Mystical Meaning of the Month of Shevat

In this video I look at how Shevat teaches us to widen the circles of sanctity and draw down holiness into our everyday lives. We then explore the how this applies to rectifying our relationship with food.

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Let's Meet at the Mystic Meal

7 Foods for 7 Habits: A Step by Step Guide to the Mystic Meal and Life's Journey

This coming Thursday will be Tu B'Shevat (the 15 of the month of Shevat,) which is the Jewish New Year for Trees.

At least that's the explanation they give on Wikipedia.  It doesn't seem to mean much though.

Why do trees need a New Year?  So the Oaks can hold a party and make resolutions? So the Redwoods can commit to standing tall?  Or the Lemon Trees to filing their taxes?

Not quite.  Practically, this is the season in which trees wake from their winter hibernation and sprout their first blossoms.  And legally, the new year has to do with tithes that were separated from produce grown in the Holy Land.*

But the holiday is so replete with meaning that if I could, I'd re-brand Tu B'Shevat as "the Kabbalah Holiday."  This date may seem minor compared with other holidays on the calendar (and the amount of menu-planning involved for you).  But Tu B'Shevat  is MAJOR in terms of mystical significance.

If you want to turn this weekend from a regular one into something really special, infused with the spirit of Tu B'Shevat, I have a treat for you.

In conjunction with JLI, I made a video about the connection between the 7 Species of the Land of Israel and a 7-stage plan for spiritual growth.  In fact, this lesson of the 7 foods is one of the numerous mystical backdrops for my coaching system and Method for Self Mastery.  I've had many requests to see that video again so here it is.  I hope you enjoy.




I also designed a chart explaining the significance of the 7 Foods for you to print out and enjoy.  To view or print the chart, click here.

Happy Tree New Year!

Love

Shimona

PS. This Wednesday we're completing the first year of The Method for Self Mastery.  It has been a remarkable year.  Thank you to all the participants.  I am beyond honored to have shared the journey.  Take a peek at the testimonials from a recent Mastermind.

This marriage thing is my one big failure

How many people do you know who'd (albeit tacitly) agree that their lives are on track - except for their romantic relationship.  They may be happy with their career (or at least feel they're on the ladder to success;) work out; eat right; have even managed to kick a bad habit.

But...

The marriage thing eludes them.  Either they're still looking for love or are in the relationship they thought would deliver happiness only to find themselves alone or lonely in love.  And for those who do say, "I'm happy," the happiness is often simply a state of relief that they're not in despair?

I'd venture to say that, "This marriage thing is my one big failure" is a phrase many of us can relate to.

With that in mind, I've created Gender Blender, a 3-part teleseminar to help you debunk your relationship myths and access the happiness that is available to you.  

Interested?  You can visit my website to listen to a couple of interviews with me on dating, love, marriage and intimacy.

Ready to call in your Soul Mate?  To jumpstart your relationship?


Go ahead, sign up now.

I look forward to meeting you on the call.

Shimona

Tanks ‘n Tractors

 B”h

As the debate over gun control rages in response to Sandy Hook, here's an article I wrote some years back after the Jerusalem terrorist-tractor attack.  It addresses the mystical aspect of swords-into-ploughshares in light of the fast of the Tenth of Tevet.  (Two facts to ponder as you read: In America, there are more Gun Dealers than major supermarkets, and more gun sellers than Mac Donald's restaurants.)

The internet’s down!  And with it the phone.  Tannersville is quiet by night.  It’s a silence about the texture of a goose-down cushion.  Thick.  Soft.  Comfortable.  I want to sink in but find no rest.  Was it the movie “E-lollipop” that began with the protagonist asking a stranger on a park bench, “Does the noise in my head bother you?’?  I am thinking of things hard and loud.  And the noise in my head bothers me.

