Waving and Beating of Willows

Abstract

The practice of beating willows on Hoshanah Rabbah is a very unusual one, with no explanations offered in the Talmud or Midrash. In the ancient world, the willow represented both fertility and infertility, life and death, and the beating of willows can be connected both to beating with plants as a fertility ritual and as a form of scapegoat ritual. Echoes of both of these ideas are found in Sephardic folk practices associated with beating people with willows as well as the earliest Gaonic explanation for this practice, in addition to the later explanations found in the Zohar.