While the soul of this thread is the Harmony story, it is the lighter moments of wow! that we should be sensitive to, and as her story tells, it is that sensitivity we gain from the big events. Here is a hashgocha lite story a little out of season, and a little long, but one of the favorite ones I tell, so I hope this doesn’t blow my cover. I like very large esrogim, and while in NY I would scour the avenue in Brooklyn asking the vendors for etrog hatzi kilo.In the course of time, I came across the maamar of Rav Ovadia Yosef, loosly translated as “most of EY’s etrogim are murkavim, and thus one should only buy from a known source and yere shamayim. This was a precious example of the broad shouldered fearlessness that only a posek can have, and I filed it away in the depths of my head. Also stored in one of the back files is the factoid that all citrus freely cross pollinate.
One year, I had gotten my prized lunker esrog, but my shul was selling that year as well, and after one maariv, the guy selling waved me over and held up an esrog, perfectly tapered, all bumps, and a lovely green fade into yellow– it was love at first sight. Now with two esrogim, I decided to use the little one for the bracha, and the large one for Hallel.
Another little habit of mine was to recycle the esrog into a cordial or into candy for Pesach to connect the chagim. This is before I knew THAT COMMERCIALLY PRODUCED ESROGIM ARE POISON, that they are sprayed mercilessly and that an organic esrog is indeed a very ugly thing. ( This is the H.P. for those of you still making jelly out the collected esrogim.) That year, I was intent on making esrog whisky, so at closing time erev yom tov I got 5o or so unwanted esrogim from a worn out seller for $10. To my mild surprise, cutting them up to process, I found about 2 percent had full fruit centers, identical to a sliced lemon. Then I cut open my large beauty and the maamar of Rav Yosef came back to me like a hit on the head. This was the largest lemon I had ever seen, as full and developed as a grapefruit. With tears, I mouthed the morning bracha ( without shem umalchus) “blessed be he that guides the steps of man” that I was motivated to use this unfit esrog for Hallel and not for the bracha