In conversation with someone about Swords into Plowshares back in the mid-1990s. It was not long after the Rebbe MHM had said the famous Sicha explaining that this Messianic prophecy of Isaiah had begun to be fulfilled, and I had been speaking and writing about it.
The winter of that year—5547 (1786–7)—was most severe, the first snow falling in Liozna during the festival of Sukkot. Sitting in the sukkah required a fur coat and fur-lined boots, and on several occasions the snow had to be removed from the sukkah.
The Festival of Sukkos is so called because of its central Mitzvah: to dwell in a Sukka for seven days.
During the Sukkos holiday, the village residents saw Itzik, a Jew overburdened with financial debt, concentrating with extra kavana as he shook his lulav and esrog. He closed his eyes and shook the Dalet Minim to the right, to the left, in the middle, up and down with amazing fervor. “Itzik,” they asked him, “what exactly do you think about so intensely when you shake your lulav?”
The dalet minim market in Warsaw was busy. Many stalls with lulavim were scattered about the large market. Next to them were piles of haddassim and aravos, but esrogim? Where were the esrogim? There wasn’t a single esrogim stand!
October 15, 2019