Lulav: Everything Belongs to Hashem
In addition to taking the dalet minim, there is also the avodah of pointing the lulav in all four directions of the earth. Chazal (Sukkah 37b) tell us, “We shake it back and forth to Whom the four corners of the earth belong, and we shake up and down to Whom the Heaven and the earth belong.” Another reason, says the Gemara, “We shake the lulav back and forth to hold back fierce winds, and we shake it up and down to fend off damaging rains.” Both of these reasons are interconnected: By showing that everything—all corners of the Heaven and earth—belong to Hashem, that alone has the power to fend off negative things. And this includes all our illusions about the world: When we bring everything under Hashem’s rule, all the illusions about the world fall away.
What Is Most Precious to Us
Then comes the avodah of circling the mizbei’ach, or in our times, the bimah, with our lulav and esrog. When we encircle something, it shows that that is the center of our lives—that is what’s most important in our lives. When we circle the bimah with the Sefer Torah, we illustrate that the Torah is the most precious thing to us. The sefarim hakedoshim explain that in the Beis HaMikdash they circled the Mizbei’ach with their lulav and esrog to indicate that sacrificing ourselves to the Ribbono shel Olam is the center of our lives. When they circled the Mizbei’ach, they illustrated that everything surrounds the Mizbei’ach to come close to the Ribbono shel Olam, to recognize the Ribbono shel Olam, to do teshuvah...
