No Box Is Big Enough

There's an ancient rabbinic teaching that compares each of the four species we hold on Sukkot to a different type of Jew. It's a teaching I've never really understood.

The etrog, which has both taste and fragrance, represents those with both Torah and good deeds. The palm branch (lulav), which has taste but no fragrance, represents those with Torah but no good deeds. The myrtle (hadas), which has fragrance but no taste, represents those with good deeds but no Torah. And the willow (aravah), which has neither taste nor fragrance, represents those with neither (Vayikra Rabbah 30:12-14).

The midrash then tells us that God commands us to bind all four together into one bundle.

The message seems beautiful: unity among all types of Jews. But this midrash has made me uncomfortable since the first time I learned it.

Labeling people, putting people into boxes, even figuring out which box I fit into has never sat right with me.

When my family made aliyah with kids of all ages, I found myself thinking about this even more as we tried to figure out where we fit into Israeli society. Why do we label each other? Why can't we all just be Jewish? And who are we to decide who has or doesn't have Torah or good deeds? What exactly are we supposed to take from this midrash?

Maybe it's not simply asking us to recognize different types of Jews. Maybe it's challenging us to recognize the limitations of our own vision.

A different source about the four species (Midrash Tanchuma Emor 28:1) gave me another way to think about it. This one compares the four species to different parts of the human body: the straight, tall lulav is like the spine, the myrtle is like the eye, the willow is like the mouth, and the etrog is like the heart. Each of these body parts, in its own way, serves God.

But the myrtle as the eye caught my attention. What does it mean to serve God with our eyes? Perhaps it means learning to look favorably toward others, to look for and see the good in people.

That idea changed the way I thought about the first midrash.

What if the four categories aren't descriptions of people's true essence? The person with Torah and good deeds, the person with Torah but no good deeds, the person with good deeds but no Torah, and the person with neither may instead reflect the way we see and categorize people.

We naturally notice what's visible. We see someone's actions, their choices, their community, how observant they are, how they dress, and we place them in a box. Sometimes we even do this to ourselves.

But that box can never tell us who someone truly is.

No box is large enough to contain the essence of a Jewish soul.

Rabbi Kook takes this a step further. Seeing the good in someone doesn't mean being blind to what's wrong. Loving one another doesn't mean ignoring flaws and shortcomings. Rather, even when we recognize those flaws, we can still see that a person's essential core is good and pure (Orot Yisrael 4:3).

One of my favorite insights from Ethics of the Fathers is the teaching that human beings are beloved because we were created in God's image (3:14). How can we not love one another? How can we not love ourselves, once we realize this?

In all likelihood, we'll keep putting ourselves and each other into boxes. As a new immigrant myself, I'm still figuring out what those boxes even are.

But maybe the goal isn't to pretend the boxes don't exist. Maybe the goal is to remember that they're ours, not God's.

No matter what box someone seems to fit into, that Jew is someone we're commanded to love. And no box is large enough to contain the essence of a Jewish soul.