This is Your Mind on Lulav: The Psychoactive Properties of the Four Species (Part 1)

I believe that the four species we take on Sukkos have psychoactive properties, as do many other mitzvos - that is, if you understand what "psychoactive" actually means and what mitzvos really are.

Oct 16, 2024

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The Torah content from now through Isru Chag has been sponsored by Dani Kuznicki, to honor the memory of his mother, Zisel Gittel bas Moshe (a"h), who appreciated the beauty, clarity, and inspiration of Rabbi Schneeweiss's shiurim. Tizku l'mitzvos and Chag Sameach!

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Artwork: Dall-E’s response to the prompt, “impressionist painting of a lulav and etrog in psychedelic colors”

I wrote and published this last year, on 9/29/23. Although I didn’t finish Parts 2-4 over chol ha’moed, I had planned to continue writing them after Shemini Atzeres … but October 7th changed everything. I decided to edit, rerecord, and republish this article with the intent to write and publish Part 2 (at least) over chol ha’moed this year. May Hashem protect His people everywhere, and enable us to have a purely joyous and peaceful holiday without any interference from our many enemies.

This is Your Mind on Lulav: The Psychoactive Properties of the Four Species (Part 1)

A note on terminology: In this article, the term “arbaah minim” (lit. “four species”) refers to the Four Species of plants we are commanded to pick up and wave during Chag ha’Sukkos (the Festival of Huts). These species are: lulav (date palm frond), esrog (citron), hadasim (myrtle branches), and aravos (brook willows). Occasionally, the term “lulav” is used to refer collectively to all four species, as in “the mitzvah of lulav” or “mitzvas lulav.”

Preface

Last year, on Erev Sukkos (the eve of the Festival of Huts), I went to my local library looking for some non-fiction to read over the chag (festival). Michael Pollan’s newest book, This Is Your Mind On Plants (2021), caught my eye—it seemed thematically fitting for the holiday. The book explores the culture and history of three psychoactive compounds: opium, caffeine, and mescaline. Once I started reading, I was ::: cough cough ::: addicted, and I finished it in just a few days. (Let me know if you’d like to read my review.)

I was deep into the Mescaline section when a radical thought struck me: the Four Species are psychoactive! I immediately knew I had to write an article unpacking this insight and its many implications. And so, here we are.

What Does “Psychoactive” Mean?

Before reading further, try to define the term “psychoactive” for yourself. Go ahead, I’ll wait. When I tried this exercise, I realized that while I could use the word in a sentence, I didn’t have a clear sense of its precise meaning.

Here are a few definitions I found through a quick Google search:

“of or relating to a substance having a profound or significant effect on mental processes” (www.dictionary.com)
“a drug or other substance that affects how the brain works and causes changes in mood, awareness, thoughts, feelings, or behavior” (www.cancer.gov)
“affecting the mind or behavior” (Merriam-Webster)

I was surprised by how broad these definitions are. Can’t any substance can have “a profound or significant effect on mental processes” and “cause changes in mood, awareness, thoughts, feelings, or behavior” if experienced in a specific way? Could chocolate be considered “psychoactive”? What about cayenne pepper? Or water? Yet, despite the wide scope of these definitions, the word “psychoactive” is typically reserved for drugs and drug-like substances. How do we explain this discrepancy?

For kicks, I posed this question to ChatGPT (v. 3.5) and received this cogent response, with my emphasis in bold:

You raise a valid point. By a broad interpretation of the term "psychoactive," many substances, including certain foods and beverages, could be considered psychoactive to some extent … The key distinction between substances like [cayenne,] chocolate, and water and more traditional psychoactive drugs lies in the degree and purpose of their psychoactive effects. Psychoactive substances are typically categorized as such because their primary purpose or notable effects are related to alterations in mental states or consciousness. In contrast, the effects of substances like water and chocolate on mood are usually incidental to their primary functions.

This is a fair distinction. It answers my question about the flexibility of the definition and the colloquial usage. Now, hold that thought while we turn our attention to mitzvos.

Are Mitzvos “Psychoactive”?

Based on all this, the answer seems to be: yes! Not only do mitzvos “affect the mind or behavior,” as per Merriam-Webster’s definition of “psychoactive,” but this is their primary purpose. Rambam (Moreh 3:31) writes:

Every one of the 613 mitzvos serves (a) to inculcate a true view or remove a false view, or (b) to establish righteous conduct or remove injustice, or (c) to train us in a good character trait or to caution us against an evil character trait. Everything is dependent on these three things: hashkafos (views of reality), middos (character traits), and actions which shape society … Thus, these three principles suffice for assigning a reason for each and every mitzvah.

In other words, mitzvos are designed to change our minds, emotions, and behavior. Because this is their primary function, they meet the criteria for being “psychoactive” as defined above.

