Hilchos Arba Minim: Choosing a Kosher Esrog—Murkav, Hadar, Chaser, and Shiur

Transcript

We gave a shtikel hakdamah, and the hakdamah was to give you a checklist: what you should look for and what you don't have to look for. We'll just quickly chazer the checklist and then take it from there, the pratim. We said that there's a checklist, and you see an esrog: what's l'ikuvah and what's l'hidur. What means l'ikuvah? That without it, it's not a good esrog. What is l'hidur? It means that it's a good esrog, but A, you want to be mekayem the mitzvah b'hidur, and also you pay for it. You pay for hiddur dika esrog. So the checklist is as follows: the first thing you have to look at is murkav and not murkav, esrog v'lo murkav. That the esrog should be not a graft, not something that was put together, usually with lemon. It's a pure esrog. We'll talk a little bit more because yesterday we spoke against, so to speak. Today we'll speak the pro side of murkav, who holds it's mutar, and when is it mutar? Is it always so aser? Not so pashut. Okay. So like I said, first question, first thing on the list: isn't an esrog; it's not a murkav. The second thing you have to check is hadar, which is l'ikuvah. Now certain hadars which are l'ikuvah, l'chiyuvah; without it, it's not a kosher esrog. And then there's certain hadars which is only l'chatchilah. In hadar there's two categories. There's those that are pasul al tzmare. Because of what it looks like, and that's one limud, because it has to be hadar and it has to look proper. And then there's something called chaser, a different category, which is usually put under the category of hadar, not necessarily for the same reason. We're going to learn that it's gezeiras hakasuv, u'lekach tem. The lashon is lekichah tamah. Lekach tem, by Yom HaRishon pri etz hadar, lekichah tamah, says the Gemara. It has to be complete. So we're going to learn chaser has a problem lahalacha if it's missing. The next thing you have to check if it has the shiur. Sometimes the esrog is that small, it doesn't have the shiur. If you probably buy the teiman esrogim, you usually rarely ever have to measure or look because they're usually oversized and not undersized. But we'll talk about what the size. So that's the third thing on the list. The fourth thing on the list we said was tzurah. See what it looks like. An esrog is pear-shaped. It's heavier on the bottom, and as it moves up, it thins out on the top. If it's kikadur, so before we did in Shulchan Aruch, we're going to learn in Taf Reish Mem Ches, not kosher. It's round like a ball. Interesting psakim from Rav Chaim Kanievsky that there are times that the fact that it has a pitam and an uketz, it changes the kadur. It doesn't exactly, because it's interesting psak. A kadur is a ball. Most balls don't have pieces hanging on the top and things hanging on the bottom, unless it's from the 18th or 17th century. So pashtus, kadur means literally round like a ball. So they bring down, I saw from Rav Chaim Kanievsky, that not all... Kadur should be just pushed away on the side. Sometimes with a little bit pitum on top and a little lookets on the bottom, it's already not a kadur. But just for argument's sake, there is a tzurah to an esrog, and you have to check the tzurah. So you're checking the legitimacy of the esrog, you're checking the external features of the esrog, that it should be hadar, you're checking the shiur, and then you're also checking that it should have the shape, shape. Okay. And then, of course, it's within inherent that it should be something which is heter l'achilah, something which is ra'ui, that you could eat. So therefore, all these issurim are out. It's not nogea when we buy in the store; you're not going to buy anything that's asur, because it never comes to the stores. If it's going to be something which is orlah or tevel, it's irrelevant. Okay. The checklist for the hiddur, not l'ikuvah. So we said pitum, and that's a sugya by itself; we'll discuss, im yirtzeh Hashem. The top of it should be completely clean, because even though there's a certain shiur to what's called clean and not clean, a certain shiur, not everything that has a speck or of anything becomes a problem. But on the chaytim, for hiddur, it shouldn't have anything. It should be completely clean. So when you look at an esrog, the first place you look at is the top.

See if there's anything there. Any little speck of dirt takes it from a $300 esrog all the way down to a 50. If he claims it's a $200 esrog, tell him he doesn't know what he's talking about. Because, you know, it all depends on where the bump is. If it's on the bottom, so the esrog goes down a little bit in value. If it's anything on the top, any drop of dirt or speck, right away you should know if he's telling you that it's nothing, the esrog is not worth the money that he's charging you, and you should know that it's not a mehudar. You also need shape properly that the uketz and the pitam should be, what do you call, horizontal—right, horizontal? Diagonal? What's the right word in English? Where it goes—what? Symmetrical. Symmetrical. Symmetrical shape. I have to go back to this. Truth is, when you say go back, you have to be there for the first time. I never went for the first time either, but all right. So symmetrically it has to be top and bottom, uketz and one line, vertically aligned. He's trying to say, because I was getting the word vertical and he was symmetrical. I know he's right. Symmetrical is right. That's right, huh? Symmetrically aligned. Obviously he's wrong. It's vertically aligned, you see? Okay. The next thing you have to make sure that it has some bumps. We're going to learn this. One of the simanim of a murkav is like a lemon. If you ever look at a lemon, it's so smooth. Touch it, it's so beautiful, yeah? Smooth is not good. Bumpy. Bumpy is a very good sign of an esrog, and you need shkios, ublitos, bumps and curves that it goes in and out, and that's an esrog. You don't need tons of it, so to speak. It doesn't have to be in every corner of the esrog, but it's got to have some of it. Pirush, I guess, I guess, because that's one of the simanim of an esrog. So I guess it's hadar if it has those simanim. We also spoke that hadar means, lahalacha, hadar. It doesn't mean that it matches the furniture, okay? Someone's told me, Reb Zundel Berman once told me, this was Reb Zundel, ארבע times, that, you know, you know the Zundel from today, yechi, whatever his name is. My times it was Zundel, the fatter, the uncle. He told me that a guy once came into him and he ordered fifty thousand dollars' worth of red sefarim. Give me whatever you have in the store that's red, because it matches the... Fifty