Background to the tefilla

The Arba Minim, the “Four Species,” is one of the central commands of the festival. The Torah specifies: “On the first day, you shall take for yourselves a fruit of the citron tree, palm fronds, myrtle branches, and willows of the brook, and be joyous in the presence of the Lord your God for seven days” (Vayikra 23:40).

What the Four Species have in common is that wherever you find them, there is water. They are the visible blessings of the rain that fell in the previous year. We bring them together now in thanks to God for the blessing of rain in the past year, and to pray for rain in the year to come.

The blessing we recite refers only to the lulav, since it is the tallest and most conspicuous of the four species. The lulav is waved in six directions: east, south, west, and north (i.e., straight ahead, right, rear, left), corresponding to the directions of the wind, then up and down. In each case it should be waved three times.

The Four Species represent four parts of the body. The lulav represents the spine, the myrtle the eyes, the willow the mouth, and the etrog the heart. As the etrog has both aroma and fruit, so there are those in the Jewish people who have knowledge of Torah and good deeds. As the palm tree has fruit but no aroma, so there are those in the Jewish people who have knowledge of the Torah but not good deeds. As the myrtle has aroma but no fruit, so there are those in the Jewish people who have good deeds but not knowledge of the Torah. And as the willow has neither aroma nor fruit, so there are those in the Jewish people who have neither Torah nor good deeds. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: “To make it impossible for Israel to be destroyed, let all of them be bound together, and let each atone for the others” (Pesikta DeRav Kahana 27:9).

Analysis

The Four Species are a symbolic expression of our rejoicing that the Israelites left the wilderness, “a place with no grain or figs or vines or pomegranates; there was not even water to drink” (Bemidbar 20:25), and came to a country full of fruit trees and rivers. In order to remember this, we take the fruit which is the most pleasant of the land, branches that smell the best, the most beautiful leaves, and also the best of herbs, i.e., the willows of the brook. These four kinds have also these three purposes: First, they were plentiful in those days in the land of Israel so that everyone could easily get them. Secondly, they have a good appearance – they are green; some of them, namely the citron and the myrtle, are also excellent with regard to their smell, and the branches of the palm tree and the willow have neither good nor bad smell. Thirdly, they keep fresh and green for seven days, which is not the case with peaches, pomegranates, asparagus, nuts, and the like.

But is Israel really a land with plentiful water? Moshe described it to the people in a way that suggested it was not:

“The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the Lord your God cares

for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end” (Devarim 11:10–12).

Israel would not have a regular, predictable water supply like the Tigris-Euphrates valley or the Nile Delta. It depends on rain, and in Israel rain is not something that can be taken for granted. Drought and famine led Avraham, Yitzḥak, and Yaakov into exile at some time in their lives.

The uncertainty of rain is another dimension of insecurity that frames Sukkot as a festival. The natural focus of attention for those who live in the land is to look up to heaven, rather than down to the naturally fertile earth. It meant the strongest possible connection between faith itself and the rainfall needed for the land to yield its produce, and for the nation to be able to celebrate a harvest of plenty. Israel is a land where the climate itself becomes a commentary on the faithfulness of the nation to God. Israel is the land of promise, but it will always depend on God’s willingness to fulfil His promises.

The topography and climate of a country affects the culture and ethos of those who live there. In Mesopotamia and Egypt, the most powerful reality was the regularity of nature, the succession of the seasons which seemed to mirror the slow revolution of the stars. The cultures to which these cradles of civilisation gave rise were cosmological and their sense of time cyclical. The universe seemed to be ruled by the heavenly bodies whose hierarchy and order was replicated in the hierarchy and order of life on earth.

Israel, by contrast, was a land without regularities. There was no guarantee that next year the rain would fall, the earth would yield its crops, and the trees their fruit. So in Israel, a new sense of time was born – the time we call historical. Those who lived, or live, in Israel exist in a state of radical contingency. They can never take the future for granted. They depend on something other than nature. In Egypt, where the source of life was the Nile, you looked down. In Israel, where the source of life is rain, you had no choice but to look up.

When Moshe told the Israelites the full story about the land, he was telling them that it was a place where not just wheat and barley grow, but also the human spirit. It was the land where people are lifted beyond themselves because, time and again, they have to believe in a Being beyond themselves. Not accidentally but essentially, by its climate, topography, and location, Israel is the land where, merely to survive, the human eye must turn to heaven and the human ear to heaven’s call.

❖ Points to Ponder

1. How do the Four Species connect us to the land of Israel, and how is this connected to the themes of Sukkot?

2. How does the land of Israel encourage the human spirit to grow?

3. Do you think that is still the case today?