Rabbi Robert Scheinberg's page

For the first two parts of this series on the Four Species, see http://rabbischeinberg.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-lulav-growth-frozen-in-time.html and http://rabbischeinberg.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-fruit-that-remembers-what-botanists.html .  Hopefully part 4 on the Myrtles will be ready in time for Sukkot 5779. Sukkot is a holiday of technological challenges, major and minor, that pit a Jew against the forces of nature.  Challenge #1:  Build a structure that is temporary and flimsy enough that it meets the criteria for a sukkah according to Jewish law, and strong enough to withstand the wind and rain that many Jewish communities can expect at this time of year.  Challenge #2:  Keep the Lulav’s willow and myrtle branches looking fresh, with vibrant green leaves, when natural processes lead the myrtle leaves to dry out and the willow leaves to turn black and grow mold. Our synagogue distributes care instructions with the Lulav and Etrog sets that we sell. ...

I have lived most of my life far away from palm trees.  But on my visits to palm trees in places like Florida, California, and Israel, I have always been captivated by how majestic and (to me) exotic and unusual they are.    On a visit to California several years ago, I started paying attention to how palm trees grow.  Most of the fronds of a palm tree are bent over to one direction or another. But at the very center of the top of a palm tree (at least for the date palm and other varieties that I observed) is a small “closed frond” that is not bent in one direction or another.  Rather, it points straight up.  As this “closed frond” grows, it will eventually open, and its leaves will separate and some will flop this way and some will flop that way.  But at the moment, the “closed frond” is united and undifferentiated. Jews have a special name for the “closed frond”:  it is the Lulav, the palm branch that is one of the Arba Minim, the four kind...