thousand? Fifty, or fifteen, maybe fifteen, he said fifteen thousand, or fifteen hundred, I don't remember the number, but the idea was that, okay, say fifteen hundred dollars' worth of red sefarim he wanted. Uh-huh, okay, you mean there's with the sefarim shein, it looks like sefarim. This sefarim is fake, it's like nothing in there. All right, God's good, God's good. Fifteen hundred dollars' worth of red sefarim, red sefarim, okay. Now, rabosai, let's discuss the details of what we just... Baruch Hashem, this was the introduction yesterday. Now we'll talk the details. Esrog, like I told you, possibly is called a hadar. The Ramban calls it hadar. That's what the Ramban calls it. We spoke yesterday that one of the yesodos is esrog v'loi hurkav. It should be an esrog, not a merkav. I told you that the merkav, the merkav is not a thing brought, not in the Gemara, not Bavli, not Yerushalmi. Not in the Rishonim. A bissel in the Teshuvas HaRama, it's spoken about. It's a later day. It's a later day discussion. L'maaseh, Mishnah Berurah in seif katan samach hei, from siman taf reish mem ches, he brings it down that a murkav is no good. Now let's go to that Mishnah Berurah, because I would like you to know it well. It's one of the Mishnah Beruras which are essential, being that the whole business of the esrog of today is based on this Mishnah Berurah. Okay? So go ahead. Who's reading the Mishnah Berurah in seif katan samach hei? No? Who's offering? Anybody offering? Because if not, then I'll pick, and then he'll have tainus afterwards. No? Esrog hamurkav, ... pasul. Pasul. Okay. It's not called an esrog. All right, go ahead, yeah. Murkav hainu me'esrog, the lemon or pomegranate or shum pri acheres. Yeah. ... anaf me'ilan esrog ... lemon tree. ... anaf me'ilan lemon ... esrog. Right. So basically there's different harkavos, there's different way of grafting, and the point is either way, the minute you mix lemon into esrog, it's over. It's done with. It's not an esrog anymore because it's this new grafted fruit, this new mixture, okay? But if you markif two ilanos of esrog...

That's okay. Okay, weiter. Now, play attention to the gimel simanim. There's three simanim that the Mishnah Berurah talks about. We're going to learn from the Chasam Sofer that there actually are no simanim. Or al kol panim, you can't be somech on the simanim, but the Mishnah Berurah brings simanim, and we'll soon see that the Biur Halacha discusses sometimes, in some circumstances, kedai to know the simanim, because sometimes we might be matir a murkav if it has some of the simanim of an esrog. Yes, the Biur Halacha—we'll soon see it in a minute or two—and you'll soon see why I'm pointing out, because it's very nogea. People think it's not nogea so much, because every esrog, every esrog, is definitely a neshri v'lo murkav, because it has the bumps and this one and that one. You'll soon see how many, many people, not knowingly, buy esrogim which are murkavim. They just don't know, and I'll explain to you how, of course. You'll soon see why. Go ahead. Let's finish this Mishnah Berurah. Oh, so that's what I told you. The first thing is you should know that a murkav, the lemon—the lemon is smooth, while the esrog is bumpy. It's very bumpy. Du meint, zayn a tzaddik is a smooth ride. It's a bumpy ride, rabosai. Not an easy ride. The terrain of the tzaddik is aliyos and yeridos and hard and up and down. Okay, ... halacha. Go ahead. Beautiful, beautiful. And I want you to go look at it tonight, by the way. Go look at the lemon. The lemon, the bottom, the uketz, the tail, so to speak, is boilet; it comes out, while the esrog, it comes in because it overflows. The bottom of the esrog usually over— Sits. Sits over the ukitz, so the ukitz is, it goes in, okay? Third one. ... v'hamo'il sheloi hu rav, v'haklipah hamemutzaas dakah. Dakah. Okay, so this is, so three things that has to do with the inner part of the esrog. Now, we're going to learn this. There are simanei chutz and simanei pnim, inner simanim and outer simanim. The inner simanim are complicated a little bit because it's inner. The outer ones are pretty obvious. So we're going to see the Mishnah Berurah talks about being somech on two out of the three when you have the outer ones and you don't have to, you can ignore the third one, the inner one. The Biur Halacha will speak about it soon. So it will help to check one of the tree and then you'll know the rest of the tree is not working? We're not discussing what happens if you get an esrog, a esrog, a single esrog. That's the issue. The issue is the single esrog. It comes to you on Yom Tov, you're standing there. You know what? Just to show you that I am not stam. You know where it's negea? I'll tell you where it's negea. Right, so that's where you don't understand. But you've got to realize, I'm going to lead you to the water, so to speak, and then once you chap it, you realize, wait a minute, who says? You ever try buying an esrog in the street in Borough Park? Tons of people do it. Who are you trusting? You're going to tell me those? You know how many times they took those things out of the boxes and put those box in these boxes and that? It's famished de yoytzes there like you never saw. How do you know what those esrogim are? There's chabad mitos, mit... mit... mit..., neturei karta. Everything's mixed there. You ever saw what's going on over there? You telling me they're going to put it back in the box that you're buying it from? They buy the box separate. They have a separate shipment of esrogim and a separate shipment of boxes, and they put the boxes together with the... You know that, right? If you don't know that, look at it. Look, you know what I'm talking about. You look at the esrogim that they sell, it looks like lemons. They're smooth. You ever notice? They're beautiful. They're very yellow, smooth. What do you call beautiful? I told you, the Chasam Sofer said beautiful is not in the eyes of the beholder as far as esrogim; it's in the eyes of the Shulchan Aruch. It's not a question. You're missing the point. Sometimes you look at an esrog, that ain't an esrog. There's something else going on in there. It's lemon. It's not esrog. It's just not esrog. Okay, so the point is, we're going to discuss, lo yatzuya, a person wants to go in the street and buy an esrog. What are you— halacha l'maaseh. So let's first finish reading this, and then we'll see. Halacha l'maaseh. Go ahead. Yeah. Good, good. See, he brings the simanim, okay. So l'maaseh, halacha l'maaseh, are you allowed to buy? Says the Mishnah Berurah, no. You need to buy from an adam ne'eman and a kosher, right? Some פירוש Mishnah Berurah, yeah. Maybe it's the next se'if. Go, go.

