תַּנְיָא
רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר אוֹמֵר: כְּשֵׁם שֶׁאֵין אָדָם יוֹצֵא יְדֵי חוֹבָתוֹ בַּיּוֹם טוֹב הָרִאשׁוֹן שֶׁל חַג בְּלוּלָבוֹ שֶׁל חֲבֵירוֹ, דִּכְתִיב: ״וּלְקַחְתֶּם לָכֶם בַּיּוֹם הָרִאשׁוֹן פְּרִי עֵץ הָדָר כַּפּוֹת תְּמָרִים״ — מִשֶּׁלָּכֶם, כָּךְ אֵין אָדָם יוֹצֵא יְדֵי חוֹבָתוֹ בְּסוּכָּתוֹ שֶׁל חֲבֵירוֹ, דִּכְתִיב: ״חַג הַסּוּכּוֹת תַּעֲשֶׂה לְךָ שִׁבְעַת יָמִים״ — מִשֶּׁלְּךָ.
וַחֲכָמִים אוֹמְרִים: אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁאָמְרוּ אֵין אָדָם יוֹצֵא יְדֵי חוֹבָתוֹ בְּיוֹם טוֹב הָרִאשׁוֹן בְּלוּלָבוֹ שֶׁל חֲבֵירוֹ, אֲבָל יוֹצֵא יְדֵי חוֹבָתוֹ בְּסוּכָּתוֹ שֶׁל חֲבֵירוֹ, דִּכְתִיב: ״כׇּל הָאֶזְרָח בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל יֵשְׁבוּ בַּסּוּכּוֹת״, מְלַמֵּד שֶׁכׇּל יִשְׂרָאֵל רְאוּיִם לֵישֵׁב בְּסוּכָּה אַחַת.
It is taught:
Rabbi Eliezer says: "Just as a person does not fulfill his obligation on the first day of the Festival with the lulav of another, as it is written: 'And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of a beautiful tree, branches of a date palm' (Lev. 23:40) from your own; so, too, a person does not fulfill his obligation with the sukkah of another, as it is written: 'You shall prepare for yourself the festival of Sukkot for seven days' (Deut. 16:13) from your own."
And the Rabbis say: "Although they said a person does not fulfill his obligation on the first day of the Festival with the lulav of another, he fulfills his obligation with the sukka of another, as it is written: “All the homeborn in Israel shall reside in sukkot” (Lev. 23:42) teaches that all of the Jewish people are fit to reside in one sukka."
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, "Come Together: The Arba Minim" (18 September 2019)
Now, this is remarkable, because what it implies is that not only does a Jew who has learning and good deeds atone for one who has neither, but the other way round as well. A Jew who has neither atones for one who has learning and good deeds. Now this is a very, very powerful statement of the agudah achat, this one binding together of these four kinds, that what counts is the “We” more than the “I”. Our greatness as a people is as a people, not as individuals. Our greatness exists when we ‘Come Together’.
And I mention that famous song by the Beatles – the first track, if I'm not mistaken, on an album of theirs called ‘Abbey Road’ – because it reminds me, interestingly enough, that the Beatles themselves are the great secular example of this fundamental human truth. I mention Abbey Road because I used to live very close to there when I was Chief Rabbi for 22 years. In fact, the walk from our home to the St John's Wood Synagogue took us over a very famous zebra crossing, indeed, the zebra crossing of Abbey Road. And just a couple of weeks ago, there was a big celebration at the EMI Studios in Abbey Road for the 50th anniversary of the Beatles album called ‘Abbey Road’, which was the last they made (although not the last they released).
The fascinating thing about these four musicians is that as long as they stayed together, they produced music of absolute genius. Still, you cannot go a single day of any week along that Abbey Road and the zebra crossing without seeing hordes of people just wanting to be photographed like that famous photograph on the cover of Abbey Road.
And so long as they were together, they produced music of genius. But when they split apart, they never, ever recaptured it.
Just judging by their most famous and perhaps most successful individual efforts, you'd have to take ‘My Sweet Lord’, George Harrison; Paul McCartney, ‘Maybe I'm Amazed’; John Lennon, ‘Imagine’.
Now go and look up the dates of those three songs. George Harrison, ‘My Sweet Lord’: 1970. Paul McCartney, ‘Maybe I'm Amazed’: 1970. John Lennon, ‘Imagine’: 1971. The momentum of their creativity as a group carried on for a year thereafter, but then it simply dissipated and they were never the same again. Same individuals, the same four “I’s”, but they'd lost the “We”. They'd lost the agudah achat, that one band.
Human beings come in many kinds, and when we bind and bond together, that is when we achieve greatness. And that is what the lulav and the etrog, the hadassim and the aravot, remind us of.