Save Your Lulav and Etrog!

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Save Your Lulav and Etrog! Education jly icEdid xywd Your JewishYour Jewish (Internet) Connection Connection! Brought to you by the Lifelong Learning Committee – Written by Linda S Trapasso Save Your Lulav and Etrog! Our wonderful holiday of Sukkot is over, the sukkah is stored away for We hold peel, accompanied by prayers that next year, but you’ve got this lulav the lulav one will merit a beautiful etrog next and etrog on your hands. What are in one Sukkot. Candied citron also has a you going to do with them? Read hand long non-Jewish history that you on for a few ideas! and the can read about here. What we re- etrog in the other, bring our hands Some families make jam or liqueur fer to as a lu- together, and wave them in four out of the etrog, or stick cloves in lav is the Four directions, plus up and down, to the skin for use as besamim at the Species used fulfill the mitzvah to bless G-d’s havdalah ceremony after Shab- together in a mastery over all creation and to pray bat. And you can plant etrog seeds bundle for Suk- for enough rain in the coming year. indoors and have an etrog tree in HuffPost kot. The Four (An article at likens this 5 – 10 years. shaking ritual to a rain dance.) Species are the You can find etrog recipes and lulav or date Since the lulav and etrog were used more ideas at The Canadian Jew- palm tree; hadass or myrtle; and for a mitzvah, they should be treated ish News, the Jewish Standard, aravah or willow. Together they with respect and not be discarded the Sukkah Project, the Jew & the are the lulav along with the etrog or in a trash bin. Ideally, they should Carrot, Specialty Produce, MyJew- citron. The lulav represents aspects be used for another mitzvah. Many ishLearning, and the Spruce Eats. of the human body with the lulav people save their lulav until Pesach Like the Energizer Bunny, your lulav representing the spine, the myrtle and then use it to kindle a fire for and etrog can keep going and going the eyes, the willow the lips, and the mitzvah of burning chametz. and going…! the etrog the heart. Midrash says Another thing you can do is save the lulav represents four different the etrog until Tu B’shevat and eat types of Jews (see description here). it in candied form or as candied 13.
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