To the end, the point is, how do you buy an esrog? And the answer is, you can only buy an esrog from who? Oh, the kvakanim. That's what I'm talking about, the kvakanim. It's very important to know this, yeah? Before you buy an esrog, Mishburah says you got to know that the guy who's giving the hashgacha is real, and that the guy who's selling it is real. Because just because the hashgacha, the box, doesn't mean the guy who's selling it is real. Tell me, you know who's selling the—when you buy an esrog in the street, you know the guy that's selling it? Do you know who he is or where he is? You don't know if he just maybe just woke up from sleeping till one o'clock in the afternoon, and then he's selling you an esrog because that's what he does for three hours before, you know, every day before Sukkos, and then he goes back to sleep. I don't—so again, but it says you have to know him, it says. You know what? I'm out to supper. You read the Mishburah and tell me, can I buy an esrog in the street? No. Everybody does it. How can you buy talis from someone? Talis is nothing. What's a talis? Talis and talis. The guy just had that whole thing with the talisim that was mixed with the shatnez, this here and that here. So again, let's read it again. That's the point. See, that's the gadlus of Reb Leizer. You want to know the gadlus? Eid echad ne'eman b'issurim is on something you know. But if you go over to a person that doesn't know what he's talking about, eid echad ne'eman b'issurim. Go over to a person and say, Oh, by the way, I did melicha. Eid echad ne'eman b'issurim. What is melicha? What does he know? He might not even know that you're supposed to not buy an esrog in the market. So again, I want you to read the Mishnah Berurah and tell me, can I buy an esrog in the street off the guys who are selling it, the kids who are selling it in the street? Yes or no? And I have a different question. What happens if the guy looks mamish a ben Torah, like you never saw? He looks great, but you don't know who he is. Could you buy from him? I don't know. I'm not saying—I'm just reading the Mishnah Berurah. You know, we are taught, we're taught in the Olam HaTorah—huh? I don't know. I mean, one second, I do know, but I want you first to think about it. I'm not interested. You see, part of what I want is to point out to you what I point out to myself. When I learned it the first time, I go, Wait a minute. What's wrong with ein adam meisim b'isurim? The person's stam a kosher Yid. Mishnah Berurah seems to say you need a little more. Somebody else recognizes him that he's a kosher Yid. Good. So I'm asking you, so what do you do? Could you go to the guy next to the table next, right? Tell me, you know that guy? Maybe you can't do that. There's a Gemara, chashinan l'knunya. You ever hear of knunya? Knunya is when you have two moichrim, it sells chayra, you can't believe, because maybe they're both in the same business. It's two heads of the same animal, so to speak. They're both—each guy tells you, That guy, that guy is good. You should go to him. That guy says, Him? He's gevaldik, go to him. And they're both in the same business. Okay, let's go weiter. Yeah? No. Not—let's first learn. I asked you, according to this Mishnah Berurah, could you walk over to a guy in the street? That you don't know in Bais Nesrik, does the Mishnah Berurah say you could do that? Which eilem? If you do know him, you can't necessarily trust him. Yeah, he's a good friend. Today we learned that even if you do know the guy, you can't trust him. Today we just had a maaseh in Monsey. You know the maaseh in Monsey? Nishyet, nishyet. Rabosai, nishyet. Okay, b'kitzur, so again, let's read clearly the Mishnah Berurah, and when we, im yirtzeh Hashem, lasted lavoi, I can tell the yeshiva that I was naki. I taught you what I pointed out, what I had to point out to you from the Mishnah Berurah: how I learned the Mishnah Berurah and how the Velt learns the Mishnah Berurah. We'll discuss that maybe further, different, after we learn the whole sugya, when we finish. But in the meantime, you saw this Mishnah Berurah. It's not enough to say, Yad haYid, I'll pay. It's a kashrus. A takta yamuke, you know, he has a big long chup. He's wearing his tzitzis out, you know, these builder guys in ... Kashrus. Mishnah Berurah seems to say you got to know a lot more than that. Okay, now let's go further. We spoke out that the sharatzin on this halacha is mamash packed.

