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 Summary 

 Mishna: 

A stolen or dried out hadas is possul. 

If it comes from an Asherah tree or from an ir hanidachas, it is possul. 

If the tip is broken off, or the leaves are broken (according to Rashi, they’re not connected to the ‘shedrah’, others explain that the leaves are drooping downward) it is possul. 

If its berries are more numerous than leaves, it’s possul (because it’s lacking in hadar). If he reduces the amount of berries, it is kosher. It is forbidden to remove the berries on Yom Tov (because he is fixing the hadassim). 

 Gemara: 

 Beraisa: “Anaf eitz avos” This means a branch that is covered in plaited leaves; it must refer to the hadas. 

 Challenge: Perhaps it means an olive branch which is also covered in leaves.

 Resolution: The olive leaves do not lie on the twig and cannot be called “avos”. 

 Challenge: Perhaps it means dulva? 

 Resolution: Its leaves do not cover the branch.

 Challenge: Perhaps it means hirduf (which does fulfill all the requirements)? 

 Rava: (26.2) It states “The ways of the Torah are sweet and all of its paths are peace” but the hirduf’s leaves are pointed like thorns. (Although the Torah sometimes requires us to sacrifice, in general, its ways are pleasant and this cannot be the meaning of anaf eitz avos).

 Abayye: We learn that from another verse, “The Torah is Truth and Pleasantness”

 Beraisa: [The hadas is identified because it’s] braided and like a chain; that’s the hadas. 

 Rabbi Eliezer ben Yaakov: Anaf- Eitz means that the anaf (what comes from the tree) is the same as the eitz (the wood of the branch); that’s the hadas whose berries taste like its branch.

 Beraisa: A hadas which is avos is kosher. If it’s not avos, it’s possul. 

 Question: Which hadas is avos? 

 Response: If it has three leaves growing in one row. (This is how Tosfos explains it, and this is what we follow in practice. Rashi explains that there should be three leaves coming out of one stem).