Why Is Even the Perfect Etrog Not Enough on Its Own?
Why Is Even the Perfect Etrog Not Enough on Its Own?
Why Is Even the Perfect Etrog Not Enough on Its Own?
Some people find it very difficult to ask for help. They are the first to arrive when someone else needs them, but the last to make a phone call when they themselves are breaking. They drive, organize, pay, solve problems, and hold entire families together. Over the years, a flattering image may even form around them: “He manages on his own.” Yet sometimes, behind that impressive independence, there is a sentence no one hears: I know how to be needed by others, but I do not know how to need them.
On Sukkot the Torah places four species in our hands: “You shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of a beautiful tree, branches of date palms, a bough of a leafy tree, and willows of the brook” (Leviticus 23:40). The sages saw the four species not merely as four plants but as an image of human society. In Vayikra Rabbah, the etrog, which has both taste and fragrance, is compared to Jews who possess both Torah and good deeds. The lulav, which has taste but no fragrance, is compared to those who possess Torah but not good deeds. The myrtle is compared to those who possess good deeds but not Torah. The willow, which has neither taste nor fragrance, is compared to those who possess neither Torah nor good deeds. Then comes the surprising statement: “And what does the Holy One, blessed be He, do with them? It is impossible to destroy them. Rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, says: Let them all be bound together in one bundle, and these will atone for those” (Vayikra Rabbah 30:12).
We usually read this midrash from the side of the willow: even the weaker person needs the group, and even someone without visible virtues must remain inside. But it can also be read from the other direction. Why does the etrog need the willow? According to the parable, it is the most complete species. It has both taste and fragrance, both Torah and good deeds. If anyone should be able to manage alone, it would seem to be the etrog. Yet the Torah does not give the etrog a private mitzvah. The most beautiful etrog in the world, spotless and possessing every quality, is still not the four species.
The sages emphasize connection on the halachic level as well. Rabbi Yehudah says, “A lulav requires binding” (Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 33a). Although according to the sages the binding is not indispensable for fulfilling the mitzvah, the Gemara states that binding the species fulfills “This is my God and I will glorify Him,” the principle of beautifying a mitzvah (Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 33a). Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, Maimonides, rules that if one did not bind the lulav, myrtle, and willow together, the obligation is nevertheless fulfilled, but the preferred performance of the mitzvah is to bind them (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Shofar, Sukkah and Lulav 7:6). In other words, even where connection is not a technical condition that invalidates the mitzvah, there is value in the very act of creating a bundle.
This idea appears in the Torah long before the four species. When Jethro sees Moses standing alone before the people from morning until evening, he tells him: “The thing that you are doing is not good. You will surely wear away, both you and this people who are with you, for the matter is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone” (Exodus 18:17-18). Notice that Jethro does not tell Moses that he is incapable. The problem is exactly the opposite. Moses is capable of so much that he may try to do too much by himself. Sometimes it is precisely the strong person who needs someone to say: the fact that you are capable of carrying the weight does not mean that you should carry it alone.
Ecclesiastes likewise says: “Two are better than one... for if they fall, one will lift up his fellow; but woe to the one who falls and has no second to lift him up” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10). The verse does not describe only a weak person who needs a stronger one. It describes a reality in which anyone may fall. Today I lift you up, and tomorrow you lift me. A healthy relationship is not built from one permanently strong person and one permanently weak person. It allows both sides to move between giving and receiving.
Psychology distinguishes between independence, healthy self-reliance, and what is sometimes called hyper-independence, an extreme form of self-reliance in which a person has difficulty depending on others even when doing so would be appropriate and necessary. Not every case of extreme independence comes from the same place, and it should not be turned casually into a diagnosis. Yet sometimes it develops from life experience that taught a person that relying on others is dangerous or disappointing. The person learns a simple rule: if I never need anyone, no one can disappoint me.
That rule, however, comes at a price. A large body of research on social support points to the association between supportive relationships, psychological well-being, and the ability to cope with stress. Support does not help only because someone else solves our problems. The very knowledge that there is a person to whom we can turn changes the way we experience pressure. The ability to receive help is therefore not the opposite of resilience. In many cases it is one of resilience's components.
The difficulty is that strong people sometimes find it especially hard to move from the giving side to the receiving side. A manager who knows how to solve everyone's problems struggles to tell the team, “I don't know.” A father whose family is used to seeing him arrange everything struggles to tell his adult children that he needs them. A person who always gives charity finds it difficult to receive a favor. Someone who has spent a lifetime being the address for others may experience asking for help almost as a loss of identity. If I am no longer the one holding everyone else up, who am I?
Moses himself is required to learn this lesson again. When he tells the Holy One, blessed be He, “I am not able to bear all this people alone, for it is too heavy for me” (Numbers 11:14), the answer is not a rebuke for weakness. God tells him: “Gather for Me seventy men of the elders of Israel... and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, and you shall not bear it alone” (Numbers 11:16-17). One of the greatest leaders in Jewish history does not become smaller when he stops carrying everything by himself. On the contrary, the ability to distribute the burden becomes part of his leadership.
This reaches very small places in life as well. One person would rather spend an hour struggling with a technical problem than ask for ten minutes of help. A woman will care for everyone when they are ill, yet when she herself does not feel well she insists that no one bring her anything. A grandfather very much wants to see his children, but will never say, “I miss you, come visit,” because he wants them to come on their own. Sometimes we call this independence, but perhaps hidden within it is a simple fear: if I ask and they do not give, I will discover how important I really am to them.
Here the four species offer a different structure of relationship. The willow is not merely the one whom everyone else must “carry,” and the etrog is not merely the one who comes to rescue everyone. In a genuine bundle, every person both gives and receives. Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish says, “Correct yourself first, and afterward correct others” (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 107b). Even one who corrects others must remember that he too is a person still engaged in a process. No human being is assigned the role of being only the support and never the one who leans.
Perhaps this is why the four species are held together. It is not enough to learn to accept the weak. The strong person must also agree to belong. There is a great difference between a group that surrounds someone because that person cannot stand alone and a community in which no one is required to prove that they can stand alone. Needing others is not a defect in our humanity. It is part of its structure.
When we take the four species this year, perhaps we should look specifically at the etrog. It is beautiful, whole, carefully chosen, and possesses taste and fragrance, yet it comes to the mitzvah while being held beside three other species. There is a question here for people accustomed to being strong: when was the last time you allowed someone to do something for you? When did you say, “I need you,” without apologizing and without rushing to repay the favor?
Sometimes a person does not need to learn to become stronger. Sometimes the person needs to become strong enough to stop proving that everything can be done alone.