Once this definition of “psychoactive” took hold of my mind, I couldn’t help but notice the many parallels between my understanding of mitzvos and Michael Pollan’s characterization of psychoactive plants. Below are some excerpts from the introduction of This Is Your Mind On Plants, in which I’ve highlighted descriptions of psychoactive properties. As you read, consider whether, and to what extent, these could also describe mitzvos:

“Of all the many things humans rely on plants for – sustenance, beauty, medicine, fragrance, flavor, fiber – surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate or calm, to fiddle with or completely alter, the qualities of our mental experience.” (p.1)
“Evidently, normal everyday consciousness is not enough for us humans; we seek to vary, intensify, and sometimes transcend it, and we have identified a whole collection of molecules in nature that allow us to do that.” (p.4)
“a substance that can relieve boredom and entertain by sponsoring novel sensations and thoughts in the mind” (p.9)
“stimulating the imagination and nourishing creativity in the individuals who take them” (ibid.)
“foster[ing] a new, more rational (and sober) way of thinking that helped give rise to the age of reason” (ibid.)
“promote experiences of awe and mystical connections that nurture the spiritual impulse of human beings” (p.10)

One of my favorite parallels is drawn through an analogy:

“It’s useful to think of these psychoactive molecules as mutagens, but mutagens operating in the realm of human culture rather than in biology. In the same way that exposure to a disruptive force like radiation can mutate genes, introducing variation and throwing off new traits that every so often prove adaptive for the species, psychoactive drugs, operating on the minds of individuals, occasionally contribute useful new memes to the evolution of culture – conceptual breakthroughs, fresh metaphors, novel theories. Not always, not even often, but every now and then, the encounter of a mind and a plant molecule changes things.” (pp.9-10)

So many mitzvos introduce and promote subversive ideas into the collective culture of mankind: the Shema’s radical affirmation of monotheism, Shabbos as a public declaration that the universe originated in an act of creation by a Creator, the mitzvos of Pesach and their message of freedom and human equality, to name a few.

Pollan wasn’t writing with Judaism in mind. However, he did briefly acknowledge religion this sentence:

“Drugs are not the only way to occasion the sort of mystical experience at the core of many religious traditions – meditation, fasting, and solitude can achieve similar results – but they are a proven tool for making it happen.” (p.10)

He’s right, of course: even though mitzvos are designed to effect these changes in our intellect, character traits, and interpersonal conduct, their results are not guaranteed. Ralbag mentions this explicitly when he defines Torah as “a God-given regimen which brings those who practice it properly to true success” (Preface). Like meditation, it is possible to achieve profound transformations in consciousness through mitzvos, but it requires a great deal of practice, time, and effort—and there are plenty of pitfalls along the way.

Another key distinction between mitzvos and psychoactive substances lies in the word “substance.” In the excerpts cited above, Pollan emphasizes plant chemistry and brain chemistry: “we have identified a whole collection of molecules in nature that allow us to do that,” “think of these psychoactive molecules as mutagens,” “the encounter of a mind and a plant molecule changes things.” While plants interact with our minds via their molecules, mitzvos affect our molecules via our minds.

Yet, here lies another similarity between plants and mitzvos. Pollan writes:

“Much like food, a psychoactive drug is not a thing – without a human brain, it is inert – so much as it is a relationship; it takes both a molecule and a mind to make anything happen. The premise of this book is that these three relationships [with opium, caffeine, and mescaline] hold up mirrors to our deepest human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds, and our entanglement with the natural world.” (p.11)

Some schools of thought in Judaism promote the notion that the physical performance of a mitzvah in and of itself has a mystical effect on the universe. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch lamented that this outlook reduces a mitzvah to “a magic mechanism, a means of influencing or resisting theosophic worlds and anti-worlds” (Letter #18).

I do not subscribe to this view. Borrowing Pollan’s turn of phrase, I would say that “a mitzvah is not a thing—without a human soul, it is inert—so much as it is a relationship; it takes both a mitzvah and a mind to make anything happen.”

[Strictly speaking, this is only true for two out of three of Rambam’s categories of mitzvah reasons: inculcation of hashkafos (views of reality) and middos (character traits). The third category, “to establish righteous conduct or remove injustice,” can, in many cases, be achieved without conscious intent (e.g., building a parapet around your roof still protects people from falling, even if you’re not thinking about it), but the ultimate purpose of establishing a just society is to allow human beings to flourish by developing their minds and character traits.]

Questions to Ponder for Part 2

I didn’t choose to write an article about “the psychoactive properties of the Four Species” just because this mitzvah involves plants. I chose to write it because of how this mitzvah is presented in the Written Torah:

“You shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of a citron tree, the branches of date palms, twigs of a plaited tree, and brook willows; and you shall rejoice before Hashem, your God, for a seven-day period.” (Vayikra 23:40)

Hashem introduces us to the arbaah minim with overtly psychoactive language, urging us to “take these plants and rejoice.” If you can think of another maaseh ha’mitzvah (mitzvah action) for which the Torah explicitly states, “do this behavior as a means of achieving this emotional state,” let me know—because I can’t think of one.

My questions are: (1) What effect is the mitzvas lulav supposed to have, and (2) how does it achieve this effect? How is merely “taking” the four species meant to bring us to a state of simchah (rejoicing)? What is the nature of this simchah, and what is its purpose within the philosophy and values of Torah?

In the next installment(s) in this series, we will examine three approaches: those of Rambam, Sefer ha’Chinuch, and Ralbag. For now, I leave it you to ponder and discuss these questions. What do you think?

If you have answers to the questions I ended off with - or thoughts on this thesis in general - let me know in the comments below!

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