittot of Tenaim of Sukat Keva, we reject most of them (no need for Shulchan, no need for 4 amot x 4 amot, no need for 3 walls plus a tefach) but ONE of those shittot we DO paskin like (even though the gemara later on will switch the shitas yachid to be Chachamim).
But again - if that's a Sukkat Keva philosophy, and we assume that a Sukkah is meant to be Ara'i, why should we paskin like any of those shittot? I am beginning to get the sense that l'ma'aseh we DO assume some element of keva is expected...if my hunch is correct, then to what degree?
Thank you very much.
Avram Goldstein, Ramat Beit Shemesh, ISRAEL
1) Rashi (8b, DH Amar Rav) is not referring to the Pasuk in Navi cited earlier on 6b. The main thing that we learn fron that Pasuk is that the walls of the Sukah should be capable of protecting from rain, as Rashi there (6b, DH l'Machseh) writes, that if there are not four walls the wind will blow the rain in through the open side.
2) Rashi here does not mean to say that if one made the Sukah to protect from the sun that this makes the Sukah into a Diras Keva. It is clear that even a Diras Arai can protect from the sun. Rather, Rashi is teaching us that the Sukah must not be made simply for "Tzeniyus," privacy, but it must be made for shade. Rashi agrees, though, that it must be Arai.
3) The only opinion on 7b, of all that are cited as requiring Diras Keva, that we rule like is that of Beis Shamai. However, we follow his ruling for a different reason, and not because of Diras Arai. Even if the Sukah is wide enough that there is no problem of Arai, if the table is inside the house we are concerned that the person might be drawn after his table into the house (see Gemara earlier, 3a).
4)
(a) The Ritva (3a) gives a slightly different insight into the fact that the Halachah follows Beis Shamai who requires a Diras Keva, but from the way that the Ritva explains it we see that the definition of Keva is not quite as one would think, and his explanation in fact leans towards the direction of your hunch.
(b) The Gemara (7b) states that Abaye said that according to Beis Shamai, the Sukah needs to be a Diras Keva. The Gemara explains that if the table is inside the house, this is considered a Diras Arai. The Ritva explains that this does not disagree with the way Rava explained (3a), that Beis Shamai invalidates such a Sukah because of a Gezeirah that one might be drawn after his table into the house. The Ritva writes that the term "Diras Keva" used by Abaye, and the term "Gezeirah that he not be drawn after his table" used by Rava, are actually exactly the same idea, but merely expressed in different words.
(c) The Ritva writes that when Abaye said that Beis Shamai requires a Diras Keva, what this actually means is that the Dirah should be "Re'uyah Liheyos Bah Keva" -- the Sukah should be fit to be permanent. If there is a worry that the inhabitant might be drawn after his table into the house, this means that the Sukah is not fit to be permanent, because there is always a concern that the dweller might leave his Sukah in order to enter the house.
(d) Accordingly, Beis Shamai does not actually require a Diras Keva, but rather just a guarantee that the person will remain in the Sukah. If the table is inside the house, it is not certain that the dweller will remain inside the Sukah, and so Beis Shamai rules that this is sufficient to invalidate it as not being a "permanent Sukah."
(e) This is why we rule like Beis Shamai on this point. Everyone agrees that the Sukah requires enough "permanentness" to ensure that one will remain inside it.
4) It is also important to note that the Halachah actually also follows a second opinion of those listed on 7b that require Diras Keva. This is the opinion of Rebbi Eliezer who invalidates a Sukah whose roof is also its wall. However, the Rosh (#10) writes that the reason why the Halachah follows this opinion is not that a Sukah must be a Diras Keva, but rather it is because the Halachah states that a slanted tent is not a tent, and therefore a Sukah which consists merely of a slanted wall without a roof is not considered a Sukah.
5) However, your hunch is correct concerning the Sukah which is so small that one cannot fit the table inside. Here, the Halachah also follows Beis Shamai that the Sukah is Pasul. About this kind of Sukah, the Ran (13a of the pages of the Rif, DH Gemara Halachah) gives the logic that you hint at. He writes that even though we rule like the Rabanan who require a Diras Arai, nevertheless one does need a certain amount of Kevi'us, of fixedness. If it is so small that even the table does not fit into it, this is considered a "Dirah Seruchah," a repulsive Dirah. The Mishnah Berurah (634:7) writes that this is not a Dirah at all.
