Parshas Emor
“And on the first day you shall take for yourselves the fruit of the beautiful tree, palm branches, the branch of the chain tree and willows of the stream!” (Vayikra 23:40)
It is a positive commandment that on the first day of the Sukkos festival we should take in our hands the four species as it says, “And on the first day you shall take for yourselves the fruit of the beautiful tree, palm branches, the branch of the chain tree and willows of the stream!”, and Chazal said that the fruit of the beautiful tree refers to the Esrog (citron), palm branches refers to the Lulav (closed palm branch), the branch of the chain tree refers to the Hadas (myrtle), and the willow of the river is the traditional Aravah (willow). Amongst the roots of this commandment are that a person is always affected by the actions that he performs regularly, and his ideas and thoughts follow the actions of his hands, for good or for bad. Being that the days of this festival are days of great happiness for Klal Yisrael as it is the time of the gathering of the grains and fruits into the houses, when people are extremely happy, and for that reason the festival is called the Gathering Festival, Hashem commanded His people to celebrate a festival at that time, so that they cam divert their natural happiness towards Hashem and receive reward for that happiness. This being the case and seeing that excessive happiness makes one forget the fear of Hashem, He commanded us to take in our hands items which will remind us that all of the happiness of our hearts is for His sake and honor, and He wanted that the reminder should be a species which makes happy, as the period is a happy one, and it is well-known that these four species naturally make all their viewers happy.
These species also allude to deeper concepts as the esrog looks like a heart, to remind us to serve Hashem with our hearts. The lulav looks like a spine, which is the central column of the person’s body, to remind us to leave our whole body for the service of Hashem. The leaves of the hadas look like eyes, to remind us not to stray after our eyes even on the day of rejoicing. The leaves of the aravah look like lips, to remind us to put a halter on our mouths and be very careful when one speaks, and have fear of Hashem even at a time of happiness. This commandment applies in all places and at all times, to man but not to women.
