Lulav and Etrog: The Four Species Explained
Read Leviticus 23:40 slowly and count the plants. Fruit of goodly trees. Branches of palm trees. Boughs of thick trees. Willows of the brook. Only one is a species you could pick out of a lineup.
So the honest place to start with lulav and etrog meaning is here: lulav is a young frond of a date palm, and etrog is a citron — fragrant, with a thick rind. Standard rabbinic practice joins one palm with three myrtle branches and two willow branches, while the citron is held separately. The palm comes straight out of the verse. The complete identification and counts come through an old interpretive tradition, recorded explicitly in Mishnah Sukkah 3:4.
Four names, and only one you can be sure of
The Hebrew is slipperier than any English rendering lets on. Pri etz hadar — the fruit of a tree of hadar: splendour, majesty, beauty. Not a species. A compliment. Kappot temarim is the verse's one solid footing: fronds of date palms, unambiguous. Anaf etz avot is a branch of a thick, braided, densely leaved tree, which narrows the field without naming anybody. Arvei nachal are willows of the wadi.
One plant named outright. Three described.
Then the passage that sends searchers in circles. Keeping the festival in Nehemiah 8, the returned exiles are told to "go forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branches... and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths" — five kinds, two absent from Leviticus, no citron anywhere. Less a contradiction than a different job: that list is roofing material, while Leviticus 23:40 is what goes in your hands while you "rejoice before the LORD your God seven days."
Where the lulav and etrog meaning actually comes from
If the verse under-determines the plants, early practice gives the traditional identification real historical weight. Josephus describes festival worshippers carrying citron and palm in the late Second Temple period, and Jewish revolt coins later depict an etrog with lulav bundles. Synagogue mosaics continued the pairing. That evidence shows an established practice; it does not turn the Hebrew description pri etz hadar into a botanical name.
Mishnah Sukkah 3:4 records Rabbi Ishmael's count: one citron, one palm frond, three myrtles and two willows. The same passage preserves disagreement about the myrtle and willow counts, a useful reminder that the settled modern bundle has a history. Later interpretation connects the myrtle's dense leaves with avot and the citron's appearance with hadar.
Good arguments. Still arguments. Anyone who tells you the Bible names a citron has compressed centuries of interpretation into one sentence.
Taste, fragrance, and the four kinds of people
The best-known reading turns on the senses. The citron has flavour and scent. The date has flavour, while the palm branch itself is not valued for fragrance. Myrtle is fragrant and not eaten. The willow offers neither taste nor fragrance in the scheme.
Leviticus Rabbah 30:12 makes those four into four kinds of people among Israel — Torah and good deeds both, one, the other, or visibly neither — then lands the point: all are gathered together. The one with nothing to show is not discarded. This is homily, not the plain meaning of Leviticus, and its ethical force comes from saying so.
A second reading works from shape — spine, eyes, lips, heart — the bundle as a whole person brought before God rather than a curated slice of one. Not legislation. Homily, offered as such. Leviticus gives exactly one reason for carrying the four, and the reason is joy.
How the bundle is held and waved
The three leafy species are bound together — myrtle on one side of the palm's spine, willow on the other, seated in a woven holder — and go in the right hand, the citron in the left. The blessing is said, then the hands meet so all four touch and make one object.
Then the waving: outward and back in four horizontal directions, upward and downward, drawing the species back toward the body each time. Order, movement and the number of shakes vary by rite. A visitor should follow the community in front of them rather than treat one diagram as universal.
The gesture is not obscure. Everything in every direction, above and below, belongs to the One being thanked. Out to the horizon, back to your own chest.
Two footnotes. Standard practice today does not take the lulav on the Sabbath, and the seventh-day willow rite is a separate ceremony, handled in Hoshana Rabbah explained.
Buying a set, and what a pitam is
Prices vary by country, grade, shipping distance and the week you order, so a number printed here would age badly. What you are paying for is a matched ritual set, not ordinary grocery produce: the citron is inspected for features that affect fitness under the buyer's halakhic standard, the leafy species must arrive fresh, and careful packing adds cost. Basic and premium grades can be far apart. Compare current local vendors and ask what standard their grading follows.
The word you will hear at the counter is pitam — the structure at the blossom end, opposite the oketz, the stem end. Some citrons lose it naturally while growing and remain acceptable under the relevant rules. Damage after harvest can be treated differently, which is why sellers protect the fruit and why a buyer following halakhah should ask the vendor or a competent authority rather than diagnose it from a photograph. Keep the leafy species according to the seller's instructions so they do not dry out.
Your own garden, a bought set, or neither
Three honest options, no trap in any of them.
In Jewish law the four species are specific, and random garden substitutes do not discharge the obligation. A proper set may be bought, gifted or, in some circumstances, used with another person's permission under rules that differ by festival day. If fulfilment under halakhah is your aim, ask locally rather than assuming purchase is the only valid route.
If a Christian household chooses a local-branch activity, it should name it honestly: a response inspired by the harvest imagery, not performance of the rabbinic four-species obligation. Nehemiah's crowd was sent to gather local foliage for booths, a different task from Leviticus 23:40. See how to build a sukkah for the shelter, and Sukkot with kids if small hands are involved.
And it is entirely respectable to read all this, carry nothing, and keep the feast another way. The Feast of Tabernacles for Christians works through that without deciding it for you.
One practical note on the app. Day 4's Feasts screen states the appointed time plainly and marks all seven days, useful because a fresh set often must be arranged before the week begins. It carries no ritual instruction and tells nobody to keep the practice. Day 4 counts 364 days — 52 weeks, no remainder — so a feast holds its weekday. That reckoning survives in Enoch's Astronomical Book, in Jubilees and among the Qumran scrolls; whether the Temple ran on it stays contested, and nothing above rests on the outcome.
Common questions
What are the four species and where does the Bible name them?
Citron, palm frond, myrtle and willow. Leviticus 23:40 is the source, but it names them by description rather than species: fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of thick trees, willows of the brook. Only the palm is unmistakable. Citron and myrtle come from long-standing tradition, attested in practice well before any surviving argument for them.
What does each one symbolize?
The classic reading pairs taste with learning and fragrance with good deeds: the citron has both, the date taste alone, myrtle fragrance alone, the willow neither — four kinds of people bound into one bundle that stays incomplete without any of them. A second reading works from shape: spine, eyes, lips, heart, a whole person rather than an edited one.
How do you hold and wave the bundle, and which way?
Bound leafy species in the right hand, citron in the left, hands together so all four meet. Then out and back in four horizontal directions, upward and downward — six in all, drawn back toward the body each time. Communities differ on order and number of movements; no single diagram represents every rite.
Do I have to buy a set, or can I use branches from my own garden?
For the Jewish obligation a proper set is required, and garden branches do not substitute. Outside that obligation, nothing stops you gathering beautiful local branches and rejoicing seven days — nearer to what Nehemiah's exiles were told to do. Reading about it and carrying nothing this year is a legitimate third answer.
Underneath the later detail, Leviticus gives two verbs: take, and rejoice before the Lord for seven days. Go look at what is growing near you this week, then decide honestly which practice you mean to follow.