Kol Tuv,
Dovid Bloom
Thank you very much.
I had thought that this was missed, but I'm glad to see not.
While I appreciate all that you wrote, I respectfully suggest that your first point is incorrect. The language Rashi uses is straight out of that pasuk; I don't think he'd have used that language had he not been referencing it. As such, I suspect there's still more going on within Rashi.
That said, I'm glad to see I was onto something I had never realized before - "some" degree of kviut necessary. Of course, that begs the question...can we quantify/qualify what constitutes that degree of kviut that we require l'halacha? (Forget trying to quantify/qualify the degree of kviut that each shita of those Tannaim requires...even Rashi doesn't attempt that, saying they all require kviut, even though not all those shitot agree with each other...) All we're doing is DESCRIBING, not defining, the concept, eg "if a table won't fit it's not a dira". So what does make a dira? What are the hagdarot of that which we require for kviut? I don't know if there are formulated answers to this question, but it's a thought to retain for the next round, 7 years from now, please G-d. Maybe the international Daf Yomi Beis Midrash will come up with a chiddush defining the term then.
Again - thank you so much again for giving this attention.
Avram Goldstein
PS If this is the Dovid Bloom whose son learned through 7th grade in Toras Moshe in Ramat Beit Shemesh with my son Elisha - I hope your son is doing well. Please give him regards from Elisha and me. Kol tuv.
Reb Avraham, thank you for your important comments. I'm not the same Dovid Bloom; no son ever learned in Ramat Beit Shemesh. Where I live, in Ramot, there is also another Dovid Bloom, so it seems that there are a few "Yosef ben Shimon"s in the same town, as the Gemara says!
1) The reason why I say that Rashi (8b, DH Amar Rav) is not referring to the verse cited on 6b is because that verse also states that the Sukah is a protection from rain, while we rule that the Sukah need not (or possibly, should not) protect from rain.
2) However, I agree with you that there is something going on in Rashi. The Netziv of Volozhin, in his Sefer Meromei Sadeh, writes that Rashi produced a new Din which is not mentioned in other Rishonim, that if a Sukah was not built with the Mitzvah in mind, then it must be built specifically for shade from the heat, and not merely for privacy or for some other reason. In contrast, other Rishonim maintain that if the Sukah is made to provide "shade" from thieves or unwanted onlookers, this is also considered as being built for "Tzel."
(See also Rashi to 2b, DH li'Yemos, who writes that if the Sukah was built for the Mitzvah it is not necessary that it should be made for shade.)
3) I suggest that Rashi on 12a (DH Chada) can help us understand Rashi here on 8b. Rashi there writes that a Sukah acquires the name of a Sukah when it is made out of "Sechach" in order to provide shade. When Rashi writes that it "acquires the name of a Sukah" he is alluding to what he wrote in the very first Mishnah (2a), that a Sukah is called a Sukah because of the Sechach. The words "Sukah" and "Sechach" possess the same root. Since the nature of Sechach is to provide shade, it follows that a Sukah must provide shade from the heat. Sechach does not provide protection from thieves because it is not closed enough.
4) Just one quick observation about a defenition of Kevi'us. The Milchemes Hash-m, by the Ramban, on 3b of the pages of the Rif, explains the Shitah of Beis Shamai (3a) that a Sukah must be large enough to fit one's [small] table. The Ramban writes that if a Sukah is not fit for normal eating and all normal uses of a Sukah, is not called a Sukah. Since the Gemara (7b) states that Beis Shamai is one of the opinions that require Diras Keva, it follows that the Ramban is telling us a Hagdarah in Diras Keva.
Of course, we must add that the Ramban is referring to the minimum uses of a Sukah, because Beis Shamai maintains that 7 by 7 Tefachim is sufficient.
Kol Tuv,
Dovid Bloom