Packed with names and, and, and. Why does he pack you up with so many, so many mareh mekomos? And the answer is because he knew that it's a fight. Not so pashut. Because if you knew the list on the other side, which we'll do today, you would get scared too. You would say, Wait a minute. Nit azoi pashut, nit azoi pashut. You're getting one side of the equation, of the inyan, by seeing the Mishnah. Today at the end, I'll give you the other side, and who says different. Okay. Now, we spoke out even from the Brisker Rav that said that he wouldn't even make a bracha on a regular esrog, fear from chashash that maybe the esrog is a murkav. So he holds that, you know, every esrog is like a safek, maybe, maybe, maybe it's a murkav. L'maaseh, he said from the Biur Halacha that the Bikurei Yaakov brings down that there's an inyan of rov eino murkav. Rov. We saw it yesterday. Rov are not murkav. Rov, what you buy in the stores are not murkav. Mimeila, you can be somech. If you're mesafek, then you can make a bracha. L'choira, right? The Mishnah Berurah seems to be saying you can make a bracha, misafek. Okay. So I said that it's not a raya from this Bikurei Yaakov, because maybe Bikurei Yaakov was talking in his time. Today, that we get from all over the world. You know that in Europe they couldn't find this righting lulav. It was almost impossible. There were many years they went without. Now you don't know this. The heilige Zayde told me many times it was one esrog in the entire lot, and the esrog was given to the Chofetz Chaim. By somebody special, he brought this just for the Chofetz Chaim. I heard this many times from my grandfather, that those years that there was only one in Radin, and it was the Chofetz Chaim's, the Chofetz Chaim made sure that everybody got to use it, everybody. And he didn't make nanuim by Hallel. It's not pshat he used it and made nanuim by Hallel, because he would say like this: nanuim is a takanas neviim. You look at the Brisker Rav. Brisker Rav says it's a chelek of the kiyum of the mitzvah, mamash on them, you know, famous Brisker Rav, the nanuim. But it's a takanas neviim. Havtel l're'echa kamocha. I heard this from ... It's printed in all the books. It's not shayach. It's פשוט impossible. In other words, he would make the nanuim and everybody— no, he felt different. He felt, I'm sitting there shaking my lulav and making the nanuim, meaning in the Hallel, and nobody else is doing it, and everybody's sitting— I'm talking in the Hallel. One second, even though nobody else would have been ... So he gave it around. Everybody got it. It went around the beis medrash. Yeah, yeah. No, or maybe that. I think it's both. In other words, people were making brachos. The Chofetz Chaim did his mitzvah of taking it, and that was it. It's brought down in all the sefarim, but it's probably from other people who were there also. I heard somebody say the klar, he was there at the time, that the Chofetz Chaim forwent— I'll tell you a maaseh, and then we'll go weiter, because I don't really want to— we have a lot to cover. You know what? Remind me the maise with the Rosh and Yid with the esrog, with the nanuim, a different time, because I don't want to take up time from learning, okay? Hasheinah maise. Now, we brought from the Chazon Ish, Chasam Sofer, the Mishnah Berurah mentions it, that there's no siman to who, to a murkav. The only eitzah is that you should get it from a ne'eman. What's the flip side? What is the other side of this story? You look at the Biur Halacha. He says if a person was koneh esrog and he doesn't know if it's a murkav or not, he can be somech on the simanim chitzonim. Which ones? Two out of the three. What does the Biur Halacha say? Which two? Blitus and oyketz shakua. You saw the Biur Halacha, rabosai? You see it? Biur Halacha. If a person already bought an esrog, which means you went out—the Biur Halacha says that if you went out and you bought it in the street, some guy was begging you, Could you please, I'll give you tennis racket for five dollars, and you couldn't hold out, you bought old tennis racket, okay? And now the people want to use it. You're looking at it, murkav, namo, you don't know what to do. So if it has two out of the three simanim—go ahead, read Reb Leizer—if it has two out of the three simanim, you have it?

Snal, snal, snal, snal, snal, snal. Yeah, Reb Moshe, you have it? If it has two out of the three, if it has two out of the three. If you feel comfortable to read for us, you're new, so I don't call on you because I don't want to. But if you feel like you're ready to go, mi lHashem eilai, read, don't—go ahead, ma'ir, Reb Moshe, yeah? He doesn't say that. Yes, he does. I'm sure he does. Not on that one that he... If it's kana esrik, no? When he brings the Bikurei Yaakov, no? It doesn't say. I, I, I, I... it's in the Mishnah Berurah. It says like this. No, here, it's in the Mishnah Berurah. Yeah, the hainu, the... he says it clear, because it's chamisha... siman. Go ahead, take the... Yeah, yeah, read, no? ... You know, make mistakes in these Mishnah Berurahs, otherwise you'd be fired as a rabbi. Okay, so bekitzer, the two simanim, two out of the three, which ones are they? The blitis and the shakua. Could you make a bracha? B'sha'ar yemei hachag, what does he say, Mishnah Berurah? Could you make a bracha? No. Yevarech. You make the bracha on it. Okay. What about safek maariv? What do you do when it's mamash a safek, which means now that you don't even have the simanim? Because if you have the simanim, the Mishnah Berurah says, b'shaas Yemei haChag — no, shaas Yemei... So if you bought an esrog and you don't even have the simanim till Sukkos maariv, no, it still says the biur halacha, rak lo yevarech, so you don't make a bracha. Now, when we have the esrogim in the street, they have no simanim, right? Huh? Abissel? That's an abissel bumps, abissel. One minute, it says you can make a bracha on the rest of the days. That's what it says, no? Go ahead, read. Read what happens if kana esrog, no, and it has two out of the three simanim. No, that's fine if it has two out of three simanim, but let's say it doesn't have... That's what I'm telling you, so lo yevarech. He can't make a bracha. That's what I'm telling you, no? And with two out of three simanim, you could even on the first day. Not on the first — he says the first day, shaas Yemei haChag, he says. Some say if it doesn't have the simanim, I hear, but if it has abissel simanim, so you can make a bracha on these esrogim. What's the... I'm telling you, even according to the Mishnah Berurah that's worried about the murkav, you don't say. He doesn't say on the rest of the days. He doesn't speak b'shaas Yemei haChag, because the next thing, v'daas... the yesh lachosh... even b'shaar yamim. Oh, some say safek... but he's not mechalek in the two simanim you can rely on the first day. Okay, so the two simanim is for the first day, and shaas Yemei haChag is good even if it doesn't have the two simanim. No, it's a problem. Yeah, but it can be nightel, no? Not to belei bracha, but you could take it, okay? But if it has two out of the three simanim, you can make a bracha. If it doesn't, so b'sha'as yemei hachag, you take it without a bracha. Yeah. I'm saying to not to take it. You should try to find something else. Right. But if v'ein lo acher... if he doesn't have it... Right. Or maybe the fear or something. So now you see it? Okay, so when they scream at you, you look at the esrog. It has bumps. It looks like an esrog. It sounds like it. You could buy it off the street. It's kosher. What's the tzar...? Bumps and... Who cares? No. You know what it is? Why do I... No. But if someone has, that's what it is. When somebody has it, but you should not go to those stores. I'm not telling you, but l'maaseh, is it kosher? Yeah. We're kvar kloner ein lo... So l'maaseh, if you bought those things, it'd be kosher. Okay. What happens if it's murkav vadai? It depends if it has... If it's murkav vadai. What happens if it's murkav vadai? No? What do you take out from this, mishum Rabosai, when it's murkav vadai?

