Here it is
Plant an apple tree.
Most of us eat apples at the seder. We cut them up and mash them around and make them into haroset, that rare concoction which looks awful and tastes so sweet.
Instead of throwing the apple cores away, take a bit of dirt from your yard, or from one of your house plants, or borrow some from a neighbor, and plant the apple core.
If you have a lawn with sufficient sunlight and space, and you still have time, buy a 4-5 foot apple tree and plant it. (Some apple trees need other apple trees around to pollinate, so check the web or ask an expert about how to get apple blossoms in a few years.)
The connection between Passover, Birkat Hahammah and the apple tree is not so far-fetched.
The midrash tells us that when Pharaoh decreed that all the male children of the Israelites were to be drowned in the river, the Jewish husbands separated from their wives, refusing to have sex with them. The women thought: our husbands are worse than Pharaoh, for Pharaoh condemns only the boys but our husbands condemn the girls too. Come, let us find a way to be with them.
So the women dressed in their finest clothes, dabbed on their best perfume, and took baskets of food to their husbands, who were toiling in the apple orchards. There, under the fragrant trees, they teased and cajoled each other, and the men succumbed.
Over the years, the apple tree that you plant today will remind you of this story of the resilience of the Jews, the seduction of nature and spring, and the life-giving power of sunlight. You can watch the tree fill out and grow strong, a legacy of this 206th Birkat Hahammah. And perhaps not so many years from now, you can serve your own apples at Rosh Hashanah, in celebration of yet another sweet, renewing year.
Most of us eat apples at the seder. We cut them up and mash them around and make them into haroset, that rare concoction which looks awful and tastes so sweet.
Instead of throwing the apple cores away, take a bit of dirt from your yard, or from one of your house plants, or borrow some from a neighbor, and plant the apple core.
If you have a lawn with sufficient sunlight and space, and you still have time, buy a 4-5 foot apple tree and plant it. (Some apple trees need other apple trees around to pollinate, so check the web or ask an expert about how to get apple blossoms in a few years.)
The connection between Passover, Birkat Hahammah and the apple tree is not so far-fetched.
The midrash tells us that when Pharaoh decreed that all the male children of the Israelites were to be drowned in the river, the Jewish husbands separated from their wives, refusing to have sex with them. The women thought: our husbands are worse than Pharaoh, for Pharaoh condemns only the boys but our husbands condemn the girls too. Come, let us find a way to be with them.
So the women dressed in their finest clothes, dabbed on their best perfume, and took baskets of food to their husbands, who were toiling in the apple orchards. There, under the fragrant trees, they teased and cajoled each other, and the men succumbed.
Over the years, the apple tree that you plant today will remind you of this story of the resilience of the Jews, the seduction of nature and spring, and the life-giving power of sunlight. You can watch the tree fill out and grow strong, a legacy of this 206th Birkat Hahammah. And perhaps not so many years from now, you can serve your own apples at Rosh Hashanah, in celebration of yet another sweet, renewing year.
Contributors to this page: ninabeth - last modified on Mon Apr 6, 2009 7:47 pm.