Question: What do the four plant species (Arba Minim) that characterize the Sukkot holiday symbolize for us?

Answer: The Lulav (palm branch) is bestowal, consisting of myrtle and willow (three branches of myrtle and two branches of willow). This is the Yesod that we connect to Malchut, the Etrog.

This is combining the characteristics of the Creator—Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod—with our creature characteristics, Malchut. If we were to say this differently, it is a connection of the forms of bestowal that typify the Creator, all the various expressions of His love for us. However, this is not Him Himself. Rather, this is how we perceive Him in our Kelim, in our desires.

Question: Where exactly does a person realize this whole process of adapting himself to complete bestowal and love? Toward whom does he direct his love?

Answer: In order to attain the Creator, I must learn what bestowal and love are. So, I must build a group, acquire friends for myself, so that there among them, I can manifest my attitude. From love for the creatures, the person reaches love for the Creator.

I relate to friends with love just as I would relate to Him. My relationship to the Creator cannot be better than my relationship to the creatures, and only through the friend, through the other, can I attain the Creator.

Question: Why?

Answer: Because a relationship with others is the work that the Creator places in front of me. The entire surrounding world is His “theater” in which I can rehearse, practice, and try to attain the same attitude toward the world like the relationship to the Creator should be.

The way toward Him must pass through this world. Individually, I don’t discover the Creator. Rather, it is only within this world, through it. I practice in a group of people that are conducting a search all the time, and then we pass through the world, through all of its coarseness, in order to attain the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/5/14

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