Q. If you eat the shell of an esrog on tu bishvat, do you have to make sheheyanu?
A. Mishna Berura (225: 16) writes that you do not recite Sheheheyonu on eating an esrog as it does not change from year to year even during the winter months, since it survives in its tree from year to year. A similar ruling is found in Be'er Heitev (ibid. 11) in the name of Shaar Efraim.
Poiskim mention another reason not to recite this brocho since it was already said at the time the mitzvah of lulav and esrog was observed during Sukos. Following the Halacha that when the brocho of Shehecheyonu was recited at the time the fruit was first seen, it does not have to be repeated later when it is eaten the first time (Hoelef Lecho Shlomo O.H. 92).
A third reason not to recite Shehecheyonu cited in Eishel Avrohom (225) is that once the esrog has been sweetened and preserved, you can hardly recognize that it is a new fruit and the taste would not change from year to year.
However, Divrey Sofrim (23) and Eitz Chaim (Sukka p. 352) mention that it was the tradition of the sages of Yerushalaim to recite Shehecheyonu.
Ben Ish Chay (p. Reeh, first year) mentions that it was a Yerushalmi custom to eat on Rosh Hashana an esrog and recite Shehecheyanu, but not in Tu Bishvat.
Horav Shlomo Miller's Shlit"a opinion is that you don't recite Shehecheyonu on a esrog.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit"a
Important Numbers
