Compared to the extremely intricate halachos of the arba’ah minim, putting up a succah seems downright simple. Put up some walls made of any material, add some s’chach to top it off, and voila — the succah is ready. Or is it? Kolmus interviews Rabbi Yirmiyahu Kaganoff, a “rabbi who makes Succah calls,” and got some surprising answers to some seemingly simple questions.
To investigate this matter I met with Rabbi Yirmiyahu Kaganoff of Neve Yaakov one of the first rabbanim to give a hechsher to the s’chach mats. He greeted me with what I soon learned was his characteristic good cheer and before I could get answers to my questions he taught me some surprising lessons about succah building.
Rav Kaganoff when I mentioned that I wanted to discuss the problem of bug infestation in s’chach you expressed surprise that I wasn’t concerned with many other halachic issues that come up in regard to building a succah. What issues were you referring to?
I think that many people take it for granted that they know how to build a succah that is halachically valid when in truth my experience has been that many succahs are not valid. In fact I have told rabbanim that if they have not taught their congregants how to build a succah properly they can assume that at least several succahs in their communities will not be valid — either because it is not built in a valid location or because the walls or s’chach are not kosher.
There are two ways a rav can teach his congregants. Some do so by teaching a few halachos of succah each day in the weeks leading up to Succos. I included another method. When we were growing up doctors often made house calls. I would offer to come make a “succah call” to determine whether each congregant’s succah was kosher and if not instruct him on how to fix it. With time my shul members became very sensitized to the main issues.
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