When we take our arba minim on Sukkot, we are doing far more than bringing a few plants and a fruit together to fulfill a mitzvah. In Shaar HaKavanot (Inyan Sukkot, Drush 5), the Arizal takes us on a kabbalistic quest that helps us appreciate the profound significance of the mitzvah.

He explains that each of the arba minim represents one of the four letters in the Shem Havaya (Hashem’s four-letter name). The hadassim symbolize the yud. The leaves of the hadassim even look like small yud-like ink blots, and the letter yud, when spelled out in full, is composed of three letters (yud, vav, and dallet). These three letters directly relate to the triplet of leaves found on the hadassim and explain why we hold three of them.

The two aravot correlate to the second letter in Hashem’s name: hey. When the letter hey is written out, it contains two letters (hey and........

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