On Waving the Lulav

The practice of נענועים -- waving and shaking the four Sukkot species in all directions -- begs for explanation.  It is an ancient ritual; while not mentioned in the Bible, it is cited in early rabbinic sources.  But despite its centrality to the Sukkot service, it remains mysterious even to "insiders."  

The halakhic status of נענועים should not be minimized.  While the details of how and when to wave the lulav vary by community, the act of waving itself is treated as more than a mere “custom” in the halakhic literature.  Although the halakha requires only lifting or holding the four species to fulfill the mitzva on a technical level, na’anu’im are the essential, even defining, aspect of arba minim.  Two halakhot recorded in the Mishna, regarding a lulav’s minimum size and the appropriate age to begin performing the mitzva, make this clear:

לולב שיש בו שלשה טפחים כדי לנענע בו, כשר (משנה סוכה ג:א)

קטן היודע לנענע, חייב בלולב  (משנה סוכה ג:טו)

Another tannaitic source (Tosefta Berakhot 3:19, quoted in Bavli Berakhot 30a) lists na’anu’im in parallel with blowing the shofar and reading the Megilla.  As a shofar is clearly intended for blowing and a Megilla for reading, the purpose of the four species, in this formulation, is for waving:

היה משכים לצאת לדרך נוטל שופר ותוקע, לולב ומנענע, מגילה וקורא בהן ומתפלל. ולכשיגיע זמן קריאת שמע קורא.

It appears that נענועים, more than anything else, is the activity most naturally linked to the lulav.

The Talmud offers two reasons for waving the lulav, which it compares to the biblical תנופה, the waving of bread and sheep offerings on Shavuot (Sukka 37b, with modified Soncino translation below):

 אמר רבי יוחנן: מוליך ומביא ־ למי שהארבע רוחות שלו, מעלה ומוריד ־ למי שהשמים והארץ שלו. במערבא מתנו הכי, אמר רבי חמא בר עוקבא אמר רבי יוסי ברבי חנינא: מוליך ומביא ־ כדי לעצור רוחות רעות, מעלה ומוריד ־ כדי לעצור טללים רעים. אמר רבי יוסי בר אבין, ואיתימא רבי יוסי בר זבילא: זאת אומרת ,שירי מצוה מעכבין את הפורענות. שהרי תנופה שירי מצוה היא, ועוצרת רוחות וטללים רעים. ואמר רבא: וכן בלולב. רב אחא בר יעקב ממטי ליה ומייתי ליה, אמר: דין גירא בעיניה דסטנא. ולאו מלתא היא, משום דאתי לאיגרויי ביה.

R. Johanan explained, One waves them to and fro in honor of Him to Whom the four directions belong, and up and down in acknowledgment of Him to Whom are Heaven and Earth.  In the Land of Israel they taught us thus: R. Hama b. ‘Ukba stated in the name of R. Jose son of R. Hanina, He waves them to and fro in order to restrain harmful winds; up and down, in order to restrain harmful dews. R. Jose b. Abin, or, as some say, R. Jose b. Zebila, observed, This implies that even the ancillary parts of a commandment prevent calamities; for the waving is obviously an ancillary part of the commandment, and yet it shuts out harmful winds and harmful dews. In connection with this Raba remarked, And so with the lulav.  R. Aha b. Jacob used to wave it to and fro, saying, ‘This is an arrow in the eye of Satan’. This, however, is not proper, since Satan might in consequence be provoked against him.


These reasons fit well with the major themes of Sukkot.  As Sukkot is the holiday in which we pray for the upcoming rains, we can readily understand how shaking the lulav might be linked with the desire to “restrain harmful winds and dews.”  It is also reasonable that on the biblical thanksgiving festival we hold a sampling of the harvest and ritually wave it in all directions, to acknowledge God’s omnipresence in the natural world.  Medieval Talmudists have added to the list of reasons for waving.  For example, Tosafot (Sukka 37b, s.v. Be-Hodu) cites the juxtaposition of verses in I Chron. (16:33-35) to account for the Mishna's requirement to wave the lulav at specific verses within the Hallel prayer:

אָז יְרַנְּנוּ עֲצֵי הַיָּעַר מִלִּפְנֵי ה’ כִּי-בָא לִשְׁפּוֹט אֶת-הָאָרֶץ: הוֹדוּ לַה’ כִּי טוֹב כִּי לְעוֹלָם חַסְדּוֹ: וְאִמְרוּ הוֹשִׁיעֵנוּ אֱ-לֹהֵי יִשְׁעֵנוּ וְקַבְּצֵנוּ וְהַצִּילֵנוּ מִן-הַגּוֹיִם לְהֹדוֹת לְשֵׁם קָדְשֶׁךָ לְהִשְׁתַּבֵּחַ בִּתְהִלָּתֶךָ:

In this view, shaking the lulav mimics treetops blowing around in the wind, a sign of nature’s joy and delight in God.  By waving the lulav, we demonstrate how our songs of praise to God are in harmony with those of nature. 


