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Oct 13, 2024

Interesting Psak: Sukkas and Sirens

Rav Yitzchak Yosef, formerly the Chief Rabbi of Israel, has received many questions about the upcoming Sukkos holiday in light of the security situation. Some interesting piskei halacha are the result...

Everyone should do their best to build a sukka near their house as they do every year, despite the difficulty and stress one might feel from the war.

Being fearful and concerned that sirens might blare is not a valid excuse to be considered "mitztaer" and pattur from the mitzva of sukka. the same concern applies when eating in one's house or otherwise out of the sukka, so that fear is not allayed by being exempt from the sukka, so there is no such exemption. 

That being said, regarding sleeping in the sukka there is more reason to be exempt. people who lives in areas where the warning time for incoming rockets is very short and by sleeping in the sukka they may not have enough time to get to the safe room or bomb shelter are exempt from sleeping in the sukka. Not always will one hear the siren and then will be in increased danger, and when sleeping it can take some time to wake up and realize and understand what is happening and then get to the safe room. The same is true inside the house, but in the house one is more protected than in the sukka, even before getting to the safe room.

People should try to eat in the sukka as always. In the areas right next to the Gaza border and in the communities near the border up north (beyond the communities that have been evacuated, obviously), where there is barely any warning time and often none at all, they should make sukkas and try to eat quickly and should eat at least a kzayis in the sukka on the first night.

If someone's wife is very frightened and will not get calm as long as he is sleeping in the sukka, he is exempt from the sukka as a person who is caring for someone ill.
(source: Hamechadesh)


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4 comments:

  1. If someone does not eat or sleep in the sukkah, then they will do so in their home, right? Does it take longer to get from the sukkah to the shelter than from the home to the shelter?

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    Replies
    1. maybe sometimes but often not significantly. Still, as the rabbi said, at least the concrete walls and ceilings of the house provide some basic protection that the sukka does not.
      ironically enough, this security is precisely what we are supposed to give up when we go into the sukka with the flimsy walls and roof, yet when push comes to shove, thats the reason to go back indoors when necessary

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    2. It depends on the individual circumstances.

      Where I live we have 60 seconds to find shelter. We get an average of 1 or 2 sirens a day, plus booms without sirens.

      In our building we are the only apartment with a mirpeset and the windows only apartment with a mamad. For me there isn’t much difference between being in the sukkah and being in the apartment. The rest of the building puts their sukkahs in the parking lot. It’s actually easier for them to get to the miklat.

      However the building next door doesn’t have a miklat because they all have mamads. They don’t have sukka balconies, so they also put their sukkas around the building. For them it would take a lot more time to get to their mamad then if they were in their apartment.

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    3. interesting. thanks. be safe

      Delete

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