There's a beautiful story told about Rabbi Hanan Porat, may his memory be a blessing. One Friday afternoon, just before Shabbat, he was driving along a highway when he noticed three Haredi men waving for help. Dozens of cars passed them by, but Rabbi Porat pulled over. Their car had a flat tire, and they didn't know how to change it. Without hesitation, he took out his spare tire, helped them fix it, and wished them Shabbat Shalom. After Shabbat, they called to ask how much they owed him. He refused payment and simply said, "I just want you to remember something. A car can only move forward when all four wheels are attached and turning together. It doesn't matter which wheel is in front or behind; without all four, the car won't go anywhere. Our nation is the same way. We can only move forward when every one of us, every wheel, is connected."
This simple story captures the essence of Sukkot and the message of the Four Species, the Arba'at Haminim: the lulav, hadas, etrog, and aravah. Each symbolizes a different kind of Jew, one who learns Torah, one who does good deeds, one who has faith but struggles with practice, and even one who seems disconnected altogether. Yet the Torah teaches us that without even the aravah, the plain willow branch with no scent or taste, the mitzvah is incomplete. If even one is missing, we cannot make the blessing.
It's a profound lesson. We cannot stand before God as a divided people. Each of us, with our strengths, weaknesses, and contradictions, is essential to the whole.
And this same truth echoes from Yom Kippur. We begin that holiest of days with the haunting words, "Anu matirim lehitpalel im ha'avaryanim," "We permit ourselves to pray with the sinners." As a child, I remember looking around the shul, wondering who the "crooks" were. But as I grew older, I realized the prayer wasn't about them, it was about us. It's a declaration of humility: I, too, am broken. I, too, am flawed. I am one of the avaryanim.
Psychologically, it's easy to deflect. We love to identify who the problem is, the religious extremists, the secularists, the settlers, the leftists, the diaspora Jews. It's always someone else. But projection is a mirror. The moment I'm consumed by another's faults, I reveal my own inner disconnection.
The maturity of faith and of the human spirit begins when we stop asking, "Who's the wicked one?" and start admitting, "I have some of that wickedness inside me, too." Only then can we transform judgment into compassion, distance into closeness, and fracture into wholeness.
So as we enter Sukkot, maybe the holiest thing we can do is to hold the aravah tightly, the one we'd be quickest to dismiss, and realize that it represents not only "the other," but something deep within ourselves.
To be an aravah is not a failure, it's an invitation. It's the call to belong despite imperfection, to stand next to the etrog, the hadas, and the lulav, and to know that together, we are whole.
When we stop seeing the evil out there and start softening toward the imperfection in here, we make space for something divine. Because God doesn't dwell in perfection, He dwells in connection.
A nation doesn't roll on the strength of its best wheels, but on the unity of them all.
Chag sameach. Rav Shlomo