Monday, September 11, 2006

Daf Yomi - Sukkah 9 - Stolen Walls

The Gemora learns form a possuk that one cannot fulfill his obligation of sitting in a sukkah with a sukkah that is stolen. Tosfos asks on the necessity of a possuk to teach us this, let's apply the principle of mitzva habaah b'aveira? When one performs a mitzva and simultaneously commits a transgression, he will not fulfill the mitzva, so why do we need a possuk? He answers that this principle is only midrabanan and the possuk is teaching us that he does not fulfill his mitzva even min haTorah.

It is well known that the Minchas Chinuch 25 offers other answers to this question.
Click here for more please

One answer he proposes is that a possuk would be necessary for the other days of Sukkos. Only on the first night is one obligated to sit and eat in the sukkah. The other days, there is only a prohibition to eat outside the sukkah, but one is not mandated to eat in the sukkah. If one would eat in a stolen sukkah the other days of sukkos and there would be no possuk invalditaing such a sukkah, he would not be transgressing the prohibition of eating outside a sukkah for the principle of mitzva habbah b'aveira does not make the sukkah invalid and it would not be considered eating outside a sukkah. Mitzva habbah b'aveira accomplishes that one does not fulfill his mitzva and that is only relevant on the first night. The possuk is needed to teach us that the sukkah is invalid and hence he would be regarded as eating outside a sukkah.

Rav Shach asks that the possuk does not invalidate the sukkah, for if so, it should apply only by the s'chach and not by the walls for the walls cannot be invalidated. Since the possuk is teaching that the walls cannot be stolen either it is a proof that the possuk is only an exclusion that one cannot fulfill his mitzva with a stolen sukkah and that would apply by the walls as well.

Reb Akiva Eiger and Bikurei Yaakov rule that the possuk is only referring to the s'chach and not the walls. They state that the only issue with stolen walls for a sukkah is the principle of mitzva habbah b'aveira.

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