Sukkah

Embark on a journey of Jewish learning and discovery, exploring the depth of our Sukkah resources, where tagged items including audio, programs, and podcast episodes await your exploration.

Sukkah 26: I'm Too Busy

Rabbi Jay Kelman

"Rabbi Yossi Haglilee used to say: One who is involved in a mitzvah is exempt from another mitzvah" (Sukkah 26a). A mitzvah is entitled to one's full attention[1], and our Sages long ago understood that when one tries to multi-…
Article
Mar 4, 2014

Sukkah 22: Seeing Stars

Rabbi Jay Kelman

One of the basic requirements of a sukkah is that the s'chach  provide more shade than sun. This requirement, however, is more theoretical than practical. Already on the first page of the masechet, the Gemara validates a sukkah…
Article
Mar 3, 2014

Sukkah 21: Time to Go to Bed

Rabbi Jay Kelman

As important as classroom education may be, informal education is often more valuable. "The service of Torah is greater than the study thereof" (Brachot 7b). In a classroom setting, we can only see one facet of a person; but given a chance…
Article
Feb 26, 2014

Sukkah 17: No Walls

Rabbi Jay Kelman

"For G-d is bringing you to a good land...a land of wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates; a land of olive oil and date honey" (Devarim 8:7-8). This verse not only describes the bounty of the land of Israel, but reflects many…
Article
Feb 24, 2014

Sukkah 14: Open Your Heart

Rabbi Jay Kelman

The halachic system, like all legal systems, is on based on verifiable actions. What one may think when signing a contract is of little bearing; “matters of the heart are not matters” (Kiddushin 49b). While there are instances where our…
Article
Feb 21, 2014

Sukkah 11: If You Build It...

Rabbi Jay Kelman

While the Jerusalem Talmud rules that one makes a bracha upon construction of a sukkah (Sukkah 1:2), our practice is not to do so, seeing the making of the sukkah as only a hechsher mitzvah, a necessary (and laudatory)…
Article
Feb 17, 2014

Sukkah 6: What's in a Letter?

Rabbi Jay Kelman

In 1878, Yehuda Leib Gordon published a poem, Kotzo shel yud, in which he pokes fun at the technicalities of halacha. In his poem, a young beautiful woman is destined to remain an agunah for her entire life as, after finally…
Article
Feb 13, 2014

Sukkah 4: Reach for the Top

Rabbi Jay Kelman

The Gemara derives the minimum height of a sukkah from two separate and very distinct sources. In fact, the first “source” is no source at all. Rather it is based on simple logic. A sukkah less than ten tefachim, handbreadths (…
Article
Feb 11, 2014

Sukkah 2: It's Who You Know

Rabbi Jay Kelman

We eat matza on Pesach to commemorate the matza eaten by our ancestors as slaves in Egypt and as newly freed people. The blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah parallels the mitzva to blow shofar on many an occasion (see Bamidbar, chapter 10). We…
Article
Feb 9, 2014

Perfect Practice: Some Opening Thoughts on Masechet Sukkah

Rabbi Jay Kelman

Masechet Sukkah holds a special place in my heart, being the first tractate I learned cover to cover. Its topics are interesting, wide-ranging, joyful (by and large), and offer some fascinating historical insight into the religious schisms that…
Article
Feb 6, 2014