[Avodah] Sukka must be kosher for sleeping?

[Zev Sero]

On 28/09/2010 10:00 PM, T613K at aol.com wrote:

> Maybe relevant, maybe not: I notice that my Lub neighbors will eat in the sukah even when it's pouring rain -- when to me it seems a shailah if you would be allowed to make a bracha "leshev basukah" and there's no mitzva at all -- yet they will not sleep in the sukah. They seem to be following a different custom or different rules than everyone else, but based on what?

When it's raining, it's possible not only to force yourself to eat in
the sukkah anyway, but also to force yourself to *like* doing so, and
to be *happy* while doing so.  Once you are happy, and therefore no
longer mitzta'er, you are obligated to eat in the sukkah, and can say
the bracha.  When it comes to sleep, however, if you can't sleep then
no amount of psyching yourself will change that.  No matter how much
you focus on the mitzvah and the simcha or whatever, if you can't sleep
then you can't sleep.

It's like the saying about mesirut nefesh: with sufficient ms"n, you can
jump down from the roof; but no amount of ms"n will enable you to jump up
to the roof.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                      - Margaret Thatcher