Sukka 16 a, b

I thought that we were finished with Masechet Eruvin some time ago.  How long will it take me to learn that we never finish anything in Talmud; we will always come back around to our learning?  Today's daf is complicated, and I will not do it justice.  Not only because I do not fully grasp the text, but because there is more detail than I can repeat in this blog.

Can part of a bed become ritually impure?  If so, which parts?  What are the essential parts of a bed frame, anyhow?  And how are bed frames used?  We learn that bed frames included long and short boards, four legs, and a number of holes or pegs used to secure ropes upon which the bedding was placed.  Sometimes the bed frame was made up of only two of these boards and the bed was supported by a wall.

We are reminded that a sukka's roof cannot be made of anything that can become ritually impure.  This includes worn vessels, mats of reeds or grasses, or large mats.  In addition, a sukka must be planned in advance.  It cannot be carved into a haystack or another pile of grain, for it was not made with the intention of filling the mitzvah.  In addition, the roof will be too thick.

We come to a new Mishna that describes the walls of the sukka.  The rabbis repeat that sukkot require 10 handbreadths of height.  However, what if the bottom of the wall ends before the floor?  If the wall is built from the top down, does it require less than three handbreadths of distance to the floor to be fit?  How would that change if the wall begins at the ground and is measured upward?

The Gemara introduces concepts taken from Eruvin to discuss this quandary.  The rabbis turn to questions of a different nature: carrying on Shabbat.  Partitions are built into cisterns placed between two courtyards, one above and one below the water line. Somehow these partitions help people to know the origin of their water and thus whether it is permitted to carry that water on Shabbat.  

Transferring this concept to the sukka is problematic. The sukka is built according to Torah law but the partitions in a cistern are built according to rabbinic law.  Leniencies might not apply to the construction of a sukka.  

The rabbis tell a story of sheets placed over partitions in Tzippori.  They have different ideas about whether those partitions were partial partitions or full partitions, whether the sheets were carried to the partitions on Shabbat or already placed there, whether there were one or two rows of posts lined up as partitions... and so on.

At the end of the daf the rabbis teach us about the concept of lavud, the joining of adjacent objects under certain circumstances, and how it might apply to the sukka walls.  We know that a wall must begin within three handbreadths from the ground.  At its height, the wall does not have to reach the sukka's roof.  Thus if a mat were placed across side of the sukka, the principle of lavud would allow the wall to 'stretch' both down to the ground and up to the roof of the sukka.  

In one daf, we move from furniture to roofs and then to walls.  We hear about baraitot, mishnayot; ancient disputes and 'new' debates.  The rabbis quote numerous principles.  And still I find it difficult to understand some of the most basic facts of the daf.  Hopefully tomorrow will help to clarify some of the more challenging passages.