What does it say? You can't make a bracha on it, right? Do you take it? It's a shaylah if you take it. No. V'ein lachabir, yesh litol kol shivah v'lo bracha. Yesh machmirin, even litol b'lo bracha, gam kein eino kedai. Right? Okay. So if it's l'vadai murkav, it's a machlokes. You might take it, you might not take it. The other side of the coin is that there's many, many Acharonim that say that a murkav is 100% kosher. The Bach, Shalas Teshuva siman kuf lamed vav says that an esrog murkav is 100% kosher. Nothing wrong with it. The Shvus Yaakov brings that the Shach held that a murkav is 100% kosher, and there's a peledike maaseh that the Shvus Yaakov brings down, a pele mamash, a peledike maaseh. He brings down that his shver was the Rav in Prague, and the Shach was visiting Prague, and they came to ask the Shach if a murkav is kosher. And the Shach said a murkav is kosher, and you're supposed to make a bracha on a murkav. There's nothing wrong with it. So when they came to Sukkos, to the Hallel, so the Rav paskened, no brachos. It's all murkav, safek. And the oilem started to yell, Bracha, bracha, bracha, bracha. Vadai, the Shach had paskened. The Shach is in town, he was visiting, and of course it's always that way, right? You don't pasken like your rav, you pasken like the rav that's visiting. I don't know if it's a kula, but that's what they did, yeah. Says the Shvus Yaakov. It's interesting because obviously they must have only had one, because it's talking about the shliach tzibbur there, that the shliach tzibbur was standing there with his esrog, and the esrog fell in the pit in Brno. And they realized that min haShamayim it was a siman that they shouldn't have done that. And it's Brishus Yaakov brings down that the Shach, the Soif Yomov, wrote a tzavaah. He told his son to go ask mechilah from the Rav, that he paskened in his city that the murkav is kosher, when the Rav held that the murkav is not kosher. Ayin Shvus Yaakov. If you want, it's a Shvus Yaakov, chelek aleph, siman lamed-vav. It's most classic. It's a classic. You hear? First of all, what do you see from here? You see from here how an Yid lived. Everything was bashgacha pratis, you hear? The esrog fell, ah, the Eibishter is giving us a siman. But you also see machlokes is niskeinaya zachs, and alte maises, halachos, maises, the Shach and the... So the shaylah is, would the Shach chozer? It's a pashut the Shach was chozer, okay. That's what he's saying. The Shvus Yaakov says that he wrote this— no, yeah, but I think it says over there also. You look at the Shvus Yaakov, he says that the Shach was chozer. He says that the Shach— I think— no, I think because of the siman. He held that the siman was a raya. I'll look it up again. I don't have a Shvus Yaakov here, okay? It's just, it's a famous Shvus Yaakov. If you want, look it up, rabosai. I'll look it up again. I'll try to find it. The story was a murkav. Okay. Stavnei Neizer. That neizer is good enough for you? Davnei Neizer, paskens. Why it's not working? No, no. Yeah, Baruch Hashem. Oh, okay. Davnei Neizer paskens that a murkiv is kosher. Rabosai, take it easy. When you start yelling, ‘Murkiv!’ relax. Take it easy. A murkiv is a big tumul. What are the reasons? Dannei says kosher. What are the reasons for a murkiv being kosher? So the Acharonim say many sevaros. One of them is esrog. Just because the murkiv is not called an esrog, what would you call it? It's an esrog. A grapefruit is an orange and a—what's it called? No, an orange and a lemon. It gives it a new name. So the Acharonim say it's still called esrog. Another pshat that the Acharonim—the Bach speaks about it—nikasei min ha'esrog is yoser min ha'lemon. It takes more to make an esrog than it is to make a lemon, so it's mostly esrog and somewhat lemon, and therefore it remains esrog. Another reason is zeh v'zeh gorem. They go through the sugya of zeh v'zeh gorem. Another reason is it never said the word esrog in the Torah. It just says pri etz hadar. You're right, if it would say esrog in the Torah, says the Bach, then this is not an esrog. All it has to fit the bill of pri etz hadar. You can't say it's not a pri etz hadar.

