‘Pri etz hadar’ is not a quince

I read with fascination the article “How a Chinese fruit became a Sukkot symbol” (September 25) and how Rabbi David Z. Moster claims that people used any fruit they had available (such as pomegranates, dates and figs) until the Second Temple period, to fulfil the Mitzvah of “taking the product of goodly trees.”

At first I assumed this was a piece of “Purim Torah.” Sadly, it was not, so please let me point out that the etrog we use today is the same fruit originally used for the mitzvah since Biblical times, long before the Second temple period, and was not “an exclusively rabbinic” idea.

There are many references to the “product of the goodly tree” being an etrog. For example the words in Hebrew “pri etz hadar” are taken to mean etrog, as “hadar” also means to dwell , and it is well known by etrog growers that such fruit stay on the tree even more than a year if they are not picked. This is not true for other fruits Moster mentioned.

Targum Onkelos on Leviticus 23:40, which dates in oral form back to Har Sinai, specifically translates “hadar” as “etrog.”

Torat Cohanim (Sifra) also mentions that this fruit was the etrog. The Rambam in his introduction to Mishnayot Zeraim states, “There is no disagreement that this fruit is an etrog…. We see, without doubt, that from Joshua's time until now they would take an etrog with a lulav.”

The Baal Hatanya, a more recent source, states that even during the 40 years in the desert, Jews sent emissaries to bring back etrogim to celebrate the holiday! ZEV GERSHON

Jerusalem