Q&A: Combining Gud Asik and Lavud
Combining Gud Asik and Lavud
Question
I am planning to use for Sukkot a lavud reed wall like this (without a sheet or fabric behind it, just the reeds as the wall). As can be seen in the picture at the link, the wall does not reach all the way to the top, so one would need to rely on the principle of gud asik. I saw on the Kipa website a responsum where they wrote that if someone relies both on gud asik and on lavud, this is a combination of two leniencies, and ideally one should not rely on both together. That seems strange, since this product (the wall) apparently has kosher certification from the Badatz Beit Yosef. So I am asking you: may one rely from the outset on this product as a wall?
Answer
This is not a matter of two leniencies, but of combining two halakhic principles. The Ran’s view is that we do not apply two legal principles one on top of the other.
But here there are several grounds for leniency.
A. This ruling itself is not agreed upon.
B. It is not certain that gud asik is needed at all (a wall of ten handbreadths may itself be enough even without gud asik). Here too there is a dispute among the medieval authorities, and if I remember correctly, most hold that it is not needed.
C. The reeds are not parallel but crisscrossed, so it is not clear whether this is even a wall of lavud at all. Think about a regular wall that is made in a way that has holes here and there. Would we not say gud asik about it?
D. Rabbi Akiva Eiger wrote that according to the Ran, we say that two legal principles are not applied together only where the validity of one depends on the other. Here that is not exactly the case. Lavud certainly does not depend on gud asik, and the reverse is also not entirely obvious in my opinion.
Note also that at the bottom there is no gap of three by three handbreadths near the ground, for then kids passing through would invalidate it (see Sukkah 16a).
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Questioner:
Regarding C: it seems to me that what determines whether this is a case of lavud or not is whether most of the wall is filled or open (in our case, mostly open).
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Rabbi:
Maybe. It still requires further discussion.