I went shopping for my etrog today, and noticed something. When I compared two etrogs, quite often the one which was
labeled as 'more beautiful' by the halachot of etrogim was in fact less pretty in my eyes. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps this was deliberate - that chazal were warning us to look deeper than the surface in order to determine if someone was truly beautiful or not. Of course, it is always possible chazal and I just have different taste in etrogim. :>)
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7 comments:
hiddur mitzvah - the element of beauty in mitzvot, is highly personal; don't forget that!
can you imagine anyone telling you how to decorate your sukkah?
at the end of the day, both etrogim are still kosher no matter how closely you look at them. only with two people that have the same exterior, however, one can suddenly become pasul when you look a little closer.
Possibly relevant:
Last year, a friend from Israel warned me not to cook anything with my esrik on the grounds that because of the need to grow beautiful esrogim, the growers saturate the plants with toxic pesticides and herbicides. I thought at that time that one possible element of hadres would be the absence of such chemicals. Not because I need to eat the esrik, you know; just because I think an organic esrik must be way more hadar.
chocolate lady:
this was the practice in tirat tvi when i was there in 1992
ari kinsberg,
Which practice--growing organic esrogim or the other?
chocolate lady-
oh no, the other. the worst thing was some eldlerdy women passing by asked me for some to make jam. i did not know at the time about the pescticides so i let them take as many as they wanted.
Ah, that's too bad.
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