[Avodah] Sukkah on Shabbos

[Chana Luntz]

RMB writes:

> I was thinking more technically, that since it's framed as a lav, beis
> din simply lacked the legislative power to override it.

But from where are you deriving that it is *framed as a lav*?

In an earlier post you wrote:

> Correct what I said from the formal asei vs lav to chiyuv vs
> issur. That is the whole gezeirah shavah tes-vav tes-vav --
> the first night parallels a chiyuv of akhilas matzah, the
> rest of Sukkos it parallels not eating chameit. The mitzvah
> is not to eat outside the Sukkah, rather than a mitzvah to
> eat within it.

But while there is indeed a gezera shava chamesh aser, to chamesh aser,
which is used in in Sukkos 27a to establish the obligation to eat a meal on
the first night of sukkos, as opposed to the other nights, I don't think you
can get from there to a lav.

The reason I say this is because of the gemora on Sukkos 28a.  The gemora is
discussing the Mishna which states that, inter alia, women are exempt from
the mitzvah of Sukkah.  The gemora states that this is based on "hilchasa" -
ie a halacha Moshe m'Sinai.  The gemora then questions - why do we need this
halacha Moshe m'Sinai at all "Sukkah mitzvas aseh she hazman grama"?

Now if you were right, the gemora could not have asked this question -
because obviously if it was really a form of lav, or framed as a lav, you
can't call it a *mitzvas aseh* shehazman grama - and the reason for the need
for a halacha Moshe m'Sinai, or a derivation from a pasuk, would be obvious.

Now it is true, the gemora gives a *second* reason why you need a halacha
Moshe m'Sinai which relates to the gezera shava - but first of all, the
first reason it gives, has nothing to do with that - it says that since the
mitzva is tashivu k'ein tadiru then just as a man lives with his wife, af
sukkah ish v'ishto, and hence you might have thought women were obligated
(kmashmalan).

OK, then it moves onto a second reason, which relates to the gezera shava -
on the basis that just as women are obligated to eat matza on first night
Pesach, so too they should be obligated in sukkah, so hence you need the
halacha Moshe m'Sinai to counteract this.

BUT, the reason that women are obligated in the mitzvah of matza is derived
(see  Pesachim 43b) from the connection between eating matza on the first
night and not eating chametz, ie precisely this nexus that you are trying to
make with Sukkah is indeed made with pesach, and the lav aspect then drags
in the aseh aspect vis a vis women, making them obligated.

If you were correct, the gemora does not need to make any real reference to
the gezera shava - all it would need to do is make exactly the same kind of
linkage that is made over there by Pesach - ie just as eating matza on first
night is linked to the lav of eating chametz, and hence women are obligated,
so too, the eating in the sukkah is linked to the lav of not eating outside
the sukkah, and so women should also be obligated - hence we need a halacha
Moshe miSinai.

But the gemora does not say that.  It's assumption appear to be squarely
that we are dealing with an aseh only, and at most we have an aseh linked to
another aseh where women are obligated.

So where are you getting this "lav/issur" idea as a d'orisa concept from?
Would it not, from all this, seem more logical to say that because of the
nature of the aseh, a rabbinical ban was placed on eating outside the sukkah
(for men, obviously), to prevent them being mevatel the aseh?  

Of course, if one is dealing with an aseh, then RAM's question comes back
into force as a real question. Although maybe you could say that, given
that, if indeed not eating outside the sukkah is d'rabbanan, as I am
hypthosising (without having looked into it, any further than these gemoras,
I add) then maybe they did not want to undermine one takana by another,
something which did not come into play vis a vis lulav or shofar.

> 
> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha

Gut Moed

Chana