It's not your usual festive fruit

DAVE GORDON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

It looks like a lemon, feels like a lemon and kind of smells like a lemon. But an etrog is not a lemon. In fact, it is the fruit of the citron tree and one of the four species used on the festival of Sukkot. The others are lulav (palm), aravah (willow) and hadas (myrtle). Of the four, the etrog is the most expensive, due primarily to the regulations that must be followed in order to render it kosher.
But as intricate as the rules may be, Moshe Mansour, etrog importer extraordinaire, knows them like back of his own hand.

"I can tell in my sleep which are the good ones and which are the bad ones," said the 28-year-old Brooklyn native, who has been in the business for about 18 years. Mansour sells 20,000 etrogs annually through his company, Esrog World, and says he is one of the largest etrog importers in the world, distributing all over the United States, Canada and Israel.

The etrog's origin is unknown, although seeds have been found in excavations in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) dating back 5,000 years. It is believed to have started growing in Israel only during the Second Temple period (about 500 BCE). Today, the etrogim for Sukkot are mostly grown in Morocco, Italy, Yemen and Israel, where Mansour's farms are located.

According to Mansour, a proper etrog has qualities that are discernible to the average person – it should be turning yellow (rather than still green); must not be pierced in any place or have any black spots that are visible if held at arm's length; the bottom should be wider than the top, and if it grew with a protruding stem (or pitam), the stem cannot be broken off.

As well, the fruit has features that cannot be seen on a store shelf. For example, because of a Torah prohibition, the etrog can't be plucked from a tree three years old or younger. Additionally, every 13 years, the tree has to be replanted, due to stagnated growth. One tree produces about 300 fruit each season, and etrog is plucked after about four months of growth. The etrog tree cannot be grafted with any other fruit tree. In fact, great care is taken to protect the trees and their fruit. Many etrog growers, including Mansour, trim the thorny leaves of the tree to prevent them from scarring the fruit. Winds can cause the leaves to brush against the fruit, enough to scratch them, which can cause a thin scrape. Such a line can take away from the beauty of the fruit.

"Imagine it to be like a photograph with a streak through it," Mansour said. Many trees are also watered manually to avoid moving irrigation equipment through the groves.

In Israel, Mansour's on-site mashgiach (kashrut supervisor) spends 24 hours a day on the farms, sleeps on the premises and only goes home for Shabbat. He grades the etrogim according to the Hebrew alphabet, from aleph to dalet – or from one (the best) to four (lowest grade). That partly explains why etrog prices can range anywhere from $20 to $500.

"People want to buy the best and they want to do the mitzvah right," said Mansour.

Besides its use as a vital element of the celebration of Sukkot, other customs have arisen from the fruit's symbolism. One customs says that to see an etrog in a dream means that "one is precious before his Maker." (Talmud, Berachot: 57a) Pregnant women have sometimes used the etrog – long considered a feminine symbol due to its particular shape – to determine the sex of their children, since some believe that a woman who bites into one will bear a male child. As well, the Jewish oral tradition likens the bump on the bottom of the etrog to a dad or nipple. (Mishnah Brurah 648:30) Indeed, for everyone, the etrog can seem like a representation of fertility, an ideal centrepiece for the harvest-season festival of Sukkot.

Dave Gordon is a freelance writer whose articles have been published in the Baltimore Sun, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toronto Sun.

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