It could be yesterday that I saw the yellow Caterpillar tractor lurching across a Jerusalem street.  The footage was from a cell phone.  A silent movie.  I imagine the sounds.  The engine-belly, the fork on cars, the fork on flesh, the sound life makes leaving a body, and the wails of terror and grief.  Now, cross-legged on the couch in our summer rental, I gaze into the black beyond the window and review the scene.  My thoughts jump.  I think of the caterpillars we watched as children, seeing them lift-and-crunch from tail to fore as they jerk across a leaf.  And I wonder if, standing beside the white or yellow line painted along the tar of Rehov Yaffo, onlookers felt they’d missed a step as the tractor crunched and swung for death.

I can’t put them together.  The tractor and death.  From the wooden puzzles of my kindergarten years and on, I’ve been taught that tractors support life.  They churn soil and soften it to receive seeds.  They are the backdrop of bread steaming from an oven, of apples in a bowl.  My mind wrestles with a Caterpillar run amok in the Holy City.  I guess one must know how to use one…The people of Gush Katif did.  They tossed a desert into leafy greens.  They drove their tractors across austere sands and behold! – fields of cilantro and parsley fragranced the air…But the neat categories of childhood don’t hold up to the Big People world I live in.  Despite what those puzzles-painted-in-primary-colors would have me think, it was tractors that flung the Jews of Gush Katif, like rocks tossed aside, from the Land.  Bulldozers rendered their homes rubble in the name of life and peace.  And the very tanks manufactured to protect them were turned on those who best knew how to use their metal.

The internet’s down and the contradictions screech within me.  I think of a passage in Ezekiel that talks of iron and alludes to the tanks and tractors of both the world at large and of our inner landscapes.  Prior to the siege placed upon the First Temple, G-d told him, “Take an iron pan and place it upright as a wall of iron between you and the city…and it will be as a siege…a sign for the Jewish people.”[1]  Rashi tells us that the pan served as a metaphor.  It presented G-d’s message that “in this way Jerusalem will be besieged.”[2]  .  It called upon the people to repent.  “If not,” cried the pan, “the Holy City will be surrounded by a wall of iron slotted together of soldiers carrying swords and cloaked in shields.  Return.  For metal is upon you.  Prevent the wall of iron from breaking the walls of the City and of the Temple.”

Ezekiel and the people knew well the destructive power of iron.  They saw it grind the Temple into dust like the homes on the hills of the Gush.  G-d knows how that hurts.  Precisely because of its deathly edge, no iron tools were allowed to be used in the construction of the Temple.  As the Midrash comments on the gold, silver and copper we were asked to bring for the building of the sanctuary, “Iron was not mentioned here, neither in relation to the sanctuary nor the Temple, because it is analogous of the people of Edom, who destroyed the Temple.”[3]  G-d’s aversion was stressed most with regard to the altar, the primary vessel of the Temple,[4] for “the altar was created to lengthen the days of a person and iron was created to shorten the days of man.  One may not raise that which shortens over that which lengthens.  Even more so, the altar brings peace between the Jewish people and their Father in Heaven.  Therefore no cutting or damaging (could) be imposed upon it.”[5]

Each human alive can attest to the destructive power of its strength.  From the hills of Afghanistan to Columbian mercenaries, from pistols fired in gang warfare to Uzis to tanks to air force bombers, no patch of the planet where humans dwell has not heard the sounds of iron shortening life, or watched as its soil is reddened with blood cut loose.  And yet, the metal has a holy face.  The Land of Israel is one who’s “stones are made of iron.”[6]  The very stones that were crumbled to fragments are rich in iron ore.  And they too speak to us in parables.  They remind us that locked deep within our beings is an essential core so strong it can withstand exile.  It is the point of absolute beinghood within each of us that defies definition, which exists because it exists.  It holds us through war.  It supports us in the midst of our madness.  It is the fulcrum of confidence.  The springboard of our drives.  The elemental power of the soul.

We all have it.  The trick is to direct that iron core in the right direction.  One might well call it The Art of War – or for that matter the Art of Peace.  “She has an iron will.”  “He’s made of steel.”  Is it good or bad?  Is iron life or death?  Our sages say, “Any sage who is not tough as iron is not a sage.”[7]  G-d calls us a “stiff-necked nation.”  Bulls-eye!  We’re obstinate and tough.  But our “stiff-neckedness” is at core a chutzpa of holiness that has borne us through the hatred of nations from the ancient Hittites to the father of two from Tzur Baher in Eastern Jerusalem who drove a tractor for death.  Is steel good or bad?  Is iron life or death?  Depends.  The orientation is at my disposal.  The outcome really lies within my hands and heart.

