Stay Different, and Stay Together
The four species are different, and Torah does not ask them to become alike; it asks us to bind them together. Real unity is not erasing differences. It is remaining connected when the person opposite is not another version of me.
A family can be full of good people who love one another, yet each one knows exactly how to drive the others crazy. One loves order and another is scattered. One needs to speak immediately and another needs time. One decides quickly and another weighs everything repeatedly. Often we are not angry because the person opposite is bad. We are angry because that person is not like us.
Then Sukkot places four completely different species in our hands: “the fruit of a beautiful tree, palm branches, boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook” (Leviticus 23:40). The sages saw in them different types within Israel, with different strengths and weaknesses, and concluded: “Let them all be bound into one bundle” (Vayikra Rabbah 30:12).
God does not say: turn the willow into an etrog. He does not demand that every part of the people look the same. The mitzvah is created specifically from the connection of the different.
That sounds beautiful nationally and is much harder at home. When a spouse reacts differently from me, I may interpret the difference as lack of care. When a child is unlike me, I may assume something is wrong. A parent who was highly organized may struggle with a creative, scattered child. An expressive person may find it hard to believe that a quiet person loves just as deeply even without saying everything aloud.
Love does not mean no boundaries and no criticism. Sometimes a person truly needs to change. Harmful behavior is not made acceptable by saying “that is who I am.” But there is a difference between asking for change in behavior and demanding that another person stop being different from me.
That distinction changes arguments. Instead of asking, “Why are you not like me?” we can ask, “What do you need in order to function well, what do I need, and how do we build a form that respects both?” In marriage that may involve pace, order, money or communication. In parenting it may mean remembering that a child is not a project for reproducing the parent.
Communities fall into the same trap. It is easy to speak about unity when everyone agrees with me. The test begins when a serious, good person sees reality differently. Unity does not eliminate disagreement; it is the decision that disagreement does not eliminate belonging.
Perhaps that is why the four species are held in one hand. Not because the differences disappeared, but because a framework was created strong enough to contain them.
The great challenge of love is not loving someone who fits us. It is making room for a person in the places where that person remains himself.
God did not ask for a world of four etrogim. He asked for etrog, lulav, myrtle and willow in one bundle. Unity is not the moment we stopped being different. It is the moment we stopped demanding that another person become like us as the price of staying connected.