Each one belongs. Each one is needed.

Hi friends! Moadim lesimchah! מועדים לשמחה!

As we enjoy these days of Sukkot, there’s something about the four species that I find especially encouraging and meaningful to share: if you take away the Aravot (willow branches), even a beautiful etrog cannot complete the mitzvah. Each one belongs. Each one is needed.

The Midrash looks at the taste and fragrance of these plants and sees in them different kinds of people in Am Yisrael.

The etrog has both taste and a pleasant fragrance. The lulav comes from a date palm: its dates have taste, though the palm has no fragrance. The hadassim (myrtle branches) have a pleasant fragrance, but no tasty fruit. The aravot have neither.

In this comparison, taste represents Torah learning, and fragrance represents good deeds. The etrog represents people who have both; the lulav, those who learn but still need to put their learning into practice; the hadassim, those who do good even without learning; and the aravot, those who have neither.

Yet even the aravot belong in the mitzvah. Hashem says: יֻקְשְׁרוּ כֻלָּם אֲגֻדָּה אַחַת—let them all be bound together as one.

Here's a special insight and added layer: I invite you to recognize all four within yourself! There is learning you already live, learning you still want to put into practice, good you have done before understanding its depth, and times when you struggle to see your own goodness.

A hard day can make that last feeling seem like your whole story. Look again. The good you have learned and done is real. And someone else's good may be waiting for your attention, too.

Which reminder would help you most this Sukkot: recognizing your own good, or appreciating the good in someone else?

With love and blessings,
Rabbi Rachamim Bitton

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