Monday, October 10, 2005

Some halachic points regarding building a succah

As now is succah building time I would like to post some common halachic issues that come up when building a succah.

When I was growing up, canvas succahs were very prevalent and in fact, last year when I was in the US for Succos I still saw quite a few. These kinds of Succahs (as well as other non-wood succahs) have a number of halachic problems which I would like to address. For those who aren't familiar, a canvas succah is made of a frame of metal pipes on which canvas is hung to create the walls.

There are 2 issues with this kind of succah:
1. The walls move which may invalidate the wall completely which would invalidate the succah. The gemara, shulchan aruch etc. write that if a wall moves 3 tefachim (about a foot) in the wind then the wall is considered invalid. Every canvas succah that I have seen (including the one I grew up in) has walls that move 3 tefachim in the wind and therefore many poskim are not happy with them.

There is an easy solution to the problem which I used for many years. The solution is based on 2 halachos related to walls.
1. לבוד - this means that if you have 2 objects within 3 tefachim of each other the halacha considers it as if the intervening space is filled in.
2. A wall only needs to be 10 tefachim (40 inches) high. Once it is 10 tefachim high we look on it as if it extends up to the sky.

Given these 2 halachos we can construct walls of string for a canvas succah. What we do is tie string/rope from 1 pole to another. We space the string around 8.5 inches apart so that they are within 3 tefachim of each other. With 5 or 6 strings like this we have a wall of greater then 10 tefachim. It works because starting from the bottom, the bottom string is within 3 tefachim of the ground and therefore the intervening space is considered to be filled in. Each subsequent string is placed less then 3 tefachim above the previous one again using לבוד so that we look upon the space as solid. We repeat this until the top string is above 10 tefachim. We have created a wall that is halachically kosher and in actuality serves as th wall of the succah. We repeat this for all the walls.

There is 1 point to keep in mind. the סכך has to be placed after you create the walls of strings, otherwise it is a problem of תעשה ולא מן העשוי. If the סכך was already put down, then you need to move the scach around to avoid this problem.

I did this for years and it worked well.

2. מעמיד הסכך על דבר טמא - the gemara has 1 opinion that you are not allowed to support the סכך on something that cannot be used for סכך. There is a machlokes harishonim whether we pasken like this opinion. The Mishna Berura mentions that l'chatchela a person should try to be machmir and the contemporary poskim also say that a person should try to be machmir. This problem applies to any non-wood succah (canvas, fiberglass, etc.) as well.

To get around this the minhag evolved to place wood poles on top of the metal walls and then rest the סכך on top of the wood poles. This makes the wood the מעמיד of the scach and the metal a מעמיד דמעמיד. There are 2 problems with this approach:

1. If the סכך would not fall without the wood then the wood is not considered a מעמיד. In other words if your succah is 6 feet wide and your סכך is 6.5 feet wide, if you just rest the סכך on wood poles it doesn't help, if you took away the wood the סכך would not fall it would rest on the metal. Therefore the metal is called the מעמיד of the סכך. The way to get around this is to make sure that the סכך would fall if you remove the wood, namely, move the סכך to one side so that it doesn't overlap the other wall (it is just very close). In that case, the סכך is truly being held up by the wood.
2. A number of acharonim point out the following. The wood that is used to hold up the סכך is in and of itself kosher סכך. therefore, why should we consider the wood a מעמיד of the סכך, rather it should just be considered סכך which is resting on the metal. I have not seen a good answer for this claim.

The Chazon Ish has an unbelievable chumra. The Chazon Ish understands that even if you have a wooden succah, if the walls are held up by metal screws, that metal is considered to be a מעמיד of the סכך because if you took that metal out the walls would fall down and so would the סכך. In other words, if you have something that is mekabel tumah holding up any part of your succah such that without this piece the סכך would fall down (e.g. the walls would fall down causing the scach to fall) the Chazon Ish considers this to be מעמיד the סכך with a davar hamekabel tumah and no good. Basically according to the Chazon Ish you cannot use any metal to build your succah.

Almost no one holds like this Chazon Ish, it makes building a succah an absolute nightmare, you need to use wooden screws, etc. I remember in KBY everyone was amazed that the posek held from this Chazon Ish.

The bottom line is that with a wooden succah you avoid almost all of these problems and are yotze the mitzva. It is not difficult to build and therefore I highly recommend it.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

when were you in KBY?

bluke said...

In the 80's

Anonymous said...

when in the 80's?

bluke said...

This blog is written by me under a pseudonym for many reasons and I want it to stay that way, therefore I am not going to offer any more specfic information, sorry. If you E-mail me directly with your name I may decide to answer you with more specific information.

Anonymous said...

Reb Bluke - i also have done "lov'id sukkas" in the past, but i recently heard from someone who went to a shiur by the rov of our town (the same one as the tzeis hakochavim shiur and the feeding kids on YK shiur). i think he brought MGA that lov'id does not work on all 4 walls. dont know where it would be, but MGA is a major player (poseik) for us ashkenazim

Anonymous said...

It would be easier to read your terrific blog if you would transliterate the Hebrew words. It's easier on the eye, that's why Artscroll/ Feldheim/ Targum all do that.

bluke said...

The MGA that you are referring to is the first MGA in Siman תר"ל. However, you probably misheard it. What the MGA says is that you cannot rely on walls of lavud if you don't have 4 walls. In other words the MGA is machmir that you need 4 walls, I believe all 4 of them can be made woth lavud.

bluke said...

I find it much easier to read the hebrew words in hebrew simply because the transliteration is many times hard to read and figure out what the word really is in Hebrew.

Anonymous said...

god post.
The new canvas has hole son the bottom to tie them down.They therefor don't flop three tefachim.

bluke said...

This is not so new. I always tied the bottom down but it doesn't help, the walls still move 3 tefachim in the wind

Jameel @ The Muqata said...

When I heard this in KBY, no one was amazed anymore...(mid 80's as well).

Anonymous said...

Actually the newest canvas ones are tied in the middle of the walls' height, to a crossbar. They do not move 3 tefachim. And even in the old canvas models, if sized properly, the canvas was taut enough not to flap. And if not, you could cut holes in it to prevent the entire wall from acting as a sail.

bluke said...

That is good to hear

Unknown said...

How do avoid the last issue you brought; we need planks wide enough to be no good for schach!

Unknown said...

How do avoid the last issue you brought; we need planks wide enough to be no good for schach!