The Four Species of Sukkot and the Knowing of the Unknowable

One of the features of any hemshekh delivered over the course of several months is that the main topical theme, in this case hokhmah, is often combined with several different temporal themes, following the weekly Torah portion and the calendrical festival cycle. In Vakakhah this is handled with particular agility. At the beginning and end of the hemshekh, and at many points along the way, the overall temporal theme is redemption and the exodus from Egypt. But as summer draws to a close and the festive period of Tishrei begins, the Passover associations recede into the background, and questions about the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah and the process of atonement and return to G‑d (teshuvah) on Yom Kippur become the new frame through which to examine the same questions about being and existence, and the different categories of religious engagement.1

Continuing this temporal journey, a significant segment of the hemshekh is devoted to the specific mitzvot that mark the celebration of Sukkot.2 Following a passage from the kabbalistic work Mishnat Hasidim, these mitzvot are specifically associated with da’at, usually translated as “knowledge,” but often interpreted in Chabad literature to mean “recognition and connection.” Da’at, R. Shmuel adds, is not simply the faculty whereby we consciously bind ourselves to G‑d on an individual level. It is also the faculty whereby we unite hokhmah with binah, the G‑dly soul with the animalistic soul, and—ultimately—G‑d with the created world.3

Da’at, though usually enumerated as the third and last of the cognitive sephirot, is here described as capturing and revealing the all-encompassing singularity of G‑d in a way that even hokhmah cannot. The relationship of hokhmah to the transcendence of keter has already been characterized with the words “cleaving” and “receptivity,” such that it belongs more to the realm of divine nothingness than to the realm of created somethingness. In contrast, R. Shmuel cites the Lurianic dictum that, “when da’at is enumerated [among the ten sephirot] keter is not enumerated, and when keter is enumerated da’at is not enumerated,”4 concluding that da’at is “in exchange with the place of keter.” This novel formulation, which occurs in Vekakhah for the first time, sharpens the Lurianic correspondence between da’at and keter to the point of synonymy. This gives new meaning to the classic dictum “the ultimate degree of knowledge (da’at) is to not know.”5 Da’at is the point of connection and exchange between knowledge and the unknowable.6

The resulting reversal of the hierarchical relationship between hokhmah and da’at is elaborated through a hermeneutical gloss to a well-known passage from Tiqunei Zohar: “You are one, and not enumerable. You are one who has emanated ten faculties (tequnin).”7 The repetition of the clause “you are one,” implies that two distinct articulations of divine unity are intended. Otherwise, R. Shmuel reasons, it should have read, “You are one, and not enumerable, who has emanated ten faculties.” The inenumerable one, he continues, refers to keter, which entirely transcends the enumeration of the ten sephirot, and it is precisely this station that is indeed enumerated when da’at and keter are exchanged:

It is accordingly understood why da’at brings to that which is not known, meaning even that station that one cannot connect with through the cognition of hokhmah … For it is impossible for hokhmah to grasp this nothingness, for which reason [hokhmah] it[self] is called nothing … Nevertheless, through da’at, with complete bonding and cleaving, which is the meaning of ‘the ultimate degree of knowledge’—meaning the ultimate bond with the not known—one comes to connect even with what is impossible to connect with through the grasp of hokhmah … for da’at is that which is not known.8

Hokhmah grasps the unbridgeable distance between the transcendent nothingness of divine being (“you are one”) and the concrete somethingness of creation (“who emanates ten faculties”). Da’at is the point of connection and exchange between immanent knowledge and unknowable transcendence (“you are one, and not enumerable”). Da’at grasps the realms of nothingness and somethingness as a singular whole, and therefore has the ability to communicate the ultimate degree of unknowable knowledge, making creation transparent to ineffable divinity.

Drawing on classical rabbinic texts that highlight the theme of unity embodied in the mitzvot of Sukkot, and on kabbalistic texts that highlight the connection of these mitzvot to da’at, R. Shmuel specifically illuminates the significance of the four species (arba minim) in light of the above:

Though they are physical plants, which apparently have no advantage over other kinds of plants, nevertheless, after contemplating the manner of their growth, they are indeed different from other plants… The palm branch must be tight leaved; the myrtle branch must have three leaves at one node; the willows grow in bushy solidarity; the citron has the further advantage of combining the seasons… All this attests that in them the nothingness shines more, to the degree that their physical boundaries are effaced so that they can carry and tolerate opposing qualities … For this reason these four species were chosen that through them, specifically, da’at shall be drawn forth on the Sukkot festival … and we explained above that da’at is in exchange with the place of keter, that it is in the place of the “one, and not enumerable” etc., which is the same concept as “the ultimate degree of knowledge is not to know,” and it is this da’at that is drawn into the souls of the Jewish people, that there should be recognition, feeling, and strong cleaving to G‑d… And in the future-to-come this will be revealed, as it is written “no man shall teach [his fellow], for all of them shall know me” … In the future-to-come they shall know me through the drawing forth of da’at in the present …9

Hokhmah is the genesis of revelation and redemption. It is the point of effacement from which everything must begin. But hokhmah itself is empty. Hokhmah faces the cosmic gap between G‑d and the world, and thereby embodies a receptacle that has the potential to be filled. But the work of redemption is the work of connection and internalization, the overcoming of the cosmic gap, the expansion of the point of effacement into understanding, breadth of mind, and transformation of character. This process is orchestrated and celebrated through the mitzvot prescribed in the Torah. But R. Shmuel emphasizes that the primal locus of this work is in the heart of man, and “in accord with the refinement achieved in the heart of man, in direct proportion, each individual draws divinity into the world, for each individual refines their portion in the world. Therefore, ‘when all of them shall know me,’10 connecting literally with ‘me,’ then this,”—the literal self of G‑d—“will be drawn forth in the world as well.”11 Knowledge (da’at) resides in the heart, but it is cultivated and communicated through the practice of the mitzvot and the calendrical cycle of Jewish life.