Lulav

The Torah mentions the commandments to obtain a lulav for the Sukkot holiday once in Leviticus:[1] Leviticus 23:40 In the Oral Torah, the Mishnah comments that the biblical commandment to take the lulav, along with the other three species, is for all seven days of Sukkot only in and around the Temple Mount when the Holy Temple in Jerusalem is extant, as indicated by the verse as "in the presence of Hashem, your God, for seven days."

[4] which focuses on the spelling of the words in the verse that refer to the lulav: kapot t'marim (כפת תמרים, "palms [of] dates").

Rashi further elucidates based on the Talmud's erudition, that the missing letter vav is to indicate that only a single palm is to be taken.

The Keli Yakar comments that the words verse in Psalms 96:12 az yeranenu kol atzei ya'ar (אז ירננו כל עצי יער, "then all the trees of the forest will sing with joy"), is not only a reference to the shaking of the four species but a hint to this Biblical specification: the Hebrew word az (אז, "then") is composed of two letters, an aleph (א), with a numerical value of 1, and a zayin (ז), with a numerical value of 7, hinting that the four species are to be taken 1 day outside of the Temple area and seven days in the Temple.

The user brings his or her hands together and waves the species in all four directions, plus up and down, to attest to God's mastery over all of creation.

This ritual also symbolically voices a prayer for adequate rainfall over all the Earth's vegetation in the coming year.