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The Fantastic Four

What is the meaning of Sukkot’s four species? Or are there many possible meanings?

by
Stuart Halpern
October 16, 2024

Tablet Magazine

Tablet Magazine

Though not as intoxicating as Passover, with its four cups of wine, Sukkot also boasts a trademark quartet, known as the four species. The lulav (palm branch), hadas (myrtle), aravah (willow), and etrog (citron) are held, and ritually shaken, at various points during the holiday’s seven days of prayer services. What exactly these simple items symbolize, however, has been debated for millennia.

Modern scholars have understood the four species to represent the four types of ecosystems in the land of Israel: The date palm grows near valley springs, myrtle on the mountains, willows near rivers, and citrons in the coastal plains.

Some have even added an aquatic element. The contemporary Rabbi Zelig Golden has noted they all either require significant water to grow or are found only where perennial water is available. Together, Golden noted, “they provide something akin to an ecological divining bundle, grown from the previous year’s rainfall and ritually used to invoke rains for the year to come.” The Talmud’s Rabbi Eliezer had, centuries earlier, suggested, “The lulav and the other species taken with it, come only to offer appeasement for water, as they symbolize the rainfall of the coming year. And this symbolism is as follows: Just as these four species cannot exist without water ... so, too, the world cannot exist without water.” 

Never satisfied with a simple explanation, however, the sages saw boundless possibilities in this bundle of plants and fruit.

Perhaps the species each symbolize God Himself, suggests one opinion in the midrashic collection known as Vayikra Rabbah. Parsing each phrase of the biblical commandment in Leviticus’ 23rd chapter that lists each species, it explains:

“The fruit of a pleasant [hadar] tree [the etrog]”—this is the Holy One blessed be He, in whose regard it is written: “You are clothed in splendor and glory [hadar]” (Psalms 104:1).
“Branches of date palms”—this is the Holy One blessed be He, in whose regard it is written: “The righteous blossoms like a date palm” (Psalms 92:13).
“A bough of a leafy tree”—this is the Holy One blessed be He, as it is written: “He stands among the myrtle shrubs” (Zechariah 1:8).
“Willows of [ve’arvei] the brook”—this is the Holy One blessed be He, in whose regard it is written: “Praise Him who rides in the highest heavens [baaravot], whose name is the Lord” (Psalms 68:5).

The species symbolize not God, but the patriarchs, piped up another rabbi: Abraham, like the etrog, was pleasant in old age. Isaac had been bound on the altar, like those branches of the date palms. Jacob teemed with sons like a leafy bough. And Joseph died before his 11 brothers, as the willow withers early.

Nonsense. The four species are the matriarchs, someone else murmured: Sarah was beautiful in her old age, like the citron. Rebecca produced the righteous Jacob and the wicked Esau, as a date palm has both edible fruit and thorns. It was Leah who birthed all those sons. And Rachel, alas, died before her sister.

Couldn’t be, another voice shouted out from the beit midrash: The etrog is obviously the Great Sanhedrin, that great rabbinic court, filled with wizened, pleasant old sages. The date palms, blowing with the wind, are Torah scholars, who bend in humility as they learn from one another. The boughs of leafy myrtle trees are the three rows of students who sit before them. The willows of the brook are the two judges who record their decisions.

Perhaps the species are the nation of Israel itself, with all its societal subgroups, came a soft whisper: Bearing a good taste and strong fragrance, the etrog embodies the Jews who have Torah and act properly. The date palm, with its taste but no fragrance, represents those who claim religiosity but act criminally. The myrtle—all fragrance, no taste—is the ethical agnostic, acting properly without a commitment to Torah. The willows have neither religious commitment nor ethical inclinations. By ritually taking them together, hand in hand, God in essence declared, “Let them all be bound together in a single bundle and they will atone for one another.”

Consider one’s own self, beckoned the final speaker. Each of the species is a body part. As the anonymous medieval work the Sefer HaChinuch elaborates, “the citron is similar to the heart, which is the dwelling place of the intellect,” a reminder to be mindful of heaven; “the lulav is similar to the backbone, which is the essence of a person, to hint that he should straighten himself completely for His service.” Myrtle leaves are similar to eyes, a reminder not to be led astray by inappropriate temptations. And the willow leaves are similar to the lips, a hint to calibrate our words and fear God, “even at a time of joy.”

The four species remind us that constituting true community requires a cacophony of ideas, commitments, and character traits. Whether one sees the species as agricultural samples or reflections of Providence, ancient ancestors or a polity, scholastic sentiments, or meditations on the nature of personhood, what matters is that they, and we, are bound together, held amid a prayer for more hopeful days ahead.

Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern is Senior Adviser to the Provost of Yeshiva University and Deputy Director of Y.U.’s Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought. His books include The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggada, which examines the Exodus story’s impact on the United States, Esther in America, Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth and Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States.