There are several biblical poems, especially in Psalms and Isaiah, where trees, mountains, and rivers "sing" (יְרַנְּנוּ) and "clap" (יִמְחֲאוּ-כָף) for God or for Israel:

יַעֲלֹז שָֹדַי וְכָל-אֲשֶׁר-בּוֹ אָז יְרַנְּנוּ כָּל-עֲצֵי-יָעַר)  תהלים צו:יב( 
הָרִיעוּ לַה' כָּל-הָאָרֶץ פִּצְחוּ וְרַנְּנוּ וְזַמֵּרוּ: זַמְּרוּ לַה' בְּכִנּוֹר בְּכִנּוֹר וְקוֹל זִמְרָה . . . נְהָרוֹת יִמְחֲאוּ-כָף יַחַד הָרִים יְרַנֵּנו)  תהלים צח:ד-ח(
הֶהָרִים וְהַגְּבָעוֹת יִפְצְחוּ לִפְנֵיכֶם רִנָּה וְכָל-עֲצֵי הַשָּׂדֶה יִמְחֲאוּ-כָף  )ישעיה נב:יב(

All these natural phenomena generate impressive sounds and, in the poet's imagination, joyful song; mountains also seem to sing as the wind rushes through their trees.

In one of its rabbinic usages, the word נענוע itself connotes song and music; e.g., Tosefta Sanhedrin 12:5:

רבי עקיבא אומר המנענע קולו בשיר השירים בבית המשתה ועושה אותו כמין זמר אין לו חלק לעולם הבא

A similar musical usage is employed by the author of a piyyut for Maariv on Shemini Azeret, שמיני אשפוך, when he refers to playing a new eighth string -- there were previously seven -- on the harp of the future Temple:

שמיני לעודף שמחה לראות / לנענע שמיני בעשותו נוראות

I recently came across an intriguing and novel approach to the origin of na’anu’im.  Moshe Zeev Sole suggests that waving the four species comes from a desire to create a sort of artificial wind, to remind the angel appointed on the wind and rain to fulfill his annual duties.*  He does not present any evidence for this claim. Leaving that aside, this theurgical interpretation – one which sees the ritual as an attempt to influence the behavior of a divinity – may make na’anu’im seem primitive and obsolete.  Anyone claiming today that shaking the lulav will awaken a wind spirit would be regarded as a pagan heretic, if not just an outright fool. But, to be fair, a theurgical element also appears to underly the latter part of the Talmudic passage above, which refers to "restraining harmful winds and dews” and to shooting “an arrow in the eye of Satan” by means of waving the lulav (see Maharsha's commentary, ad loc.).  In the end, however, the Talmud seems uncomfortable with the idea of using the lulav to fight Satan. Perhaps in an attempt to suppress any overtly theurgical component, it rejects R. Aha's practice of invoking Satan’s name explicitly during na’anu’im.

In fact, we are already familiar with the rain angel from another context in the Sukkot Machzor.  He is mentioned in the opening line of Tefillat Geshem, recited on Shemini Azeret: אף ברי אותת שם שר מטר – “The prince of rain has been named Af Beri.”  Although we do not address him directly, the שר מטר was clearly seen by Eleazar Ha-Kalir, the prayer's circa-seventh-century composer, as a prominent force in bringing rain.

When thinking about such theories regarding the origins of religious practices, it is important to distinguish between origin and meaning.  Whatever the historical origin of a practice, its meaning is far more significant for the religious person.  Meaning is highly subjective and can come from a variety of sources.  For some, knowledge of the origin of a practice can enrich its meaning.  But meaning should not be seen as a function only of origin.  The fields of ta'ame ha-mitzvot and ta'ame ha-minhagim are dynamic and open to a wide range of creative thought because they deal not so much with origins as with meaning, which changes with time and place.

As modern people and as heirs to the rationalist tradition within Judaism, we tend – for good reason – to minimize the role of angels and demons in our traditions and literature.  It is understandable, then, that the “wind angel” theory of na’anu’im causes us some discomfort.  On the other hand, even as moderns we may allow ourselves to draw inspiration from the idea of waving the lulav in order to generate a musical wind – taken by itself, perhaps, and with apologies to any meteorological angel who may feel left out. The idea is not too distant, after all, from Tosafot’s suggestion that na’anu’im represent the joining of nature’s personified song with human paeans of joy and thanksgiving following the harvest; of אָז יְרַנְּנוּ עֲצֵי הַיָּעַר  in concert with הוֹדוּ לַה כִּי-טוֹב.

*Ha-Moadim Ve-Hamikra, Jerusalem:Mabat, 1985, pp. 83ff.  The author (1908-1994) was trained at the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin and wrote several books on various topics in Philosophy and Jewish Studies.  A brief biography in David Tidhar's recently digitized Entziklopedia Le-Halutze Ha-Yishuv U-Vonav is available here.