The “art” of the matter is to catch the process at the outset.  The Holy City was besieged on the 10^th of Tevet.  The walls were breached a half a year later on the 17^th of Tamuz.  And the Temple was destroyed within a mere three weeks of that.  The remedy to prevent the demolition and devastation was to hear the message of the pan put forth before the siege.  If we’d listened and really gotten the prophecy of Ezekiel, we’d have converted the danger and death that hovered above us to light.  We could have activated the essential force of our souls, our steel will, and built a new world from the struggle.

I watched this battle within myself this past week.  I’ve been angry at a friend for a while now.  Despite my attempt to dialogue, the connection still felt rotten and full of the dark red stuff that clogs relationships in their down faze.  I could have reminded myself of Ezekiel’s pan.  I could have put a post-it-note “Tanks ‘n Tractors!” on my fridge door.  But no!  I festered in the mess.  Then I whipped out my sword.  And promptly cut an email to “Friend” that had zilch to do with what was really going on.  I was all bulldozer on Rehov Yaffo, tank on an enemy turf.  What I needed to do was go back to the beginning and catch the anger, activate my Essential Iron Core and be big enough to say, “I’m so sad you’re not in my life anymore.  I miss you.  Can we reconnect?”

The hurt was the desire to connect with someone else.  It almost always is.  That, or the real inner longing to bond with G-d.  If I can find that point then I can build the rubble into a Temple.  It’s not just patching together the old, not just “making do” with what’s left and building a shack of debris.  To heal you have to go back to the beginning.  To halt the destruction of the ninth of Av, you have to go back to the tenth of Tevet, back even to Ezekiel’s pan.  If you can get back there, you can change the direction of the future.  At ground zero, I can touch my metal, activate my inner essence and find the strength to say, “I’m hurting”, or “Can you help me with this?”, or “I don’t know.”  I catch the core of who I am before a hurt compels me to unsheathe my sword.  And from there I build the Third Temple.

There’s no building a world without steel.  King Solomon himself set aside vast amounts of iron, all in anticipation of building the Third Temple.  The call of the hour is to ensure that the steel be that of healing and building rather than a blade which shortens human life.  You start with an iron pan on a hilltop outside of Jerusalem.  If ignored, the metal dish forebears the sound of sword upon sword, battle calls, the roll of tanks and cries that cut into the heart and the heart of heaven.  Jerusalem is ravished.  Caterpillars roll across the road, blades hungry for blood.  Bulldozers rip homes and shuls from the ground, and military brass dump families into hotel rooms for the night, or month – or decade.  But if the people hear the song of the prophet and the sound of the pan resonating across the valleys, then the iron builds.  We grow bold and strong.  We are put in touch with why we are here.  And we realize that we have enough steel within ourselves to build a brave new world. 

This article was originally published on www.TheJewishWoman.org.

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[1] Ezekial 4, 3

[2] Rashi’s explanation of the verse.

[3] Terumah 25, 3

[4] See Rambam’s opening discussion on the laws of the Bait HaMikdash

[5] Yitro 20,22 and the commentary of Rashi, from the Mechilta.

[6] Ekev 8, 9

[7] Ta’anit 4, 1

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Is Israel an Apartheid State?

bh

As someone who witnessed the horrors of Apartheid, I feel compelled to speak up.  Come hear what I have to say, and join in the conversation.  I will be addressing the rally tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday 20th November 2012) at 1pm.

 

Looking look forward to seeing you there,

Shimona

 

 

Update:

I have been asked to change the focus of my address and speak on behalf of Mira Scharf, Chabad representative to New Dehli, India, one of three victims in the attack on Kiriat Malachi.  Aharon Smagda and Yitzchak Amselam were also killed by the rockets.  Remarkably, their death coincided with the anniversary of the murder of Rivky and Gabi Holtzberg hy"d in Mumbai in 2008.

