[Avodah] Sukkah on Shabbos

[Chana Luntz]

RDR writes:

> Hazal set minimum shiurim for sukka which are well below what 
> I imagine
> housing was like even in those days -- can you imagine living 
> in a 7 tefah
> by 7 tefah house? I suspect "teishvu k'ein taduru" has to be 
> understood
> in the subjunctive: live as you would live if this were your house.

Yes, but the point I was trying to make was that neither my husband (who was
eating what is for him a ridiculously big breakfast so he would not be
hungry when he was out and about at lunch time) nor the family at legoland
were living "as you would live if this was your house".  One does not take
one's house with one when one travels (which is ROY's solution too, BTW, he
says take a pick up truck or similar and put a sukkah on the back) (well
some people, like truck drivers do, I guess, they sleep in their cab, but we
are talking there about the modern day equivalent of camel drivers).

And even this 7 tefach by 7 tefach house -  my thinking is that that minimum
was probably for a batchelor with little possessions.  Part of teshivu k'ein
tadiru is that you are supposed to take your nice kellim into the sukkah -
and for most people today, there would not be room in something that size.
Not to mention the idea that comes up not infrequently that tashivu kein
tadiru means ish v'ishto.  On the other hand, if you were a poor batchelor
who rented a tiny room which was only used for breaking bread in the evening
and sleeping (or a vagabond given a pallet in shul), you probably didn't get
much more - and hence you really would be living like you would live in your
house.

> This explains lots of peculiar details in halacha -- dinim 
> associated with
> rain, for example. I just acquired a copy of Damesek Eliezer 
> last week,
> so I'll point you to 640:4:11 (the very last comment, on the 
> Rama's remark
> "v'ein hamitztaer patur ... ").

Since I don't have it, it would be helpful if you provided more information.

> There are, furthermore, other kiyumim which one does in a sukka --
> l'ma'an yed'u doroseichem (see OH 625:1), for example.
> 
> >  presumably the simple answer to
> > what to do when one went to Legoland would be simply to 
> picnic.  But Rav
> > Moshe, inter alia, is dead against this, and says that that 
> ptur is only for
> > a tzorech like business.
> 
> I haven't looked at the tshuva you allude to, but I wonder about this.

Well he is not keen about people going one trips for pleasure (the teshuva
is Orech Chaim chelek 3 siman 93 - and the heading is "im mutar l'tzeit
l'taanuk b'alma l'makom shelo haya lo sukkah" - , and states emphatically
that the ptur of holchei drachim does not apply.  ROY's tone is somewhat
more concillatory  - the heading of the teshuva (Yachave Daat chelek gimel
siman 47) is "hayotzim l'tiyul b'yamei chol hamoed sukkot, haim rashaim
l'echol sudat kavua chutz l'sukah or lo?".

I confess, both of these teshuvos struck me as somewhat missing the point in
many cases.  My husband (and I am sure the man in the pop up sukkah in
Legoland) was not actually going on these tiulim for his own pleasure (or at
least only vicariously).  They were going to be mesameach benei beiso.  The
kids are off school and gan and whatever, and however ideal staying in your
sukkah at home and learning torah may be - with lots of little ones, that is
not like to lead to an enormous amount of general happiness, if you sum that
of yourself and your wife and the rest of your family.  If, according to the
Taz, a man does not need to sleep in his sukkah because his wife would miss
him in the bedroom and he has an obligation to be mesameach her (therby
enabling one to apply osek b'mitzvah), then why would the same logic not
apply here?

But I agree that is a different issue from whether there is yeshivu k'ein
tadiru even if you take your sukkah with you and whether the ptur of holchei
drachim should apply.  And I guess the further question as to whether, if
one of the pturim (such as holchei drachim or osek b'mitzvah) applies to
you, and you eat in a sukkah anyway, should you not be saying the bracha?

> Hazal compare someone eating outside to a dog; but certainly no one I
> know has a visceral response to someone eating an ice cream cone while
> strolling, or to someone eating at a picnic. So I wonder whether the
> halacha was codified when people ate meals only in their homes except
> in extreme situations.

I confess like other posters I had understood this to mean while walking in
the shuk, while standing up etc, not sitting at formal picnic tables in the
open air in family units.

> David Riceman
> 

Regards

Chana