Rav Avigdor Miller Explains What to Think about While Benching Lulav

By Yehudit Garmaise

 So you bought a beautiful esrog and lulav, and you paid good money for it, however, you might be thinking, “What should So you bought a beautiful esrog and lulav, and you paid good money for it, however, you might be thinking, “What should we be thinking about when we are shaking the lulav and esrog?” as a talmid asked Rav Avigdor Miller, z”l, in September 1989.

    Rav Miller, z”l, answered, “Look, you can’t just lean back and do the minimum.”

   “Let’s say you’re a frum person who keeps everything,” Rav Miller said. “Everything [all the mitzvos]! So now you’re holding a lulav and an esrog. Is that enough? Maybe you should be michadeish something in the mitzvah. You have to be a michadeish.”

   “When you make the na’anuim, you should say to Hakodosh Boruch Hu, ‘I’m thanking You Hashem that You gave me a good heart.’

   “You know, many people do not have not pure hearts. So many people wish they could have your tahor heart!

   “The medrash says that the esrog is like the heart. So, as you hold up the esrog you should think, ‘Thank You Hashem for giving me a good, solid, healthy, and pure heart. And You gave me good eyes.’

    “Many people have trouble with their eyes. And that is what the hadassim are telling us. The hadassim are eyes.”

   "We should say, 'Thank you. You gave me a good backbone.'"

     "Many people, nisht ein gedacht, lo aleichem, are bent over. They have hunchbacks. Their spines are bent. And you have a straight back. Now, that is something to think about when you pick up the lulav. That is called being michadeish in the mitzvah: putting more thought and introspection into it than the minimum."

“What does na’anuim mean?” Rav Miller then asked.

  “What does it mean to bring our luluvim back and forth, back and forth?”

  “When we move the luluv and esrog back and forth, we are showing our thanks to Hashem because everything good is always coming from Hashem to us."

   "We shake our lulavim and esrogim in all directions because we are saying, ‘No matter where the good comes from, everything is always and only coming from Hashem.’”

   “And therefore, when we take our lulavim, those are our backbones, our shidrah, and when we take our esrogim, they are our hearts.”

   “When we take the hadassim that’s our eyes, and we take the aravos, that’s our lips, our mouths, and we say, 'I dedicate them to You Hashem for what You do for me.'"

  “As we move our lulavim and esrogim back and forth, back and forth; that’s what we should think about by the na’anuim. We say to Hashem, 'It’s all coming from You to me.'"

  In addition, the Sfas Emes teaches that on Succos, “due to the purity that Bnei Yisrael achieved on Yom Kippur, there is immense joy in heaven. Therefore, we should be happy with Hashem's joy."