 



Mira Scharf Hy"d



Mira's Funeral

 

Uncovering Your True Self: Personality Types and the Four Species

Simplicity.  We all say we crave it.  But do we respect it?

Although we might profess to value the proletariat, to celebrate simplicity, to refrain from cultural and intellectual elitism, I’d bet few of us walk that talk.  How many people do you know who’ve named their kid after the local postman, or delivery man, or maid who cleans the night shift?  Forget about actually naming after someone of limited income, status, emotional sensitivity, intellectual prowess or fame!  How many of us give the “simple” folk in our lives the time of day?!  A warm good morning.  A sincere, “How are you?”  We’re in strong need of a remedy for our “attachment-to-fame disorder.” 

He wasn’t the first of the Rebbeim to hold “simple” folk in such high esteem.  The Baal Shem Tov, founder of Chassidut, is renowned for his appreciation of and love for the ordinary Jew.  Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson writes in his memoirs, ““It was this love for the common man that was, and remained, the real basis of the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov.  He did not seek for high scholarship amongst Jews.  He valued more the heart.  The Jew who could read his prayers in Hebrew, even if he did not know the translation, the mere fact of his sincere utterance of these holy words in Hebrew, was a source of satisfaction to the Almighty in heaven, the Baal Shem declared.”[1]

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The seventh day of the holiday of Sukkot provides much food for thought on the supreme value of “simplicity.”  We’re prompted to think about the worth of the naïve and guileless among us.  Hoshana Rabba, as it’s called, encourages us to let go of our attachment to all that is slick and sophisticated, to look beyond the “talented, special” ones among us and to instead pay attention to the straightforward, possibly naïve, yes…simple folk.  And it does this all through a practice involving willow branches.

In Temple times, the people would take willow branches from a place below Jerusalem called Motza.  Throughout the holiday of Sukkot, they placed them at the sides of the altar so that their tops bent over it.  Then they would sound the shofar.  They did this once every day of Sukkot and seven times on Hoshana Rabba.

Today in memory of this mitzvah, we circle the bimah in shul as was done in days gone by around the altar in the Temple.  And on Hoshana Rabba, we take five willow leaves, bind them together, say a special prayer and beat the bundle on the ground.

There’s no blessing for the latter, no fanfare.  Seemingly the act does not have sufficient “value” for us to make a blessing.  We simply take the lowly willow, beat it, and toss it on to the ark.

The willow certainly has a bad rap.  The Midrash[2] correlates the four species of Sukkot with four types of Jews.  The Etrog which has flavor and fragrance corresponds to those Jews who have both Torah and good deeds.  The palm fronds have taste but no fragrance just like those Jews who have Torah but not good deeds.  The myrtles by contrast have fragrance but no taste.  They correspond to those Jews who have good deeds but lack Torah.  And “this willow has neither taste nor fragrance…(like those) who have neither Torah nor good deeds.”

You really don’t want to be a willow person!  Or do you?  Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson states that the willow is “indicative of simple people whose fulfillment of the commandments is with simple faith.”[3]

This comment brings out a profound depth of the Midrash and explains the inner content of the willow.  Superficially the Midrash seems to be implying that only the Etrog has both the advantage of Torah knowledge and good deeds.  The three other species it would seem are lacking one or both of

these.  The Rebbe clarifies and qualifies this understanding.  He is of the opinion that “all Jews are equal” when it comes to both learning and action.  All four categories of Jews alluded to in the four species fulfill both Torah and Mitzvot.

His reading of the Midrash makes a lot of sense.  Think about it just a little.  The lulav-Jew is immersed in study.  But as our sages say, true learning brings one to action.  So if the said Jew is learning in the way study is meant to happen, he or she is also fulfilling the actual commandments.  Similarly with regard to the myrtle-Jew.  This is the person who’s doing good deeds.  That by necessity implies knowledge!  You have to know what Torah requires in order to fulfill its requirements.  By the same token, the willow-Jew does study and does act.  This person is part of the same bundle of folks who are like citrons, palms and myrtles.  The willow persona is one of a totality of individuals whose lives are bound up with the Torah and its commandments.  The identifying feature of this person, says the previous Rebbe, is that all they do is permeated with simple faith.

