Oct 1, 2026 · 20 min · 8 segments
BRING IT BACK TO THE HEART The Secret of the Lulav, the Circle, and Hoshana Rabbah What would a stranger think walking into synagogue on Sukkot morning? A room full of intelligent, serious people…
Imagine that we are traveling somewhere very far away and we enter the temples of some ancient civilization whose customs we know absolutely nothing about.
We walk in and suddenly we see hundreds of people standing together Each one is holding a collection of branches and leaves in one hand and some strange yellow fruit in the other.
And then all at once, they begin moving them through there, south and north and east and up and down and west, out and in, out and in, out and in.
And then a little while later, everybody gets up and begins walking in a circle around what appears to be the central altar of the building.
What would we think? We would probably say there must be some very deep symbolism behind this ancient ritual.
A people who can spend three hours debating whether somebody moved a pot from one side of the stove to the other.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the morning he chooses his sukkot, he walks into the synagogue.
And in the other hand, what looks like to him is some oversized bumpy yellow lemon.
Imagine that we are traveling somewhere very far away and we enter the temples of some ancient civilization whose customs we know absolutely nothing about.
We walk in and suddenly we see hundreds of people standing together Each one is holding a collection of branches and leaves in one hand and some strange yellow fruit in the other.
And then all at once, they begin moving them through there, south and north and east and up and down and west, out and in, out and in, out and in.
And then a little while later, everybody gets up and begins walking in a circle around what appears to be the central altar of the building.
What would we think? We would probably say there must be some very deep symbolism behind this ancient ritual.
A people who can spend three hours debating whether somebody moved a pot from one side of the stove to the other.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the morning he chooses his sukkot, he walks into the synagogue.
And in the other hand, what looks like to him is some oversized bumpy yellow lemon.
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