Handling & Care

To preserve freshness, please place the hadassim (myrtle) and aravot (willow) in the refrigerator immediately upon receiving your shipment and keep them refrigerated until you are ready to use them. The lulav (palm branch) and etrog (citron) do not require refrigeration, and so they can be stored at room temperature in a cool dry area.

Because the leafy components, hadassim (myrtle) and aravot (willow), are delivered vacuum sealed to ensure they remain fresh as long as possible, open them on Erev Yom Tov (the evening right before the holiday begins) to assemble your set. Assembling your set is easy to achieve, as the holder (which, in Yiddish, is called a Koishelach) is designed for you to insert these two components, each in its own separate sleeve.

To assemble your lulav and etrog set according to Jewish tradition, when you begin the assembly, the spine of the lulav should be facing toward you. The spine is the thick green line that generally runs up one side of the lulav. The back of the lulav is generally indented and less green, so that is not the side you should be facing.

Once you are looking at the spine, the hadassim (myrtle) are inserted into the right sleeve of the lulav holder and the aravot (willow) into the left sleeve. The hadassim (myrtle) should be higher than the aravot (willow). In order to achieve this, simply insert the aravot (willow) a bit deeper into its sleeve, and don't insert the hadassim (myrtle) as deeply, and you should see that the tips of the hadassim (myrtle) on the right side of the lulav are higher than the tips of the aravot (willow) on the left side.

The reasoning for this arrangement is drawn from Jewish symbolism, where the right is the side of Chesed (kindness), and the left is the side of Gvurah (strength & restraint). As important as all midot (attributes) are, we still wish to emphasize the trait of kindness above all other traits, so we proudly hold the leaves of the hadassim (myrtle) higher than the aravot (willow).

Shana Tovah. May we merit a sweet year, full of kindness, camaraderie and joy.