Sukka 15 a, b

Boards that are four handbreadths or less - how can we say that they are fit to cover a sukka?  Apparently Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai had a dispute about this. Or perhaps they did not have a dispute.  Today's daf is about what makes an argument as much as it is about the argument itself.

Rabbi Yehuda tells us that Beit Shammai instructs us to move all of these boards and also to remove on of the boards to render the sukka fit.  Beit Hillel tells us that doing one of these actions is enough.  Finally, Rabbi Meir says that it is enough to just move one of the boards.

The Gemara shares attempts to understand these opinions - where they come from and how they might intersect.  For example, perhaps Beit Hillel was referring to the principal that states that we should "prepare it, and not from which it has already been prepared".  Thus we must take a new action to render an item fit for roofing a sukka.  Or, the Gemara tells us, the decree of "moving the boards is not enough; removing one board causes the sukka to be fit" is behind these assertions.

The rabbis then argue over whether or not Beit Hillel, Beit Shammai and Rabbi Meir were in disagreement.  They call on the notion of ritual impurity in general, the principle of the curved wall, the size of the boards and other larger ideas to demonstrate that the dispute is extremely limited in its scope.

A new Mishna is introduced.  It tells us that a sukka is fit if there is space between metal skewers or long bed boards.  The spaces must be equal to the size of the boards, and they must be filled with halachically fit roofing. It goes on to say that a hollowed out bag of grain cannot be used to make a sukka.

To the end of the daf, the rabbis discuss the first part of this Mishna.  They consider the placement of the skewers/boards and the placement of the halachically fit schach.  They also look at how skewers/boards might become ritually impure.  If they could be construed as vessels, and there was any metal in their construction, these skewers/boards could invalidate the sukka.

I wonder if our Sages became openly angry with each other when they disagreed; especially when they disagreed with regard to a past rabbi's opinion.  I can't imagine that they did not often take these arguments personally.  They were arguing today about how big another argument might have been.  It must have taken a specific type of personality to thrive in that kind of competitive, hostile, intellectually driven setting.