What does a gevaldik? That's what I wrote here. I got, ein rabban. According to the Ramban, for kel, shtei asrei. Hodu means asri. So who says a murkiv? Okay. You want to know another classic shaila about the murkiv? Very classic. I'm sorry? A murkiv? I guess it has more. That's what they're saying, that it has the characteristics, the genes of esrog take over. That's what the Bach says. I think that the esrog should stay on from Yom. I don't know. I'd rather not quote you, because then we have a very big problem. Because the Gemara says not like that. The Gemara says the only one is— Only one? Only one. That's what it says. It's the only fruit that's dar mishanah l'shanah, otherwise take an orange. Oh, it's according to you, you can take an orange. And pepper. And pepper? Yeah, but pepper can't be. Pepper you can't take. Yeah. Okay, don't quote me. Okay, rabosai, you ready for another classic shaila on this? The Mishnah Berurah says that on murkiv you don't make a bracha. I have a solution for you. Maybe you should say, Brich Rachmana, asher kidshanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu al netilas lulav. Say Brich Rachmana. So the Steichemet brings this down, that you should say Brich Rachmana. And there's a big tumult that everybody quotes the Chasam Sofer, that the Chasam Sofer said that if a murkiv, you should take the murkiv and make a bracha. The bracha is Brich Rachmana. The Tzitz Eliezer has a whole arichus that it's a mistake, and that the mevalbel two Chasam Sofers, and it's a big tumult. B'ikar, they say over from the Maram Shik that the Chasam Sofer never said it. Also, the nekudah they say is because Rabbi Akiva Eiger holds that if you say Brich Rachmana, it doesn't take you away from Shem Shamayim levatal; it's a regular bracha. Where you're not supposed to say a bracha and you say Brich Rachmana. You could say Baruch asher kid'shanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu, but you can't say Brich Rachmana, because even the kinuyim, says Rabbi Akiva Eiger in the teshuvos, siman chaf-hei, it's as if you made the bracha. So they say the Chasam Sofer zichrono livracha never said it, and therefore it's not true. But this is an interesting tumul on a murkav, that even when the Mishnah Berurah says you shouldn't make a bracha, maybe what bracha should you make? Brich Rachmana asher kid'shanu b'mitzvosav v'tzivanu. Look at the Tzitz Eliezer, and he's right, by the way; it's a beautiful teshuvah. Tzitz Eliezer had many Acharonim in his axis. You see the way he proves that it's not true. Okay. Now, rabosai, let's discuss, after the esrog v'loi murkav, the psul hadar, marah, what it's supposed to look like, okay? So we took care of the politics of the esrog, the murkav and the not murkav, which of course is—that's where all the different esrogim come from, right? Like I explained to you yesterday. You want to know why Yanova, Panova—the Mishnah Berurah even brings Yanova—that's... It's all about the murkav. You want to know the business of the esrog? The business of the esrog is the murkav. You have a hechsher, let's say Badatz. Does that mean anything? Is that saying it's not murkav? Yeah, I mean the Badatz knows what they're saying, right? Badatz is zocheh saying it's not murkav. Yeah, obviously they're poskening. Okay. Now let's discuss what you have to know about the esrog, because they're not going to stamp for you, you know, the esrog. Okay, what do you have to know? Color of the esrog. I told you yesterday that's a Tosafos in Sukkah daf lamed-vav. It's a Shach in Yoreh Deah that it has to be yellow. I pointed out that the Mishnah Berurah doesn't bring it down. No, that l'chatchila. What's the nice? Let's begin what it should look like. What's the nicest? So the question is, is the nicest yellow? Everybody says yellow. I have news for you that it's not only it's not so pashut, because the truth is there's a Zohar that says Esther rakrakes haysa. She was yarok. Now, I don't get in yet what yarok means, but from there we learn out hadasah, the esrog, that's where we learn it out from, says the Zohar, okay? What color was Esther? Let's talk about that. Was she yellow? Was she jaundiced? She wasn't green. She wasn't green either, right? So what was she? She wasn't yellow and she wasn't green. Gold. The blazah goyim, the Mekor Chaim, says, What are you talking about? It's pashut. You see from here that it was gold. So an esrog should be l'chatchila gold color. People don't know. People are yellow. Yellow is not gold. Rebbi, I don't know what to tell you, but this is what the Mekor Chaim says. The Mekor Chaim says that it's not yellow. When everybody walks around saying yellow, you should know that it's not so pashut. If you think about it, the yellow is the lemon of it, really. I mean, when you talk about—

A yellow. A lemon is yellow. An esrog is kemara, maybe kemara hashavah. That's Tosafos. Mara hashavah is, he's looking at his bichlal. What does it say? What color? Tell me the color that it says there. That's much shavah. Shavah is wax, and the wax... huh? Okay, now. Bottom line, I don't know if it's yellow, but whatever it is, it might... huh? Goldish. Goldish. Goldish. The color of an esrog is, rabosai, the color of an esrog is gold. Okay, this is a Bikkur Yankiv. Now, the Mishnah Berurah, like I told you yesterday, says green, and let's see the green. Talk about it. Read me the green. The Mishnah Shulchan Aruch says if it's very green, like grass, grassy green, like esev, what's the halacha? Go ahead. Who's reading the Mishnah, the Shulchan Aruch? No? Okay, what se'if? What se'if? Go ahead. Shulchan Aruch, yeah. So yesterday we said from the Mishnah Berurah that it has to be that it will turn yellow or whatever, or not completely green, and anything that turns even after Yom Tov is good enough, and if you can do it through turning it with the apple, it's also good. We spoke from Rav Chaim yesterday. Okay, so basically I told you from Rabbi Yosher, we don't have these esrogim that are green. We don't have them. Those are like avocado green. No, really. That's a perfect example. Avocado green esrogim, you should worry that maybe it's a murkav avocado, so don't. We don't have it on the market, and any guy who tries to sell you that, he ain't much of a seichel. No, those are good. Those greens are good. It's black green. That's not avocado color, no. That's not a real... No, it's not. That's not avocado color, no. That's white. That's the sugya of the whites in the middle. There's green and white, and yellow and white. That's not very green. No, and that's not. It has to be black green. I can't even, I can't describe to you, but it's black green. Avocados black. Okay. Now, rabosai, let's discuss other psulei marah. Okay, so we discussed the colors. All right, now we're going to discuss other psulei marah. Siman tof reish mem ches, se'if aleph is the first one, and that is yavesh. We're going through Shulchan Aruch now, rabosai, hold on to your seats. We have a lot of work to do now. Tof reish mem ches, se'if aleph: yavesh. Okay? Yes, it does. Sure does. Sure does. Avada, yavesh. It's not pretty. It's felt in hadar. Avada, it's one of the psulei marah. Avada, yavesh is a psul, no? Okay, so the first one is yavesh. We're going to discuss this. Rav Moshe has a beautiful teshuva about this. Can I keep my esrog in the freezer? I love the esrog. Should I grab the one-time esrog? I loved it so much, and I had a hava amina, maybe, maybe I could keep it. If I keep it in the freezer, what happens? A little bit. The Sha'ar HaTziyun brings the Gaon; it's not so pashut, that Sha'ar HaTziyun. We're going to learn it. We're going to learn it! We're going to learn that Sha'ar HaTziyun. Se'if katan ches brings in the Bach, the Bach on the bottom. We're going to do that. Okay, now, so yavesh is the first one. So now you're making a checklist: color—oh, no, no, don't be sorry. Just come to learn. Don't be sorry. So yavesh is what? I'm sorry, the color is goldish yellow, somewhere between gold and yellow, let's say, because I don't know, waxish. Green is okay. We'll soon see different reds, and we spoke red yesterday, brown. Okay, we'll get to that in a few minutes. Now we're going to have a checklist of what should you look for and to worry about: color, drying. That's yavesh. The next one, yeah. We're gonna get there, because it's in the sugya of yavish. I first want to give you the checklist. You like this, Shayler. Rabosai, you have no idea how great... The oilam doesn't understand. Every teshuva for a Remaisha is a sefer for itself. You should know that. Remaisha's gevaldige teshuvos, each one is a sefer. You can write a whole sefer just explaining all the yesodos and the mareh mekomos. Reason. Okay. The next thing is chazazis. C if you'd gimel. You see chazazis? Don't worry, we can do every seif, but there's a reason why I'm going in this order. Chazazis. I give you a thousand dollars if you can translate the word chazazis. Some say it doesn't exist. Huh? A blister. You won five hundred dollars. You'll be mochel me? I don't have it on me. Chazazis is a blister. Some say it's not a blister; it's a malformation, like a tumor, a malformation. But it's different, because malformations are sometimes from the actual flesh. That would be kosher. That's not a problem. Those that are from the flesh itself...

