It’s the day after, we are tired. The Sukkah is put away (I hope). We survived Tishrei, barely. And for the first time in a month, we’ll have a regular work week . But what to do with the arba minim? You can use the esrog for besamim, jam, or liquor. You can save the hadasim for besamim too, and you already beat the aravos to death. But that poor lulav, what will be its fate? Everyone knows that you are not allowed to throw it in the garbage, that would be a huge bizayon to this chayfetz of mitzvah.
Here are the options I know about that solve this annual dilemma.
- Save it for 6 months and burn it in the chametz. That’s what many people do. These are the same people who eat shmura matzah in the Sukkah. Strange minhagim, but I kinda like the idea of connecting these holidays.
- Take it to shul and put it on top of the Aron. Let someone else take care of it and live with the mystery about what they actually do.
- Take it to shul and leave it in the coat room. Same deal.
- Remove all the leaves and weave an intricate basket to hold your esrog next year. I’ve always wanted to do this but could never figure out how to weave those damn leaves.
- Weave them into a straw hat and wear it on purim. But same problem, I can’t weave.
What do I do? I throw it in the dumpster outside the shul along with all the other ones the gabbai finds in the coatroom and dumps there too. But I feel really guilty about doing this, so I guess that makes up for it. Give me another option in the comments, I’d love to do better than the dumpster.
Find more ways to secretly hide your lulav on page 2 of the search results using 4Torah.com