It’s a beautiful reading of our people and the Midrash.  But it leaves us with a question: If they’re all endowed with both qualities, why then make distinctions and overtly imply that there’s a definite continuum from the “have-alls” to the “have-nots”!?

The inner meaning of the Midrash though is that whilst we are all equal when it comes to our connection to the Torah and our abundance of good deeds, there is a difference in the manner and quality of the way in which we both study the Torah and enact the commandments.

We access Torah through intellectual pursuit.[4]  So according Rabbi Schneerson’s interpretation when the Midrash refers to someone as having “Torah” it implies someone who has superior intellect.  Good deeds on the other hand emphasize the advantage of the emotional attributes which drive our actions.  So having “Mitzvot” in the language of the Midrash is indicative of a person with emotional intelligence.

This throws new light on the difference between the four species.  They are each connected to both Torah and good deeds.  It’s just that they do it differently!  The etrog folk have both high IQ’s and profound emotional intelligence.  Contemporary culture might call them “Renaissance Men.”  In Torah terminology, they would be called “Adam” – a term reserved for those who have mastered both mind and heart.  The lulav personas are the Harvard grads.  They’re the Torah scholars who soar on the wings of reason and intellectual exploration.  Myrtle people are highly skilled at identifying and managing both their own and others’ emotions.  They’re likely to be in the helping professions, empathize with others and know how to make them comfortable.  They’re skilled at applying the Torah to daily life.  Last but not least are the willow members of society.  These are the “simple” folk[5] who form the bedrock of society – good, honest, sincere people whom we might be dismissive of but whom we feel awfully comfortable being around!  These are Jews whose fulfillment of Torah and mitzvot lacks both the advantage of intellect and emotion.  Their access to study and fulfillment of mitzvot is permeated with a simple and pure faith.

Through looking at the four species in this light, it becomes clear that there’s a special aspect to the willow that surpasses the other species.  The tree gives no fruit and the leaves give off no fragrance.  Yet it is precisely in that “blandness” of being that we recognize the presence of something beyond.  The willow’s minimalism is indicative of the inner point of the Jewish soul which is indivisible and thus empty of discernable distinctive qualities.  We all have this point within us but it is most felt in the “simple” unlettered and emotionally unadorned individuals.  The Baal Shem Tov states that the “simplicity” of the common people is synonymous with the essential simplicity and unity of G-d Himself.  It is precisely in the unaffected and possibly naïve individuals that G-d’s presence is to be felt most.[6]

________________________________________________________________________

This special quality of the “willow” folk is reflected in the physical qualities of the willow itself.  The mitzvah to “take for (ourselves)” the four species is comprised precisely of these four because each encapsulates the theme of unity and oneness.

The etrog is an evergreen tree and the fruit “lives on the tree from year to year.”  Not only does it not shrivel, wilt or die with the change of seasons – it actually grows.  In this way, all four seasons of the year are united through the individual fruit which remains on the tree throughout the year.  The lulav frond has many leaflets that come together in one tip.  Myrtle leaves surround the stem in groups of three, all of which meet at one point.  And willows are called achvana, a “brotherhood,” because they grow together in groups, or be’achva.

The world we live in is characterized by the very opposite of unity.  In fact, the Hebrew word for “world” is olam, and is etymologically related to the word he’elem which means “concealment.”  As such the world manifests division and plurality.  If anything on this physical plane does in fact express something of unity then it’s an indication something of the original, supernal Unity that is the source of everything is shining through that object.  In other words, the “ego” of the object is less manifest and its source is more revealed.

This concept is evident in the four species.  Each of them displays unity albeit in different ways.  As such one doesn’t experience their natural “ego identity” which exists simply by virtue of being of this world.  Rather, one is touched by their nullification to their source.  This existential subordination brings about a revealed unity even on the physical plane.

