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Shavua Tov Chevra,
I hope your Shabbat was pleasant.
Here are a couple of thoughts as we learn the rest of Perek Aleph over the coming days.
(1) The Mishnayot contain numerous examples of things that are / are not acceptable for Schach, with the articulation of the big principle ("material that comes from the ground which hasn't been fashioned into anything usable") in Mishna 4. The Gemara offers two possible derivations for this principle. The school of thought that the Sukkah is designed to conjure up Divine Clouds of Glory, very creatively and with a very clear assumption about what the Clouds of Glory were made of, presumes that the source for the principle is the verse from B'reishit (2:9), “And there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the entire face of the ground”. Mist determines the Schach principle, and palm fronds and the suchlike happen to match it.
The more conventional school of thought, which holds that the Sukkot we build are intended to conjure up the actual dwellings of our people in the desert, cite instead the verse from D'varim (16:13) as the source: “You shall celebrate the festival of Sukkot for seven days as you gather from your threshing floor and from your winepress” (Deuteronomy 16:13), meaning that that which remains on the threshing floor and the winepress qualifies as Schach for the Sukkah. An interesting thing about this approach is that it literally weaves the same material into both aspects of Sukkot, the agricultural and the historical. The implication is that the simcha of the holiday derives in equal measure from our having been blessed with our sustenance, and having been blessed with our particular national destiny.
(2) A quick second note, just linking some of the Mishnayot to contemporary Sukkah-building halachik discussions (Happy to answer questions about these things as we get closer!)
Mishna 8 - Laying schach over the horizontal slats of a pergola
Mishna 9 - Using material (for the walls) that drops down from the Sukkah's roofline (and does or doesn't reach the ground)
Mishna 11 - Schach mats / bamboo fencing as Schach
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