The Four Species Reveal a Powerful Truth About the Jewish People

After the sound of the shofar fades and the intensity of the Days of Awe begins to lift, the Jewish people do something remarkable.

We gather wooden boards, fabric, and s’chach and move our meals into a temporary dwelling beneath the open sky. Then we take four very different species and bring them together in our hands.

The holiday of Sukkot is filled with meaning, but the Four Species carry a particularly powerful message about the Jewish people: we are different from one another, but we belong together.

Every Jew Belongs

Our sages compare the etrog, lulav, hadass, and aravah to different kinds of Jews.

The etrog has both taste and fragrance. It represents someone who possesses both Torah learning and good deeds.

The lulav, which comes from the date palm, represents someone with Torah learning but whose good deeds are less apparent. The date has taste but no fragrance.

The hadass, or myrtle, has a pleasant fragrance but no taste. It represents someone rich in good deeds but lacking in Torah learning.

And then there is the aravah, the willow.

It has neither taste nor fragrance. It represents the Jew who may appear to possess neither Torah nor mitzvot.

And yet, we cannot simply leave the aravah behind.

The mitzvah of the Four Species requires all four. The inexpensive, unimpressive-looking willow is not an optional addition to the beautiful etrog and towering lulav. Without it, the Four Species are incomplete.

That alone contains an extraordinary lesson.

There is no unnecessary Jew.

What We See on the Outside Is Not the Whole Person

In Shir HaShirim (1:6), we read: “Do not look at me because I am dark, because the sun has scorched me.”

Sometimes we meet a Jew who seems very far from the world of Torah. Life may have taken that person in a completely different direction, and from the outside it can appear that little remains of their connection.

It is easy to look at someone like that and decide that nothing will ever change.

But the verse gives us another way of looking at them.

The sun has scorched me.

What you see on the outside is not necessarily who I truly am.

Beneath everything life has placed upon a person, the Jewish soul remains. Sometimes what it needs is not criticism or rejection, but the right moment of connection and, above all, love.

The Taxi Driver Who Began to Cry

A powerful story illustrates this idea.

A group of avreichim once hired a taxi driver from Tel Aviv to take them on a trip to the graves of tzaddikim in northern Israel.

The driver appeared completely removed from their world. Throughout the journey, he remained mostly silent while the passengers spoke words of Torah and sang nigunim together.

At one point, the group stopped at a mikveh. They invited the driver to join them for an immersion, and unexpectedly, he agreed.

When he emerged, he began to cry.

The men soon discovered that the driver’s story was very different from what they had imagined.

He had grown up in Meah Shearim, in the heart of Jerusalem’s Haredi community. At some point, his life had taken a painful turn. He had drifted away from the world in which he was raised, eventually becoming estranged from his family and from much of his former life.

But during that taxi ride, something had awakened.

The familiar nigunim, the words of Torah, and the atmosphere among the avreichim had touched a place inside him that had never truly disappeared.

What looked dormant was still alive.

Don’t Leave the Aravah Behind

That story captures one of the most beautiful messages of the Four Species.

We do not know what is happening inside another Jew.

Someone may look like the aravah, without the obvious “taste” of Torah or “fragrance” of mitzvot. But that does not make them unnecessary. It certainly does not make them less a part of the Jewish people.

The Torah tells us to bring all four species together.

Perhaps that is also a message for the way we should look at one another.

This Sukkot, when we hold the Four Species in our hands, we can remember the Jews who look like us and those who do not, those who feel close and those who seem far away, those immersed in Torah and those whose connection may be hidden beneath the surface.

Bring them together.

Because the Jewish people are not complete when we leave the aravah behind.

And sometimes, all it takes to awaken what seems lost is a song, a kind word, an invitation, or simply the feeling that you still belong.

Happy Sukkot!