The Four Species and the Magid’s Meditation: What Even Moshe Didn’t Know

The Midrash names three things that stayed a wonder: Pesach, Matzah, and Maror. A fourth thing it says we never fully grasped: the four species of the lulav. Not the greatest sages. Not Moshe Rabbeinu himself. Not even Shlomo HaMelech, the wisest of men. So what is left for the rest of us? Rav Yaakov Shepherd and Eric take up a simple, concrete meditation from the Magid of Mezeritch for the actual moment of shaking the lulav: forward, to lift the heart's earthly desire up to the daat; there, to sort it from what is truly desired; back, to bring that clarity home into the heart. And hidden inside the count of the four species themselves, the Rav lays out all seven lower sefirot, each with its own earthly pull and its own godly one. Recorded in Jerusalem, at the Yeshiva of the Mekubalim, Nefesh HaChaim. This Sukkot the yeshiva is buying a set of the four species, and food for the table, for families who cannot afford them. Whoever gives receives a real share in the mitzvah of the lulav and etrog that the money buys. The prayers said at King David's Tomb on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were said with this in mind, and they apply to everyone who joins, even now. https://www.jgive.com/new/en/ils/donation-targets/176166 The ready to print meditation page from this episode is free. It arrives by email the moment you ask for it here: https://join.mekobalim.org Chag Sameach. Sukkot, lulav, etrog, four species, Kabbalah, Jewish meditation, Magid of Mezeritch, sefirot, Nefesh HaChaim