Etrog Container

Sukkot is both an ancient harvest festival and a commemoration of the 40-year wandering of the Israelites in the wilderness. The agricultural aspect of the eight-day holiday is evident in the ritual involving an etrog, which is a citron or citrus fruit, and lulav (loo-love), which are bound stems of palm, willow, and myrtle leaves. The etrog is often kept in a special protective case.

An etrog is a yellow citrus fruit that is grown mostly in parts of Italy, Greece, Israel, and a few Central and South American countries. Strongly scented and larger than a lemon, an etrog is used in addition to the lulav during the holiday of Sukkot. It is important for the etrog to be stored in a protective case since this fragile fruit cannot be used if its skin or pitom (pee-tome), which is the fruit’s attached bud, are damaged.

The earliest and most prized etrog cases were produced by skilled craftspeople in Augsburg and other cities in the German states, or principalities, during the 1600s. In the early 1700s, a common household container known as a Zuckerdose (which was used to store sugar in many German homes) was used as an etrog case for one week each year. 

As part of the concept of hiddur mitzvah (finding ways to beautify or elevate Jewish rituals and religious commandments), the ideal etrog has no blemishes and the pitom (or pistil) on top is intact and undamaged. It is important to protect the etrog and ensure that it remains undamaged during Sukkot. The etroggim (plural form) that were not used during Sukkot had various other uses. The thick peel was either pickled in vinegar or boiled to a pulp and eaten, or the fragrance from the peel was extracted and used as perfume. According to the Jewish text the Talmud, the etrog was also highly valued as an antidote to poisonous snake bites.The English translation of the case’s engraved Hebrew script is ”the fruit of a goodly tree” (Leviticus 23:40). The Hebrew Bible refers to a tree described as hadar, which means “splendid” or “majestic.”