Yet even within the four species themselves there exists a difference in the nature of that unity.  When it comes to the etrog, lulav and myrtle one notices that the unity we’re talking of exists within each plant at an individual level.  The leaves of this particular palm or myrtle and this particular etrog display something of oneness.  But that unity is not connected to other plants of the same species.

Conversely willows grow in groups, in “brotherhood” with one another.  The fact that in this physical world willows grow in unison, expressing unity, is because they are subordinate to their source more so than the other three species.  It is precisely the willow which surrenders its “ego” – or sense of being an independent existence outside of G-d – that reveals the one and simple supernal root of reality within the concealment of creation.  That’s why even its name reflects unity.

________________________________________________________________________

The willow’s unusual display of unity also says much about the unique qualities of simple faith.

At a purely physical level, although the etrog, palm and myrtle are in actuality chosen because of their manifestation of unity, one could make a mistake.  Their respective flavors and fragrances draw attention to themselves.  As such they conceal the simplicity and unity that underlie them even though that simplicity is even more transcendent in its root than the quality that draws our attention.  One might mistakenly think they’ve been selected for the mitzvah not because of their unity but because of their benefits.

The willow by contrast has nothing special about it at all.  And being that there’s nothing to draw our attention, nothing to mask its clear-cut identity, the oneness of the willow radiates outwards.  There’s simply no way to make a mistake as to why it’s included in the group.  The only reason it could be there is because of this notion of oneness.

The same thing applies to us as individuals.  Those of us who are “rich” in intellect and emotion face a challenge.  Our gifts inevitably conceal our simple faith.  We lose access to the simplicity and innocence that exists within us and are instead swept up by our abilities, seduced by our gifts.  We lose access to the very essence of who we are.

It is precisely in the “simple folk” who are bereft of intelligence and “specialness” that “essential supernal unity and simplicity” shines.

________________________________________________________________________

Given all the above, we can now understand the greatness of Hoshana Rabbah particularly as it was practiced in the Temple and as it is practiced today.

The willows of Hoshana Rabbah are of an even higher level than those of the four species.  The latter are bound together with three other plants each of which reveals something of G-d singular Oneness and simplicity but each of which at the same time is remarkable for something distinctive.  As a result, the willows associated with the group is somewhat compromised.  It’s simplicity is not entirely pure because by association it is connected with other distinctive attributes.

The willows the Jews placed around the altar in the temple however was entirely plain.  It was not bound with anything.  No other species lent it “importance” and it had no notable features of its own.  As such they served as visual, physical analogies of pure and unadulterated simplicity.[7]

The practice of placing the long willow stems around the altar is not explicitly stated in the Bible.  It is a law that has been passed down to us from Moses as he received it from G-d at Mount Sinai.[8]  These kinds of commandments are connected to profound levels within the soul.  There are dimensions within us that are connected to G-d through overt instructions.  They are fed by all the deeds laid out in the Bible and their corresponding commentaries.  Beyond these dimensions, there is a point within us where our essence touches that of G-d.  It is a place where we are so connected that we don’t need to be overtly commanded to do something in the Written Law.  This point manifests its bond with G-d through the commandments that were received by Moses at Mount Sinai and passed down to us across the generations.  It is a point of simplicity within the soul itself.

Today’s practice of the willow touches even one step deeper.  We take five willows which correspond to the five dimensions of severity.  Holding them we say a prayer, bang them on the ground and then throw them over the ark in shul, or the lintel if we’re at home.[9]  It is a custom that was instituted by the prophets.  So it’s neither a law explicitly stated in the Bible nor one received from Moses.  At the surface it’s “just a custom” – of minimal significance.  However in actuality Jewish custom is rooted in the very essence of our souls and collective consciousness.

Certain practices were revealed to us by the prophets.  But they didn’t come at the people in a heavy-handed way.  They simply took on to act in a particular way and the people followed of their own accord.  In this sense, Jewish custom reflects the Jew’s ability to intuitively sense the cosmic means of connection to G-d that are available.  It is for this reason that our sages tell us that “Jewish custom is Torah.”  The overt meaning is that we cannot dismiss these practices because they take on the status of actual law.  The deeper reading is that as a people we have the power to “create” Torah through collectively intuiting the patterns of conduct that bind us with G-d.

