I have a halakhic riddle. But before I ask the riddle I need to provide some background information. The year that just recently ended, 5775, was a shemita year, a Sabbatical year, when many times of agricultural labor in Eretz Yisrael are forbidden. The Torah tells us, however, that fruits and vegetables that grow on their own during the year can be eaten. Not only can they be eaten, but they even have a special sanctity, called kedushat shevi’it. The shemita year has ended, 5776 is the eighth year of the shemita cycle, but fruits that developed and grew during the shemita year also have this sanctity, this holiness, kedushat shevi’it, even if they are not harvested until the eighth year.
Ok now. Here’s the riddle: What do you make with a tree in Israel laden with avocados that have kedushat shevi’it, shemita sanctity?
Holy guacamole!
There are several rules for produce endowed with kedushat shevi’it. The food should be eaten and cannot be treated disrespectfully or discarded. Even table scraps should be placed in a special location and not thrown into the trash until they spoil on their own. In addition, it is forbidden to divert food with kedushat shevi’it from its normal use. So, for example, one cannot cook a food normally eaten raw (like bananas), nor can one eat raw a food that is normally cooked (like potatoes).
Anyone who has traveled to Israel this past year would have encountered these laws in the grocery store and anyone traveling to Israel in the coming weeks will encounter these laws when, for the next few months, fruits and vegetables with kedushat shevi’it will be on the market. Fruits that developed before Rosh Hashanah, even if they were harvested after Rosh Hashanah, are endowed with kedushat shevi’it.
But, for many of us, we will encounter these laws most urgently and most straight forwardly when we take possession of our etrogim on Sukkot. Etrogim that grow in Israel during the shemita year have shemita sanctity and they must be treated with care. These etrogim cannot be discarded. After Sukkot we are to let them shrivel and dry before discarding them. If we chose to eat them, we need to be careful not to throw away any of the scraps left behind.
Lulavim and Aravot and Hadasim, the other three species taken on Sukkot, are not endowed with kedushat Shevi’it no matter where they grow and no matter when they grow. As soon as Sukkot is over, they can be discarded in any way.
Why is it that these branches can be discarded even though they had been used for a mitzvah? The Talmud discusses this question (Megillah 26b) and presents two different categories with two different rules:
ת”ר
תשמישי מצוה נזרקין תשמישי קדושה נגנזין
ואלו הן תשמישי מצוה
סוכה לולב שופר ציצית
ואלו הן תשמישי קדושה
.דלוסקמי ספרים תפילין ומזוזות ותיק של ס”ת ונרתיק של תפילין ורצועותיהן
“Tanu Rabbanan – a baraita, an early rabbinic tradition teaches: Tashmishei Mitzvah – items used to perform mitzvot – can be discarded. Tashmishei Kedushah – items associated with the sacred – must be preserved in a genizah and never be discarded. And these are some examples of tashmishei mitzvah – items used to perform a mitzvah: Sukkah, lulav, shofar, and tzitzit. And these are some examples of tashmishei kedushah – items associated with the sacred: the covers of sacred scrolls, tefilin, mezuzot, and the case that houses a Torah scroll and the sack that tefillin are placed into and the tefilin straps.
Rabbi Dr. David Weiss Halivni, the great Talmud scholar, once said that the goal of life is to transform ourselves from being tashmishei mitzvah to becoming tashmishei kedushah. The goal is to transcend a situation where our connection to mitzvot is momentary and fleeting and with no lasting impression. The goal is to live lives filled with moments of sanctity and surrounding and surrounded by words of Torah in such a way that our very selves take on some of that sacred identity.
In the aftermath of Yom Kippur, the question we should all be asking is whether the spiritual highs of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were peak moments of special religious intensity, or whether we have been altered by the holidays and are now different people than we were only a few weeks ago.
Whatever answer we give to that question today, the task of becoming tashmishei kedushah, vessels of holiness, is the task of a lifetime. This year, on Sukkot, when we lift the four species, we will hold etrogim, endowed with holiness by virtue of the sacred place and the sacred time where they grew. And we will hold three other branches that are crucial for the mitzvah but that will never become holy themselves.
I wish you a joyous Sukkot, and a lifetime of striving for holiness.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 