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Tractate Sukkah, sixth tractate of the order Mo'ed in the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. It deals, in five chapters, with laws relating to the festival of Sukkot (Tabernacles). The festival is sometimes referred to simply as the hag ("the holiday"; Num. 29:12; Neh. 8:14, etc.), and in fact, this name is employed throughout this tractate, indicating that it was considered the most outstanding festival. The observances with which this tractate is primarily concerned are the "dwelling in booths" and the taking of the four species. Two other ceremonies dealt with are the ceremony of the willow branches and the rite of water libation.
The tractate ends with an obscure reference to the priestly watch of Bilgah (see I Chron. 24:14), which was in various ways discriminated against. The alternate reasons for this are given in the Tosefta (4:28; variations in TJ 5:8 and TB 56b), namely that they were disgraced by a female member, Miriam, who became an apostate and traitor and married a Greek captain during the Hasmonean struggle against the Syrio-Greeks. The other reason given is that they were negligent in their Temple service. Other aggadic points to be noted are the description of the splendor of the Great Synagogue in Alexandria, which is referred to as a Great Basilica (Tosef. 4:6), and the story of Trajan's persecution of the Jews and its reasons (TJ 5:1, 55b). Of interest also are the discussions of the relative merits of charity and sacrifices (TB 49b), and observations on the problem of freedom of will (TB 52b).
A rare tractate of the first Talmud edition of the Isaac b. Aaron of Prostitz (Prossnitz) printing press. Isaac was trained in Italy and received a 50 years' licence from Sigismund II Augustus to set up a Hebrew press in 1569. He acquired his equipment from the Venetian printers Cavalli and Grypho and also brought with him from Italy the scholarly proofreader Samuel Boehm. In the next 60 years Isaac and his successors (sons and nephews) produced some 200 books, of which 73 were in Yiddish. The Babylonian Talmud was printed twice, this edition 1602–08 and again in 1616–20. |
