Succos, its a funny old festival men walking around with shotguns and grenades and shaking them about in 6 directions. Whats it all about.
these shotguns arent really shotguns at all, they are Lulavim and the grenades well they are Esrogim which is a little like a lemon. The 3 species that make up the lulav are the date parm (lulav), the myrlte (hadas) and the willow (arava) and the esrog is similar to a lemon.
The first comparison comes with each of the four being compared to parts of a person’s body.
The Esrog represents the heart, the seat of our emotions.
The Hadas (myrtle) has leaves shaped like an eye.
The Lulav (date palm) represents the spine, from where our actions emanate.
The Aravah (willow) represents the lips, our speech.
The Lulav is only kosher if all are together, if any one of them is missing then you have a non kosher lulav! This teaches that a person must use all his features properly to be “kosher” A person must watch his speech as explained in a very detailed form by The Chofetz Chaim in his book Shmiras Haloshon. Also his spine which is an example of the physical pursuits a person does should be used properly and not used for the wrong things. The eyes should only see what is good for him, and the heart must be used to love and to care rather than to be angry and hold grudges.
The second comparison compares the four species to the jewish people and different types of jewish person.
The Esrog has a good taste and a good fragrance. It represents a person with both wisdom (Torah learning) and good deeds.
The Hadas (myrtle) has a good fragrance, but is inedible. It represents a person who has good deeds, but lacks wisdom.
The Lulav (date palm) is edible, but has no smell. This represents the person with wisdom, but without good deeds.
The Aravah (willow) has neither taste nor smell. It represents a person with neither good deeds nor Torah learning.
This comes to teach that for the jewish people to be as Holy and as Great as we can be we all need to be together, whether you are a talmid chochum, a sinner, or in the middle ground succos is a time where we can all plug together and enjoy the festival. This is what succos is all about, the jewish people being whole and the jewish person being whole and together we can be wholly… get it??
Chag sameach and Moed tov.
