Q. I’m fixing my porch for the summer and I plan to place as a partial sun-protecting surface on top of the porch some sheets of wood strips, woven in a lattice pattern. Those strips are usually stapled with metal staples and there is a space of approximately 10 cm. between them. As this latticed wood sheets, provide more sun than shadow; could I then use them for the base to collocate over them the schach on Sukos?

A. Mishna Berura (O.C. 626,17) rules that when the schach is placed directly on narrow wooden straps, which are used normally for supporting the roof tiles (removed for Sukos), even if there is less than three tefachim between them, the suka is kosher. However, Nitey Gavriel (Suka 19,3) quotes Magen Avrohom in the name of the Rashbo, that if those wooden straps are nailed to each other, if there is less that three tefachim between them, they are seen as one single unit, and if it is more than four tefachim wide, it disqualifies the suka.

Horav Shlomo Miller’s Shlit’a position is also to be stringent, quoting the opinion of the Bach, (we say “lovud lechumra” – see Shaarei Tziun ibid. 23).

Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit”a