Q&A: Since when did people start using an etrog on Sukkot?
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Since when did people start using an etrog on Sukkot?
Question
Was this information received at Sinai, or was it determined about 2,000 years later during the discussion in the Talmudic text?
I’ll mention two things –
A. You hold that only very few things were received orally at Sinai.
B. The etrog is an example. There are lots of discussions in the Talmudic text that were apparently known beforehand, and the discussions are seemingly just theoretical. But then it comes out that they received a lot before that (at Sinai?).
Answer
I have no idea, and in my view it also isn’t really important. The interpretive derivations regarding the etrog quite clearly look preservative rather than creative. Whether this was given at Sinai or came into being somewhere later, I do not know.
See Nadav Shnerb’s article in his book Keren Zavit, in the discussion about Sukkot, where he cites Rabbi Alfandari: "Would this fruit too, which they call by the name lemon—because they changed its name to lemon, should it become invalid? Certainly that is not reasonable…"