[Avodah] Chabad on Arba Minim (Baal Tosef?)

[Zev Sero]

Harvey Benton wrote:
 
> Chabad (and perhaps other Chasidim) have a custom of taking numerous 
> Hadasim with their Lulavim.

Not just chassidim.  The rishonim quote customs of taking 68 (gematria
lulav), 69 (gematria hadas), or 70 (like the parei hachag).  The Tur
quotes Rav Amram as saying that the custom in his yeshivah was to take
no fewer than 68 hadassim, and some took up to 70.


>  I was wondering if this is Baal Tosef?  
> Going further, would taking additional Etrogim (say 3) and/or Lulavim 
> (5?) together with the Hadasim and Aravot be considered Baal Tosef? 
>
> I asked someone, and he told me that taking additional units of the 
>  Arba Minim might not be a problem, but that taking for instance a 
> non-Arba Minim fruit, like an apple, would be….. HB


This is an open SA, OC 651:14-15.  Adding an extra species is bal tosif.
Adding an extra lulav or etrog may or may not be bal tosif, but it's not
allowed.  But one may add as many hadassim and aravot as one wishes.

The Rambam  (Lulav 7:7) encourages adding to the hadassim but rules that
one may not add to the aravot, but he later changed his mind and allowed
extra aravot as well.   The Rosh suggested that the Rambam changed his
mind completely and allowed extra lulavim and etrogim as well, at least
to the extent that if one did add a lulav or etrog it would not be pasul,
but almost all poskim disagree with this, and hold that the Rambam only
changed his mind about aravot, and that an extra lulav or etrog is still
forbidden (see, e.g., Bach).


-- 
Zev Sero                                     May the light of Chanukah
zev at sero.name                                brighten your life