Missing the Lulav, Finding Shabbat Again

How my annoyance at buying a lulav I won’t use on Shabbat led me back to its profound beauty, and made me realise how much of its glow I had lost.

Shabbat used to be, by far, my favourite day of the week. I simply loved it. As a student and then during years of sixteen-hour workdays, international travel and constant pressure, it was my “Island in Time”. Every week it forced me to stop, reconnect with my family and remember what really mattered, and occasionally take a much-needed breath in a far-flung hotel room.

Over the years, I have realised that I have lost some of that feeling. Moving to Israel strangely made Shabbat easier. Retirement removed the dramatic contrast between a frantic working week and a day of rest. Disability introduced a different challenge: increasing dependence on technologies and devices that Shabbat asks me to put aside.

Too often, alongside my love, I began to see Shabbat less as a gift and more as a list of restrictions.

Then came an unexpected reminder.

Yesterday, I spent nearly 300 shekels on two beautiful sets of arba minim and genuinely looked forward to performing the mitzvah with them. After all, the Torah commands:

“You shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of a beautiful tree, branches of date palms, a bough of a leafy tree and willows of the brook.”

Leviticus 23:40

Then I remembered that the first day of Sukkot falls on Shabbat.

Just as the shofar remained silent on the first day of Rosh Hashanah this year, the lulav and etrog would remain untouched.

Like many people, my first reaction was sadness and, to be honest, annoyance. I had invested time, money and anticipation in a precious mitzvah, only to discover that I could not perform it on the very day the Torah specifies.

Of course, the reason is well known. The Great Sages decreed that when the first day of Sukkot falls on Shabbat, we do not take the lulav, just as we do not sound the shofar when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat. The concern was that someone might carry these ritual objects in a public domain while seeking guidance on how to perform the mitzvah correctly.

Many people struggle with that decree. I understand why. The concern can feel remote, particularly in modern Israel. Some are genuinely frustrated that they are unable to perform a Torah commandment on the very day the Torah specifies. Indeed, my own initial reaction was not so different.

But then I realised something else on a purely personal basis.

The great sages who established and preserved this practice knew exactly how important these mitzvot were. They knew that the shofar and the lulav were not minor customs. They knew that the Torah itself commanded them.

Yet they were prepared to let the shofar remain silent and the lulav remain untouched.

Why?

Because protecting Shabbat was even more important.

The remarkable fact is not that we lose these mitzvot for a day.

The remarkable fact is what that tells us about Shabbat.

If the sages were prepared to ask the entire Jewish people to set aside such cherished Torah obligations in order to safeguard Shabbat, then Shabbat must be far more than simply another commandment. It occupies a unique place at the heart of Jewish life and Jewish identity.

Suddenly, my untouched lulav looked different.

Instead of seeing what Shabbat was preventing me from doing, I began to see what the silent shofar and untouched lulav were teaching me. Their absence is itself a lesson about the significance of Shabbat.

That does not make my practical difficulties disappear. I still miss the mitzvah. I still find aspects of Shabbat challenging.

But it changes the direction in which I look.

For years, Shabbat was my island in time. Recently, I had begun to see only its boundaries.

Indeed, I had begun to see the island as confinement rather than sanctuary.

My untouched lulav reminded me of a passage from Dayan Grunfeld’s beautiful book on Shabbat, from which I first learned the phrase “Island in Time”. It was a book I studied and reread many times in my youth. The words stayed with me, even if I had not thought about them for years. All week we live with the illusion that power over the world is in our own hands. We work, plan, organise, build and control. Shabbat asks us to step back from that illusion. By ceasing from creative activity, we acknowledge that the world is not ultimately ours to run.

Shabbat lifts the veil.

Perhaps that is why the silent shofar and untouched lulav give way before it.

I thought I was mourning the loss of a mitzvah.

Instead, I realised I was being reminded of the purpose of Shabbat itself.

This Shabbat, my expensive arba minim will remain untouched.

I will not pretend there is no disappointment. But I now see their stillness differently. Not as a lost opportunity, but as a reminder of something I had begun to forget.

The lulav I cannot lift is pointing me back toward the island.

And perhaps that was the mitzvah I needed most this year.

A brief note: I write this simply as an Orthodox Jew, but neither as a rabbinic authority nor as someone seeking to comment on questions of halachic policy. Nor am I suggesting that all is well in contemporary Judaism. Some of the challenges facing Jewish life today trouble me deeply. This essay is simply a personal reflection on what an untouched lulav unexpectedly taught me about the beauty of Shabbat.