Sukkah 6

Deuteronomy 8: 8 describes Israel as “a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey.” Today’s daf uses each and every one of these as a measurement that defines a halakhah.

1. Remain pure until he stays in the house where there is tzaraat or impurity long enough to eat half a loaf of bread (that’s the wheat measurement)
2. Barley is also used as a basis for measurements, as we learned in a mishna: A bone from a corpse the size of a grain of barley imparts ritual impurity through contact and by being carried, but it does not impart impurity by means of a tent, i.e., if the bone was inside a house, it does not render all the articles in the house ritually impure.
3. The halakhic measure determined by a vine is the quantity of a quarter–log of wine for a nazirite. A nazirite, for whom it is prohibited to drink wine, is liable to be flogged if he drinks that measure.
4. Fig alludes to the measure of a dried fig-bulk with regard to the halakhot of carrying out on Shabbat. One is liable for carrying food fit for human consumption on Shabbat, provided that he carries a dried fig-bulk of that food.
5. Pomegranate teaches the following measure, as we learned in a mishna: All ritually impure wooden vessels belonging to ordinary homeowners become pure through being broken, as broken vessels cannot contract or maintain ritual impurity. They are considered broken if they have holes the size of pomegranates.
6. The Sages interpreted: “A land of olive oil and honey,” as: A land, all of whose measures are olive-bulks. The Gemara poses a question: Does it enter your mind that it is a land all of whose measures are olive-bulks? But aren’t there those measures that we just mentioned above, which are not olive-bulks? Rather, say: A land, most of whose measures are olive-bulks . . .
7. Honey, i.e., dates from which date honey is extracted, also determines a measure, as with regard to eating on Yom Kippur, one is liable only if he eats a large date-bulk of food.

Reading this reminds me of a previous daf where we discussed the standardizations of measurements. This did not happen until fairly recently. It also makes me think of my son’s preschool experience where they learned to measure how tall they were by laying apples in a line next to them (so cute).

Each fruit mentioned in Torah is there to teach us a little bit how to live. I love this idea – that we can learn how to live meaningful lives from everything.

My modern take on this might be asking, what can we learn from the fruits we eat each day? Perhaps, blueberries might teach us how incredible power can come from small sources. Perhaps a banana might teach the value of convenience. A coconut might teach how there may be sweetness under a hard exterior.

What is a lesson you might learn from fruit?