The esrog is not a problem, which means you see those big bumps like a wart or something, that's not a problem. It's a malformation different than the esrog. So either a chazaz is a blister, huh? I don't know, I don't know, it's something, maybe a mold, like a—it's a different—it's something, it's something different than—so that's chazaz. So either chazaz is a blister. He brings the blister. Does he bring both shitas? There's two shitas of what chazaz is. No, it doesn't have to be color, because if it's a blister, it means it's not a fleshy, it's a watery, it's something like a blister. So either a blister or it's a malformation. But it can't be that it's like a growth of the thing itself, like it grew like a bump. That's kosher, okay. Now, the different colors. There's black, there's white, and there's red. This is in se'if tezayin, okay? So in se'if aleph you have yavesh, in se'if yud-gimmel you have chazazis, in se'if tezayin—go ahead, who's reading se'if tezayin? Yeah? No, se'if tezayin. In moshacher, lavan, black or white, b'makom echad, so one place, place of a ruba, and—okay. Now, the pratyusdige halachos, rabosai, is very detailed, but we're talking about what should I look for in the esrog. When I look at it, do I see black spots and stuff? And I don't mean—no, those little black dots are something else, by the way. The velt o, that's what you want. The black dots are nothing. The David Paskens, the black dots are nothing. No matter what? No matter what, because those little black things, that's how it grows, and anything, that's how it grows. Bletlach—you know bletlach? Okay, bletlach, it comes in during the growth process. It gets scratched, and then scabs grow on it. That's not a problem, because it's called derech giduloi. That's the way it's... Not harduch, harduch. You want to pay a thousand dollars for an esrog? Have a nice time. You're finding, you know what I'm saying? Okay, you know, but blotlach are blotlach. It's kosher. No, the truth is you can find without blotlach, but blotlach is common. It's a very common thing. Yes, it does. You see, that's what... there's different types of black. There's black stains. This, what they're talking about, Shulchan Aruch, is black stains. Those little black dots. The truth is, I'm going to bring in an esrog, and I'll show you the difference between black stains and black dots. Huh? Well, not... but some esrogim are gorgeous. They don't have anything. I'm saying, the ones that we're looking at, the most esrogim have... If they have those little black things, those little black things are dirt stains. Dirt, pieces of dirt, specks of dirt. It's nothing. It's garbage. What about white? White is a problem. That's what we just learned in Shulchan Aruch. The whiting, those little white things. So again, if it's... no, it depends. See, if it's natural, you know what it is? Those are the... where the sacs of where the juice is from. The juice is held in a sac. Give me the right word. It's not a sac. What would you call those little pores? Pores! Pores! Pores! Those are pores. Those little white things are pores. Pores are normal. That's the right word. No, it's not, [unclear]. It's an esrog. What do you want from an esrog? You ever try... Tell me, if you ever look at a guy's skin, okay? There's a million things going on in there. What are they looking over here? I don't know. White dots, the black dots. They're looking for trouble. I don't know. What do you want from... I said, I said that yesterday. Okay, those are the three things that he looks for: the white dots, the black dots, and the brown dots. Okay, so do me a favor, listen to me. They're not looking for dots, because dots is normal. You ever look on a guy's face with a magnifying glass, you'll find a galaxy of things going on over there. That's normal. That's skin. Reb David—it's not Reb David, it's so pashut, but I have to say it over b'shem a posek, otherwise you'll laugh at me. Pashut. Anything which is normal, esrik is esrik. What's vilstu from the esrik? What do you want the esrik to be? You want it to be a diamond? A fourteen-carat diamond? What do you want it to be already? It grows with dots. You know what those dots are? Specks of dirt. How do you expect there shouldn't be dirt on it? Again, vaiter, let's move on. That's called perfect. Okay, you know what I'm talking about? They're looking with the magnifying... everything is kosher. This is not called not clean. You know what, rabosai, listen to me. You know me, I don't run away from my... I will teach it to you till you know it well. It's not time, because you're not—when you don't see the sugya, then you're standing with a microscope on one dot, and then it sounds like it. Chazazis is a blister, and the sugya of this Shulchan Aruch is not...

