QUESTION

Washington, D.C.

A congregant is moving into a new house and one of the bedrooms has a door to the roof over an extended sunroom one floor above the ground. The builder told them that they don’t need a parapet, but she’s concerned from a halakhic perspective. Any thoughts on whether they need to build some kind of a safety structure?

ANSWER

Assuming that the roof is flat, accessible, and usable, she definitely needs one. It is a mitzvat aseih de’orayta, and it is a violation of a lo ta’aseih not to have it. From a halakhic perspective, if it is 10 tefachim off