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Summary

We’ll see that Rabbi Eliezer has different opinions about many principles of the sukkah.

Mishna:

Rabbi Eliezer: One is obligated to eat 14 meals in the sukkah, mornings and nights for 7 days.

Chachomim: He doesn’t have to eat any meals at all except for the first night of sukkos.

Rabbi Eliezer: If one didn’t eat on the first day (text amended as per Maharsha), he can make it up [Shemini Atzeres].

Chachomim: The first meal is obligatory and cannot be made up. This is one of the things meant by the verse “When something is twisted crooked, you can never straighten it out. Something that’s missing can never be filled in again”. (While you can do teshuva for doing a sin you can never gain a mitzvah that you skipped).

Gemara:

Question: What is Rabbi Eliezer’s reasoning?

Response: It states “You should live in the sukkah” [Teishvu k’ein taduru (21.2)]. All things you would do in your dwelling place [including eating 14 meals over 7 days], you must do in the sukkah.

Question: How do the Chachomim explain this verse?

Response: Just as one is not compelled to eat meals in his house, he can skip meals in the sukkah.

Challenge: Then the first night shouldn’t be obligatory either?

Rabbi Yochanan from Rabbi Shimon bar Yehotzadak: Regarding Sukkos it states “The fifteenth”, and regarding eating Matzoh it states “The fifteenth”. Just as there, the first night is an obligation and then it’s optional for the remainder of Yom Tov, so too here*, the first night a meal is obligatory, and afterwards it is optional**.

Question: How do we know that eating matzoh the first night of Pesach is obligatory?

Response: The possuk states “On that night you must eat matzoh”, the verse imposes it as an obligation.

Rabbi Eliezer: If one didn’t eat on the first day, he can make it up Shemini Atzeres.

Challenge: But Rabbi Eliezer holds that one must eat meals in the sukkah on all 7 days? [And on the eighth day he can no longer eat in the sukkah (in Eretz Yisroel, we do eat in the sukkah), so when can he make up for what he missed]?

Rabbi Ami: Rabbi Eliezer retracted. (His opinion is that only the first night’s meal must be in the sukkah. On all other days he must eat a meal, but it is not related to the law of sukkah. It is only these 13 meals that can be made up on Shemini Atzeres [Tosfos]).

Click here to listen to the shiur with Tosfos

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RaOnrRZoD9_qrOK88iGSxF9fOQ7SlmIx/view?usp=sharing

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* Tosfos quotes from the Yerushalmi a different method of deriving these laws from the pesukim. Additionally the Yerushalmi adds that eating in the sukkah should be similar to Pesach in two aspects. 1. One must build up an appetite for the meal in the sukkah. 2. He must eat at least a kezayis of one of the five grains.

* *Tosfos : It seems from here that the obligation of a meal Yom Tov is only for the first night of Yom Tov. Thus, if one omits yaaleh v’yavo he need not repeat birkas hamazon. But the Poskim don’t accept this opinion of Tosfos. This podcast has been graciously sponsored by JewishPodcasts.fm. There is much overhead to maintain this service so please help us continue our goal of helping Jewish lecturers become podcasters and support us with a donation: https://thechesedfund.com/jewishpodcasts/donate