Four Plants, Four Waters

Our Geshem workshops take place on Sh’mini Atzeret, the holiday that takes place immediately after the end of Sukkot. It marks the beginning of the rainy season in Israel, and in the cycle of t’filah (prayer), we introduce the t’filah for rain.

The Four Plants, Four Waters workshop was a deep dive into four species that symbolize this holiday for this hands-on science meets art meets Torah session. We explored how each of the Four Species accesses water and used those different methods as inspiration for our art-making:
Inspired by these four relationships with water, we painted, sprayed, dripped, absorbed, and tilted our watercolors until we were happy with the results — even if they weren’t what we planned.

• 🌴 Lulav (date palm) draws water from deep underground.

• 🍋 Etrog (citron) depends on human care and irrigation.

• 🌿 Hadas (myrtle) grows in the mountains, nourished by rain.

• 🌱 Aravah (willow) grows along flowing streams

Once the paintings dried, we added Hebrew calligraphy describing each water source. Finally, reflecting the mitzvah of gathering the Four Species together, we stitched our four artworks into one using blue thread—a nod to p'til t'chelet, the blue thread of tzitzit, another mitzvah of remembrance.