Q&A: Tractate Sukkah
Tractate Sukkah
Question
Rabbi Michi, hello.
A. The Talmud at the beginning of tractate Sukkah discusses a question about the wording of the Mishnah and compares it to the Mishnah in tractate Eruvin.
The Talmud’s question is why with regard to a sukkah the wording is “invalid,” whereas with regard to Eruvin the expression is “he should reduce it.”
Tosafot explain that if the Mishnah had written “he should reduce it” regarding a sukkah, a person would think that after the fact the sukkah is valid, but that is not so. But I did not understand what the law is regarding the beam: if he did not reduce it, is it valid after the fact?
B. I thought to draw a distinction between Sukkah and Eruvin. With a sukkah, if he did not fix it, he has nullified fulfillment of the commandment of sukkah, whose obligation is from the Torah, since the sukkah is invalid. But in Eruvin, if he did not lower the beam, at most he violated the rabbinic prohibition of carrying. Is this distinction correct?
Thank you.
Answer
The difference is not between Torah-level and rabbinic law, but between a commandment and a permit. Sukkah is a commandment, and therefore it makes sense to distinguish with regard to it between optimal practice and after the fact: if one did it this way, he has a more choice form of the commandment, and if he did not do it this way, then he has still fulfilled his obligation, but not in the preferred manner (that is, it is not indispensable). But the beam is a permit, not a commandment (when there is a beam, one may carry), and therefore there is no basis to distinguish between optimal practice and after the fact. If it permits, then it permits, and if not, then not. There is no such thing as a “preferred” permit. Only with regard to a commandment can one speak about a more preferred or less preferred form of the commandment.
However, see on this matter Birkat Shmuel on Gittin (I think siman 2, but I’m not sure), who discusses bills of divorce that are invalidated rabbinically, and wonders what sense it makes to invalidate a get ab initio yet validate it after the fact, since this is not a commandment but a permit. On the face of it, that contradicts my claim here. But I understand it the other way around: from here there is proof that a get is a commandment and not a permit, but this is not the place to elaborate.
Discussion on Answer
Rabbi Michi, hello.
Thank you for the quick answer.
It could be that the difference is also between a commandment and a permit, but in its first answer the Talmud distinguishes between rabbinic and Torah-level law.
Also, Tosafot seem to imply that after the fact one has not fulfilled his obligation in a case where he sat in a sukkah over twenty cubits high. Therefore the Talmud used the term “invalid.” If it had written “he should reduce it,” I would have thought that after the fact he had fulfilled his obligation.
Regarding an alleyway, it seems to me that this is an ordinance of the Sages to place a beam there so that one not confuse an alleyway with the public domain. But it does not make sense to say about the beam that it is invalid; rather, it is simply not good enough to serve as a recognizable marker, and therefore the Mishnah used the wording “he should reduce it.”
Regarding a get that is invalidated rabbinically,
why isn’t it correct to say that this is simply like the force of rabbinic betrothal?
That is, once a woman is betrothed on the Torah level, two legal statuses take effect for her: the Torah-level status of a married woman and a rabbinic one. A get that is valid on the Torah level but invalid rabbinically removes only the Torah-level status.
That is certainly correct. My question was not about the very fact of rabbinic invalidation, but about the distinction between different rabbinic invalidations. There are rabbinic invalidations in a get that invalidate the get and render the woman a married woman (rabbinically), and her children from the second man mamzerim (rabbinically). There are rabbinic invalidations that only require giving another, valid get. There are invalidations that do not even require that. Birkat Shmuel asks what basis there is to distinguish among the different invalidations. There is no “preferred way” of performing a commandment here. You can say that the get is rabbinically invalid and therefore the woman is rabbinically a married woman. But to say that the get is invalid without any operative significance has no meaning at all. After all, there is no fulfillment of a commandment of divorce here such that one could say it was done in a less-than-ideal way.
I now see that your question A answers B. Look carefully.