Why Did His Cheap Etrog Smell Like The Garden of Eden? Rabbi Yirmiyahu Cohen

We're about to enter the most beautiful holiday of Sukkot, the holiday of Sukus, the festival of Sukus. During the festival of Sukus, God Hakadoshu commands us to bring the four minim, the four species, the esrog which is a citrus fruit, the lulav which is the palm branch, the hadas, the myrtle leaves, and finally the arava which is the willow. So again, had arava alul four things good. Now these four things are super important during the festival of sukus. We must bring them every day and we must shake them every day besides Shabbat. Now I'm going to give you two explanations about the significance of these four minim. The first one is that these four minim represents the parts of the person's body. The rogue, the esrog, the fruit which looks like the heart of the person that represents our heart. Then comes the lulav. The lulav which is supposed to be straight represents the spine of the person. The hadas which look like the eyes represent our eyes. And the arava which look like lips represent our lips. four things we are supposed to shape unify these four things our heart spine our eyes and our lips we're supposed to unify them to serve God now also very significantly God commands us to shake these four species these four minim after yum kipur why is that and I'd like to explain according to the explanation of the etrog. The esrog is the heart. During the 10 days of teshuah, the 10 days of repentance between rashashana and yum kipper, we look into our actions between me and God, between me and my friend. We we fix our actions. We polish ourselves. At the end of yonipur, every single one of us is as clean and as shiny and as polished as a diamond. The best time of the year for us is always at the end of yam kipur comekot and we sort of display our form our eyes our lips our spine our heart in the best way possible but mainly the is like a diamond just like at the end of yum kipper we are like a diamond as polished as possible so too we going to be throughout the of sukot we're going to be like a diamond looking like the rogue That's the first representation. The second representation is that the four the four species remind us of Ben Israel. Now the the rabbis tell us that the rogue has a good taste and a good smell. Whenever we say taste, it refers to Torah. Whenever we say smell, it refers to mitzvo doing the commandments of God. So therefore the esrog which has taste and smell represents a Jew which keeps who which which learns Torah and does the mitzvah. The lulav on the other hand is something which tastes good because the dates grow in the lulav but doesn't smell good. The lulav represents somebody who learns Torah but does not keep the mitzah so well. That's the lulab. Then comes the hadas. The hadas is the myrtle leaf. The myrtle leaves smell good but don't taste good. The myrtle leaves refer to people who keep mitzvah but don't so much learn Torah. And finally we have the arava. The aravad does not the willow. The willow has not got a good smell. Neither does it have a taste. The arava represents the person in am is which has no Torah and no mitzvah. So we get all four together. We unify the person who has Torah mitzvah, the person with only Torah, the person with only mitzvah and the person with no with nothing with them. We get them together and we say we shall all become one unit to do the will of God on what we do is we get a form which is which is the four types of amrael and we unite them together to serve God. And that's a very beautiful idea because like we said by the remon by the pomegranate that we look at the pomegranate and we say that even the empty one among am is full of mitzvah. So to everybody in whether you learn whether you pray whether you do mitzvah less more doesn't matter we get all together we get all together hashem to serve you. So when we get these four we get these four minim and we shake them on sukkot on sukus on the festival of sukus every morning chabas what happens what we are doing is we are saying that we are uniting everybody all am isel together to serve you god we're united as one and whenever b is are unified we have peace we have success we have prosperity we have happiness the next part of the class is that there's a gamar that says that the as we said before is that the the the taste of the rogue is good and also the taste of the bark is good. The rogue tree looks better and the fruits look better and taste better than the rest of the fruits. Now there is a pirouch explanation that says that when Hashem told Adamarishon not to eat from the preadat, not to eat from this tree of knowledge, this beautiful tree, he meant the tree of the rogue, the atrog so special because both the branches and the fruit looked good, tasted good. And when Hashem told Adam who then told Kava not to eat from the Sadata when she saw the sadat and she saw it was so much more attractive, so much more beautiful, so much more appealing than the rest, she ate from it. Therefore, there are those who say that when we shake the aram and especially at properly on sukkot, we're also being metaken. We're fixing the of the just like we