Sukkah 25 - Trees around your sukkah

If one made trees serve as walls of his sukkah, this is valid, and we don't say that perhaps the Sages decreed not to do this out of concern that someone may use a tree on holiday. They didn't.

However, Rav Acha bar Yakov stated that any partition that moves is not valid. What about our sukkah, which is surrounded by trees whose branches are always moving! - Rav Acha will answer that we don't know all the circumstances: the rule only applies if he has tied the tree branches with interwoven branches of palm trees. Thus, the permission that we had suddenly becomes very limited.

One who is busy with a mitzvah - such as traveling to study Torah, greet his teacher, or redeem a Jewish captive - does not have to observe the mitzvah of sukkah. Why? - Since he is busy with one mitzvah, he should not abandon it to do another one. And how do we know this principle? - Since the Torah said, "When you sit in your home." This is said about reading the "Shema" prayer, but it teaches us a general principle: one only has to do a mitzvah if he is "sitting in his home" and is not busy with another mitzvah. But maybe the Torah is talking about one who is sitting in his home and is already doing a mitzvah - which would then teach us precisely the opposite, namely, that one has to drop a mitzvah and do another one!? - No, the Torah said an extra word, "your" home, to teach that you are busy only with your affairs. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Art: The Artist's House Through the Trees by John Henry Twachtman

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