Regarding the etrog, it is known that the Lubavitcher Rebbe would be mehader to take a large etrog, a truly large one—this was an innovation, the Rebbe’s own innovation. Today too there are many Chasidim who want to do as the Rebbe did, so they go to great lengths to seek out a large etrog, but a large etrog carries a bit of a problem. In the Rebbe’s case, they surely chose a large etrog that was one hundred percent clean, but generally a large etrog is not one hundred percent clean. So, there is a question of hiddur [beautification of the mitzvah]—indeed there are different opinions among the Chabad rabbis today—whether it is preferable to have a smaller, clean etrog, or a very large one that is not one hundred percent clean. There are rabbis who say that a large, unclean one is better than a small, clean one, but the plain logic would seem to be—if the small one meets the required measure and is clean, it would seem to be more hadar [select and beautiful] than a large one that is not one hundred percent clean (of course, we are here not referring to a blemish or blemishes that would disqualify the etrog, but rather blotches that do not disqualify it).
The Etrog and the Feminine
Since the etrog represents the sefirah of kingdom and that is the feminine and the woman (more specifically it is related to the “revelation of the crown” of Ze’er Anpin, the revelation of the future bride), a large etrog is like a “great woman.” The phrase “a great woman”[1] appears in the Tanach exactly once—that is the large etrog. Who is this great woman? Scripture there is describing the woman from Shunam who made an attic chamber for Elisha the prophet and placed there a bed, a table, a chair, and a menorah—thereby providing him with the four rectifications that correspond to the four Worlds.
[There is an extraordinarily wondrous discourse of the Rebbe Rashab on this verse and this story of the great woman, who made an upper chamber for Elisha the prophet with a bed, a table, a chair, and a menorah. The story behind the discourse on “table, bed, chair, and menorah” is that the Rebbe Rashab once called in several unique individuals, among them Reb Shmuel Gronem, and delivered the discourse before them. Afterward Reb Shmuel Gronem said that he had never heard such a discourse in his life, and nevertheless he was prepared to forgo it—that is, that he himself would not hear the discourse, but that the other students would hear it instead—but they did not merit to hear it, and so it stands to this day. LeChaim, LeChaim!]
Getting back to the woman from Shunam, afterward she merits, through the prophet Elisha, to be blessed with a son, and this son—according to the Sages, as is explained at length in the writings of the Arizal—is the prophet Habbakuk. This son dies suddenly and Elisha revives him performing a resurrection of the dead.
Elisha was the disciple of Elijah. Elijah also resurrected a child who had died, the son of the woman of Tzarfat. This child became the prophet Jonah. Habbakuk is thus connected to Sukkot, his mother is the great woman, and Jonah is connected to Yom Kippur, since we read his book on the afternoon of Yom Kippur. But Jonah is also connected to Sukkot because he received his prophecy through Simchat Beit HaSho’eivah. The lesson for us is that from Yom Kippur one arrives at Simchat Beit HaSho’eivah to attain sight through Divine inspiration.
Habbakuk is related to Sukkot for another reason. Sukkot is said to be alluded to in the words, “and His right hand embraces me,”[2] and Habbakuk stems from the same root as “embrace.” This all provides an important allusion to taking a large etrog on Sukkot.
Leah and Rachel: The Large and Small Feminine
Once again, taking a large etrog provides us with hiddur [beautification of the mitzvah] in terms of size, but in most cases compromises the hiddur of cleanliness. But with a small etrog, “a small woman” there is no hiddur of size, but the hiddur of cleanliness is far more commonly found.
We already know there is a “great woman” in Scripture, but is there a “small woman?” The expression “small woman” does not appear in the Tanach, but it does suggest the difference between Leah and Rachel. The Torah writes about them that, “the name of the bigger was Leah, and the name of the smaller was Rachel.”[3] Between the two, who is described as the clean one, the beautiful one in every respect, of whom it could be said, “there is no blemish in you” at all? This is Rachel. Rachel is praised for perfection of beauty—she is the smaller, but she is clean. The real question is which is more hadar. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, who is the tzaddik of “Beit Rabbeinu SheBeBavel”—for whom Leah is the primary partzuf of the feminine—for him, the primary objective is to beautify the etrog by taking a large one.
Still, we need to inquire in general: which is better—a large, unclean etrog, or a small, clean one? To better understand this question, we need to look at its spiritual roots. Spiritually, this is the question of the relationship between Leah and Rachel.
Between Leah and Rachel, each has her own virtue. Leah represents thought, which is known as the concealed World (relative to speech, which is a revealed World, i.e., we express our thoughts through speech). Because Leah is higher than Rachel, I might have thought that by her nature she should be cleaner, because the lower something is, the dirtier it is since it is closer to the impure husks. Not only that, Rachel is the aspect of femininity about which it says that it descends even into the death of the impure husks. So, I would have thought that Leah, who does not descend into the kelipah, ought to be cleaner, both physically and spiritually (the physical only reflects the spiritual). So why is this not the case?
The simple explanation is that even when I pray, even when I am standing before God, my thought always wanders, and we recognize that we are thoughts are not clean. But every person can decide to guard and protect his speech from using foul or negative language, by his own free choice. So, a person can have clean speech—corresponding to Rachel, even though there is no righteous person on earth who is clean in his thoughts. He can think great things, far beyond what he is capable of achieving in speech, but to say that he is clean in thought—that is a very, very serious feat, something reserved for the future.
In the future, Rachel will grow and will be known as “Rachel the Great.” We look forward to Rachel not remaining small but rather coming to include Leah within herself as well. In the language of Kabbalah, the countenance of Rachel will rise and include the countenance of Leah, which is only a fleeting reflection of the complete feminine countenance of the mother principle. Partzuf Rachel starts out as a root, an essential point that emerged in the first emanation of reality. The ultimate purpose is that Rachel will rise and fully inherit Leah, just as “the vessels of Rectification” must inherit and subsume all of “the lights of Chaos.” This state is called “Rachel the Great.” When this happens then the unification becomes between Yisrael and Rachel the Great—the ultimate union of the Messianic era. The bottom line is that this means there will be a large and clean etrog.
In fact, the value of “large and clean” (גָּדוֹל וְנָקִי) is the same as hadar (הָדָר), beautification. Thus, when instructing us, “And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of a beautiful tree,” a tree that has hadar, the Torah telling us that we must take a large and clean etrog. That is why it is the first of the Four Species enumerated in the verse.
[1]. 2 Kings 4:8.
[2]. Song of Songs 2:6.
[3]. Genesis 29:16.
