Or: The case of the weird etrog.
My grandfather told me earlier this evening that when he was younger and living in New York, he knew a certain rabbi, Rabbi Gershon Yankelewitz z"l. Rabbi Yankelewitz had learned in the Mir Yeshiva during WWII. As is well-known, the yeshiva had escaped to Shanghai. Rabbi Yankelewitz recounted to my grandfather one time about how they tried to get the 4 minim one year. They managed to find three of the four species, but couldn't get an etrog (citron). One day, one of the students said that he heard of a place where he might be able to get one. He disappeared for three days and showed up with an etrog that looked like it had a hand attached to the end.
The people weren't sure whether they could use it for the mitzvah. Finally they tried using it for the first few days of Sukkot. After a few days, they once again became unsure about using it, and so decided to stop.
As it turns out, it seems that this is the etrog species they had discovered:
Buddha's hand - Wikipedia
I think we can understand now why they wondered whether it was good for use for the mitzvah.
My grandfather told me earlier this evening that when he was younger and living in New York, he knew a certain rabbi, Rabbi Gershon Yankelewitz z"l. Rabbi Yankelewitz had learned in the Mir Yeshiva during WWII. As is well-known, the yeshiva had escaped to Shanghai. Rabbi Yankelewitz recounted to my grandfather one time about how they tried to get the 4 minim one year. They managed to find three of the four species, but couldn't get an etrog (citron). One day, one of the students said that he heard of a place where he might be able to get one. He disappeared for three days and showed up with an etrog that looked like it had a hand attached to the end.
The people weren't sure whether they could use it for the mitzvah. Finally they tried using it for the first few days of Sukkot. After a few days, they once again became unsure about using it, and so decided to stop.
As it turns out, it seems that this is the etrog species they had discovered:
Buddha's hand - Wikipedia
I think we can understand now why they wondered whether it was good for use for the mitzvah.