messed up by eating from theat. So on we shake the rogue which is theat and that way we sort of fix up for that flaw. Now there is the next point is that in in in Judaism there is what's called segulot. Segula is certain things that we do and those things grant us some kind of privilege or some kind of magic. Call it what you want. We do A, God gives us B. Sea means we do A, God gives us B. So the have told us that there are three main seg about the rogue. Number one, the the rogue is a is a sagula for easy birth. Number two, the rogue the seagula for happiness. And finally, the rogue is sagula for marriage. How do all these three things work out? First of all, as we said, when when ate from the eight sad aka she ate from the esrog which she shouldn't have, she created a flaw in the world and her main punishment was that she was going to have hard births. She was going to suffer during pregnancy. Therefore, kazal tell us on sukus if we eat on sukus, if we do the mitzvah properly and We make the estrog into jam or to whatever else you want to make it to and pregnant women eat it. Since the rogue was made to theat problem which caused women having hardships in birth so too we eat the rogue and that fixes the problem of child birth. So the rogue is a seula for easy birth. That's number one. Number two, since the rogue looks like the heart and the and the source of of happiness is in the heart because a person can look happy, a person can talk happy, a person can think happy, but if you don't feel happy, you're not happy. What is a part of the body which legit shows whether you feel happy or not? That's the rogue. Therefore during the week of sukus when we shake the lulav and therog especially the rogue and we put in the most kavana the most intention possible what happens is that rogue represents the happiness of the holier. And finally I heard a beautiful sigula that when somebody else needs an astrog and you either find them an astrog or you enable them to buy a nicer one. So because you found a match for the person that person was looking for anrog to match him during the seven days of sukot because you help somebody else find a match as an esrog it'll be a zahut for you if you need to get married. So therefore we see over here that if we do that properly it's a seg for child for easy birth for happiness and for marriage and of course once you are married of course it's going to come with shalomay it's going to come with peace in the house but I would like to conclude with a small story there was once a a man called Rauri Ravuri was from a place called Yanov Y a n ovurri from Yanov every year he would save money all throughout the year because he wanted to buy the nicest arabam possible. And every year he earned money and he saved money and he put it aside to buy the arbaminim and his and the jewel in his crown. The jewel for him was the rog. One year raat rai he raised money and he went to the market of the arbaminim to buy the rogue. On the way he saw a man who was crying. He was crying bitter tears. He asked the man, "Why are you crying?" He says, "Because I had a horse and this horse was the meor, the source of my panasa, the source of my livelihood, and it's just died. And if I have no horse, I have no panas. I cannot feed my family. I'm so upset." And he was crying and crying and crying. Raburi said to himself, "What better mitzvah to give my money to this man to be able to buy a new horse?" He asked the man, "How much is a new horse?" So the man said, "500 coins." Ravouri said, "500 coins. Here you have 500 coins. Buy yourself a horse. Have be happy." And Raburi walked away. He had left 50 coins. He went to the shook and he bought a very cheap set of aramim and that's what he had. Now Rauri was a bit embarrassed because normally he would come to shu with a beautiful set and this year he came to shul with a very low quality set. So he sat at the back of the shul in the corner. Nobody should notice just before the in the middle of davening the rav of the shulik rabelizens. He stopped. He stopped and he looked around. He walked around the whole shore staring at every single esrog. He walked until he got to Rauri and he said, "Wow, Ravuri, your estrog smells like Gan Eden. I've I've done the mitzvah for many years. I have never smelled the smell of your esrog. It's gone. Tell me what's your story." Raburi says, "What's the big deal? It's a very low quality." Ra Ali Malik asked him, tell me, Raburi, what's the real story? So, you should know Raal Malik, I raise my I save money every year for the best set. This year I couldn't afford it because I gave my money to a poor man who lost his horse and I bought a cheap one and I'm embarrassed on the corner of the base medish with my not so nice and aram told him that you put aside your and your money to buy but you made somebody else happy. You have been to the nicest most beautiful esrogen in the eyes of Hashem. your estrogen that you have been and our mitzvah this year is the we should all buy the best aram but make sure that if you're married you give your wife a good gift if you give your kids gifts and you help other people buy the arbam but be good to others too all the very best thank