Thus the custom of the willows of Hoshana Rabbah as we practice it today reveals the very root and essence of our soul.  The willow, devoid of flavor, devoid of fragrance, reflects that point of undifferentiated unity and simplicity within each of us.  When we access this place within us, the lowly willow suddenly becomes the most radiant of all the plants of Sukkot.  At that moment, we can forgive ourselves for all we’re not and celebrate ourselves for the untouchable and indescribable essence of who we are.  And then we’re able to look at others differently too.  We are able to see the wonder of a water-carrier.

Qualities	Citron/Etrog	Palm/Lulav	Myrtle/Haddas	Willow/Arava
The “Labels”	The Saint The Egoist	The Sage The Intellectual	The Intuitive The Drama Queen	The Mute The Oracle
Body Part	Heart	Spine	Eyes	Mouth
Parallel in the Tree of Life	Keter	Chabad	Chagat	Malchut
Sense fed by the plant	Taste and Smell	Taste	Smell	Neither taste nor smell
Advantages according to overt meaning of Midrash	Learns Torah and does good deeds	Learns Torah	Does good deeds	Has neither Torah nor good deeds
A deeper reading of the Midrash	Has both the advantages of Torah and good deeds	Learning brings to action.  Thus although this Jew focuses on learning, that in and of itself implies doing	Performs the required deeds thus must have knowledge of the what and how of Torah	Included in the same prestigious group of individuals who are imbued with both Torah and good deeds and by extension has both as well
Personality types and strengths of the individuals	Highly intelligent and emotionally gifted	Excels in intellectual arenas	High in emotional intelligence	Imbued with guileless, pure and simple faith.  “Blandness” touches one’s essence
Physical qualities of the Species that reflect Oneness	Lives on the tree from year to year.  All four seasons of the year are thereby united	All leaves come to one unified point	All the groups of three leaves come to one point at the stem	Are called achvana, “fraternal,”  because they grow beachva, ”together”
The Up and Downside of Each Type (Inverted for the Willow)	Essence point of the soul is concealed by the sparkling mind and personality	Essence point of the soul is concealed by the gift of intelligence	Essence point of the soul is concealed by gift of emotional intelligence	No revealed gift and therefore the essential, unified and “simple” point of the soul is manifest
G-d said, “Bind them all together and they will atone for each other.”

This article was originally published on www.TheJewishWoman.org.

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[1] Rabbi Y.Y. Schneerson, Memoirs Vol 1

[2] Vayikra Rabbah, 30:12

[3] Yom Tov shel Rosh Hashana 5710

[4] Each of us receives the Torah as an inheritance.  Our wanting the Torah, having a tradition of studying it in our nuclear family and the like have nothing to do with the fact that it belongs to you by virtue of your birth.  The Torah belongs no more and no less to anyone one of our people (which may explain why we get in to such heated arguments over its meaning at times and each feel we have the correct reading of an issue at hand.)  Nonetheless, absorbing the Torah into our own consciousness requires mental exertion.

[5] Anashim peshutim in Hebrew.

[6] It is interesting to note that the spheres of  Netzach, “Ambition,” and Hod, “Humility,” are called “willow leaves.”  This is because they have no unique flavor but are rather extensions of the higher soul powers of love and awe.  Nonetheless, just as the willow has a uniquely superior advantage over the other three species, they are rooted in an even higher source both love and fear.  (See Likkutei Torah, Shir HaShirim 27:4)

[7] In this light, it is interesting to note that for the four species one needs at least three moist leaves to fulfill the mitzvah.  In fact we take three stalks each of which must have leaves that meet in twos at the stem.  The minimum requirement for the Temple practice of the willow was one stem with one leaf.

[8] Halacha le’Moshe miSinai

[9] Some people throw them onto the roof of the Sukka at home.