Peks, they're stains. I taught you a yesoid. Listen, I'm gonna teach you another yesoid, and there's not enough time because you finished. Okay, there's gonna be shiur tomorrow. You're at fault. I'm not gonna give you a shiur tomorrow because it's too much. I'm gonna have to finish this. I can't, I can't, I can't leave like this. There's a shiur tomorrow. Finished, done. But I want to tell you: pores spots. Huh? Oh yeah. You know something? What is a pitum? Right, okay. You know there's two parts to the pitum. There's the flesh part, and then there's a part of it which is actually from the tree. There's a chibur here. There's tree and esri. Some part of it is tree, and some part of it is esri. Pitum? Of course, the pitum. Some part of it is eitz. You see there's eitz. There's a piece of something on it. Of course. Some of it is fleshy, and some of it is—this is a מרדכי יסוד from the Kaf HaChaim that every posek uses when they speak about esrog. It's a Kaf HaChaim which everybody, everybody talks about this Kaf HaChaim. But in that top part that comes off, some of it is pitum, flesh—they call it besari—and some of it is pitum atzi. And there's a very big nafka mina. And if you don't know well, you could tell when a guy talks, Pitum, that spot, spot, specks. There's nothing wrong with specks on an esrog. It's stains. Read again the Shulchan Aruch. Read it. Nu, mareh. Okay. Now, just because—three minutes, because I got to finish—a davar shalem. The next thing, seif tes-vav, minumer. Minumer is spotted. Sometimes the thing itself is not a problem because it's not that much, but it's all over the place, so the whole thing becomes minumer. It's a spotted esrog. Seif tes-vav, a spotted esrog is pasul, right? Seif tes-vav, minumer. Spotted, that the esrog is all spotted up. The point is, it doesn't look normal because it's all this—the contrast. It's not a spot. It's not a psul of a spot. It's a spotted esrog; it doesn't look proper. You know what a numer is? A numer is a leopard. Looks like a leopard. Leopard is beautiful, but it's spotted. The point is, it doesn't supposed to look that way. Yeah, no, I'm saying dots is nothing. Even in the stains, whether sometimes it's mutar, you have a problem of minumer. Then you have something called tefuach. Tefuach means that the esrog is bloated. Sometimes you put an apple or a fruit inside water, it starts to bloat. Okay, so this is bloated. You have to make sure that whoever sells you the esrog, this tefuach, that's in seif tes-vav. And then there's saruach. Saruach has two pshatim in the Rishonim. Either saruach means it has worms in it, or saruach means, plain and pashut, it's starting to rot. Now, the worms, you're not going to buy an esrog with worms in it. We don't have that. No one's going to sell you an esrog with a worm in it. But saruach, it starts to rot. That's a din, that's seif tes-vav. Okay? So this is your checklist, rabosai. What's not common? Minumer is not common. Just need two or three places. Only needs two, three places. Not the little black dot. Because Baruch Hashem, you already checked. No, but it's more than that. It's not true. Could you, here, can you give me this and I'll show you a minumer. Not the black spot, the white spot. These are things that we can't. So many times the movie, אנט, if I see this black thing on my esrog and I show it to Rav, he's like, That's not black. That's not a black, that's dirt. That's dirt. It has to be that way because I didn't see it before either. So you noticed the black. That's what you got to worry about, right? Yeah. Yeah. You don't find this shaygen like this? You don't even need that much. You don't even need that much. Minumer is a sugya. You have to know the sugya, minumer. Okay, rabosai. It depends. If the bsari part is off, then it's pasul. If the etzi part, I'll show you. I'll show you on an esrog which is which is which. There's six cases of nitel pitam. Avad, it falls off. Which part of it? Which part?

It's a little kash. If the basar... I'll show you, I'll show you on the answer. First of all, you're saying—yeah, this is two of the cases. There's six cases. Patish chatichah, the pitos is on the top, the uktzin is on the bottom. These are the cases. This is the Mishnah Berurah's. Okay, rabosai, this is one case where it could be menumar. For example, if you had this—no, this is grad a kosher, but lu yatzu you have this in white, let's say. Sometimes it turns white a little bit. That's a case. Why is it called pit? What’s... Okay, what about the maaseh in the freezer? Zogt a maaseh, gevaldig gevald. You ready? He wants to know if you're allowed to keep a thing in the freezer. Says Reb Moshe, a guy came to him and had his esrog in the freezer, and he looked at it; it was fresh like unbelievable. A year ago. A year ago. Because I once had an esrog I loved. Reb Moshe has that in the teshuva. Reb Moshe has two parts to the teshuva. The first part of the teshuva is maybe it's kavush, since it froze, so it now has water. Halachah is mefurash in Shulchan Aruch: kavush, an esrog which is put into water for 24 hours is already no good. Read it, read it. Kavush, read it. It's in Shulchan Aruch. Now, says—people don't know this, by the way. I know people who put the esrog in water, like the lulav and esrog, because they think it's keeping it fresh. I walked into a house once, the guy had a pot full of esrog in water because he wanted it to stay fresh. He kept it in the fridge. I said, What are you doing? It's pasul. It's kavush. It's pasul. Read it. Nofel alav, or whatever, oshru, kavush b'chometz... Mishnah Berurah says... mayim, Mishnah Berurah clearly, me'es l'eis, 24 hours. Put in water for 24. So you should know, you gotta be careful. Do not put water on your esrog. Do not put water on your esrog. Then you not put water. Do not make your esrog wet. Okay, but the second day they clean it off with water. That's something else. It's not 24 hours. Don't soak it in water. Don't put water in there. Leave it in the fridge. Leave it alone. Now, R' Moshe says that could be it's kavush. Then R' Moshe says another shtickel. Really it's rat. But this, that it's pshat is, when it came out, you don't realize that it's really rotten. That's why it spoils right away. You know, like in a few days, like three, four days later, it's gonna get spoiled. Oh, see, says the ... when defrosted, it's not pshat it's not rotten. Really it's rotten. But you don't see it because, R' Moshe says, unless you know for sure that it lasts for quite a while, otherwise... put it in a jar with a candle. Oh, so that's what's brought. They bring that down. That's a Bikurei Yaakov. The Biur Yaakov on the bottom, the Shaar Tziyun brings from Bikurei Yaakov. Famous Bikurei Yaakov, that it was an esrog. He says kasher. So the shaila is, you have to be bodek it. It's a machlokes if you have to be bodek it. The Taz. ... He says in a car, they didn't have refrigerators those days. But the freezer, R' Moshe says you would have a problem of kavush, not in a fridge. That's that Bikurei Yaakov. ... the big, the bach. And he says on the bottom that even the goyim could be ... for this.