There were two chavrusas, Uri and Shragi, who, after learning the halachos of arba minim together, dreamed of taking an esrog for Sukkos that fulfilled all the specifications of the mitzvah and all the hiddurim they’d learned about. They understood, though, that only the gedolei Yisrael merit such an esrog — one that costs more than their Kollel stipends would allow. Not wanting to give up on their dream, they thought of a plan and approached one of the leading esrog dealers in Bnei Brak with the following deal:
“We’ll sort through your esrogim,” they said to him, “without receiving a shekel as payment. Our only take-home will be a single esrog for each of us that we’ll choose for ourselves.” The dealer agreed to their terms, and the two avreichim sorted thousands of esrogim according to their level of hiddur, all the while keeping their eyes open for the two “diamonds in the rough” that they were seeking. Sure enough, each one found his prize, and each came happily into Sukkos with his desired “diamond.”
On the first night, at one o’clock in the morning, a frightening groan emerged from Uri’s sukkah. His wife ran to the sukkah at once. “What’s the matter?” she asked her husband. “Why can’t you sleep?”
“I don’t have an esrog!” Uri complained. “What do you mean?” his puzzled wife asked. “You have an incredible esrog, one worthy of the gadolei hador.”
“Yes, it’s surely beautiful, but it’s not kosher! I took the esrog from the dealer before its terumos and maaseros were taken. It’s tevel and therefore not kosher for the mitzvah!”
Heavily, Uri trudged over to the sukkah of the local rav to confirm his unfortunate predicament. “You are correct,” the rav told him. “As the esrog is still tevel and you cannot take maaser on Yom Tov, you are left with only three minim and will have to receive one from someone else as a gift in the morning.”
Uri returned home, understandably sad that all his work before Yom Tov left him with a unusable esrog for the mitzvah. But then his thoughts turned to a new problem: His chavrusa, Shragi, was in the same situation and had no idea! Come morning, he’d take his problematic esrog for the mitzvah and make a beracha on a non-kosher esrog!
To compound the matter, the chavrusa lived in Petach Tikvah, while Uri lives in Bnei Brak, a walk of at least half an hour, and Uri was exhausted from all the Erev Yom Tov prep. Should he walk all the way there to tell him about the issue with their “diamond?” He turned back and asked the rav, but was told that he didn’t have to. With at least that off his mind, he returned to his sukkah and tried to go back to sleep. For a while, though, he tossed and turned. “What would my Father in Heaven want? That I let my chavrusa lose out by shaking a pasul esrog and make a beracha levatala?”
With that thought, he jumped back up, put back on his clothes, and started walking to Petach Tikvah. Close to two in the morning, he arrived at the chavrusa’s door, and knocked. He knocked and knocked until he thought he would bang through the door, but eventually Shragi opened the door with a joyful expression.
“Good Yom Tov! Are you coming to join me in the mitzvah of yeshivas sukkah?”
“No, baruch Hashem I have my own sukkah, but we don’t have an esrog!”
Uri went on to explain the sad fact that their esrogim were tevel and therefore not kosher. Heavily, they accepted the ratzon Hashem that they would be without their esrogim, and Uri started his walk back.
