D’Var Torah
Sukkot Day 2 5787

Waving the lulav and etrog is one of the most perplexing and primitive Jewish practices. This week, Steve Gilbert pointed out just how difficult it can be to make modern meaning out of waving the lulav, considering how obviously ancient and elemental the practice is.

Rabbi Alan Lew, the widely celebrated contemporary rabbi who wrote This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation, puts his finger on this primitive quality of the ritual. He writes:

“Tomorrow morning I will wave the lulav and the etrog, the four species we are commanded to take up during Sukkot. In my right hand I will hold the long spine of a palm branch, with two willow sprigs tied to its left and three sprigs of myrtle to its right. And in my left hand I will hold a yellow citron full of pocks and ridges, and I will wave these things twice, once as I sing hymns of joy and praise to God, and once as I march around the synagogue in solemn procession crying, ‘Save me, please! Save me, please!’

The sexual imagery couldn’t be clearer—the palm frond phallus with the myrtle and willow testes; the ridged and speckled yellow fruit—nor could it be more appropriate. What sex and agriculture have in common is that they point simultaneously to both the power and the impotence of the human condition. We have no idea how to form a human life. We can’t make it happen by ourselves, yet we are absolutely indispensable to the process. We have no idea how a seed bears fruit. We can’t make that happen either. Yet if we don’t plant the seed and nurture it and water it and harvest it, no fruit will ever come. These things can’t happen without us, but neither can we make them happen on our own.”

I think Lew is onto something.

Before we turn the lulav into a symbol for four kinds of Jews, or four human capacities, or four worlds of existence, perhaps we should allow it to remain a little bit primitive.

It is an ancient, bodily, almost embarrassingly direct gesture.

We want rain.

We want crops to grow.

We want our children and grandchildren to thrive.

We want our work to bear fruit.

We want life to continue.

And so we take these plants in our hands and wave them toward the world.

Surely some of our ancestors believed that the lulav and etrog could have a magical effect—that this ritual could somehow bring rain and good crops. But we don’t have to understand the ritual that way.

Instead, I would like to advocate for what we might call a second naive reclamation of the primal meaning of waving the lulav.

As the seasons change again, this ancient gesture represents some of the deepest human aspirations that should continue to speak to us.

We pray that in every corner of the world there will be enough water to live, and enough food to eat.

We hope that the seeds we plant will grow.

We hope that our efforts toward goodness will not be in vain, but will bear fruit.

And we desire to be part of bringing blessing and growth into the world around us.

That is why the directions matter.

We don’t wave the lulav only toward ourselves. We reach outward in every direction. We turn our attention toward our local community, our state and region, our country, the Jewish people in America, Israel, and around the world, and all of kol yoshvei tevel, all the inhabitants of the earth.

Every direction becomes an object of our concern. And then we bring the lulav back toward the heart.

Outward, and inward.

Giving, and receiving.

Reaching toward the world, and remembering that we, too, are dependent upon the blessing we hope to cultivate.

When we call out in Hallel, Ki l’olam chasdo—“God’s love is everlasting”—we recognize the blessings we enjoy in every direction.

And when we say Hoshana—“Please save us”—we recognize that the world in every direction is also filled with brokenness and need.

The lulav holds both of these truths at the same time.

We are powerful.

And we are powerless.

We can plant the seed, but we cannot make it grow. We can nurture it, but we cannot command the rain. We can work for justice, but we cannot control the outcome. We can reach out with kindness, but we cannot guarantee what will come back to us.

These things cannot happen without us. But neither can we make them happen on our own. And perhaps that is why we repeat this strange gesture again and again throughout Sukkot.

We know that waving the lulav will not literally make it rain. Our songs and dances cannot directly cause the world to bear fruit. But that does not make the gesture meaningless. A gesture can shape the person who makes it. When we repeatedly reach outward in every direction, we train ourselves to look beyond ourselves. When we repeatedly pray for rain, food, life, and growth, we remind ourselves what kind of world we want to help create. When we repeatedly say Hoshana, we refuse to become indifferent to the places where life is fragile. When we repeatedly say Ki l’olam chasdo, we remind ourselves that we are already surrounded by blessings that we did not create ourselves. And when we bring the lulav back toward our hearts, perhaps we remind ourselves that we are not simply observers of blessing.

We are called to become channels for it.

Over these next six days, let’s lean into the power of this primitive dance of the lulav and etrog.

Let it be joyful.

Let it be a little silly.

Let it be playful.

Let us sing and dance and wave these plants in every direction.

And let the ritual express something that words alone cannot quite express: our deepest aspirations for fruitfulness of body and soul, for life and thriving, for kol Yisrael and kol yoshvei tevel, in every direction.

Our dance may be profoundly ineffective at directly bringing these aspirations to life.

But perhaps that is not the point.

The point is that we keep gesturing toward them.

We keep planting.

We keep nurturing.

We keep praying.

We keep reaching.

And by doing so, perhaps we can become more ready to participate in the blessing we hope to see in the world.

So in a moment, when you hold the lulav, don’t worry too much about whether you understand exactly what it symbolizes.

Feel the joy of it.

Feel the ridiculousness of it.

Feel yourself reaching in every direction.

Reach toward the people who need blessing.

Reach toward the places in the world that need rain, food, peace, and renewal.

Reach toward the people sitting beside you.

And then bring the lulav back toward your heart.

Because we cannot make the world bear fruit by ourselves.

But neither are we powerless.

We can plant.

We can nurture.

We can pray.

We can reach.

And we can become, together, channels through which blessing has a chance to grow.

Chag sameach.