On Rosh Hashanah, we wish one another “Shanah Tovah,” a good year. Sometimes we add, “umetukah,” a sweet year.
Tonight, I would like to talk to you about what it means for a year to be sweet, and what it means for our lives to be sweet. So, I am going to ask you now to engage your sweet tooth. Think of your favorite sweet foods, tall sundaes with cherries on top, delectable cakes, chocolate and caramel. Perhaps, if you are good, you are thinking of blueberries, strawberries, and because this is Rosh Hashanah, maybe a little apple dipped in honey.
But, that is not what the rabbis had in mind when they were thinking of sweetness. They wanted delicacies from the Holy Land, not apples and honey which come from (gulp) New York State, but members of the seven species club, the fruits which enticed our ancestors to come to the region in the first place. After-all, when our ancestors imagined a land flowing with milk and honey, they certainly did not imagine cow milk or bee honey. They pictured goat milk and date honey.
Tonight I would like to introduce you to two delicacies of the Mediterranean region and what they have to teach us about having a sweet new year.
I will begin with a bit of an untraditional one – the Charub, or carob tree. For those of you who crave instant satisfaction, the carob is not for you. The carob is about sweetness deferred.
To explain, let me introduce you to one of the most beloved characters in rabbinic literature, and one of the favorites of my predecessor at Temple Sinai, Rabbi Barry Schwartz, now at the Jewish Publication Society, who wrote a book about him. He was a miracle worker in the early rabbinic period that lived sometime before the destruction of the Second Temple. His name was Honi, Honi the Circle Maker, a moniker attributed to a time when he drew a circle around himself and dared God he would not come out of it until it rained. He is, as you will soon see, also known as the Jewish Rip Van Winkle.
Honi, the Talmud tells us (Taanit 23a), was walking on the road and saw a farmer planting a carob tree. Honi snidely (and I emphasize snidely) asked him, “How long will it take for this tree to bear fruit?”
The man replied, “Seventy years.”
Honi, skeptical as to why anyone would take on an endeavor they themselves will not enjoy in their own lifetime, has the chutzpah to ask the man, “And do you really think you will be alive another seventy years to eat the fruit of this tree?”
The farmer answered simply, “Perhaps not. However, when I was born into this world, I found many carob trees planted by my father and grandfather. Just as they planted trees for me, I am planting trees for my children and grandchildren so they will be able to eat the fruit of these trees.”
Shortly afterward Honi eats a big meal, and falls asleep, awaking after a long period of time to find the carob tree bearing fruit. Seeing someone harvesting the carob tree, Honi asks him if he is the same person he just encountered a short time before. “No,” the man tells him, “he is his grandson.” Indeed, seventy years have passed, the world is a different place, and Honi and his miracles, as the Talmud relays, are a distant memory.
Honi is an instant satisfaction guy. But, some sweetness takes time and is worth the wait.
This year more than most I feel the joy of the carob. Last Wednesday marked the tenth anniversary in Buffalo. Like Honi, I feel as if I have woken from a dream, amazed that so much time has passed, that we have been here that long.
When Ashirah and I, and our then 7-month old daughter Jarah, arrived on September 5, 2018, we knew almost nothing about the community we were joining. We had absolutely no family or close friends in the area. We picked Buffalo because it was within driving distance of our hometown of Philadelphia. We figured we would spend a few years here. I would learn the basics of congregational life and we would weigh our options.
At that time, I was truly a young rabbi, both in age, just 34-years-old, and in understanding. Temple Sinai was to be my first full-time congregation as a rabbi. In just a short time, I would get my first taste of what that meant. In my first week in Buffalo, Lehman brothers declared bankruptcy. The great recession had begun. Our entire economy was suddenly in doubt. The Jewish world wasn’t much better. I quickly learned about the precipitous decline of synagogue membership and religious school attendance in the area. The world below our feet seemed shaky.
If I had fallen asleep then and woken up today, I would have felt just like Honi. How had life changed so dramatically, so quickly? I stand holding on to new Bima furniture, talking through a new sound system (for those of you who remember Temple Sinai’s old system this is truly a miracle), in a congregation that did not even exist when we arrived.
Buffalo is now a thriving metropolis we could never have imagined a decade ago. Canal Side, a completed Darwin Martin House, a new comedy hall of fame in Jamestown, a brand new children’s museum downtown coming in a few months, a refurbished Statler and Hotel Lafayette, a polar bear exhibit at the zoo, a new telescope at the Science Museum. Even the Bills have made the playoffs.
Despite Honi’s disparagement of the fruit, his story reminds us to keep planting carob trees, even if you do not know whether you yourself will eat of the fruit, even if you do not know whether the tree will blossom at all.
The number of years Honi slept has particular resonance this year. Seventy years ago, the modern State of Israel experienced its first High Holy Days. It was in the midst of what we call the War for Independence. The Holocaust had just mercifully ended and the future of both the new state and the Jewish people was in doubt.
And, now look, when Buffalonians (including many among us tonight) travel to Israel this October, as part of our Jewish Federation’s 70 at 70 Trip they will find a country brimming with life. The desert has indeed bloomed, as sky scrapers in places where only sand existed in 1948.
This brings me to the second fruit, the one most associated with this holiday, and one that grows a little faster than the Carob – the Pomegranate, the very symbol of instant satisfaction. The pomegranate tree grows almost overnight, often blossoming in its first year (which in fruit terms makes it like the Usain Bolt of the fruit world). Its fruit is bright and bold and when you break it open is filled a seemingly unlimited supply of seeds. The rabbis speak about the number six-hundred-and-thirteen, for the number of mitzvota Jew is supposed to observe in their lifetime, but the actual number is closer to just a lotof seeds.
To eat from the pomegranate is to experience bliss in the moment. In addition to being the anniversary of our arrival in Buffalo, last Wednesday was also my youngest son’s first day in Kindergarten. If there is ever a moment of full bliss, it is watching your children grow and change right in front of your eyes. Walking hand in hand with Noam to the bus stop, with my two other kids in toe, all three children on the same bus, at the same school, was the experience of opening up a pomegranate and eating its seeds.
In this tale of two trees, one takes a long time to blossom, has fruit that is hard to swallow and digest, looks shriveled and ugly, and takes a great deal of planning and investment to really taste, but when you do, it oh how good it tastes, just like chocolate. The pomegranate, on the other hand, springs to life seemingly overnight, is bold and bright, full of flavor. Its fruit is a symbol of health and vitality in our society. Yet, swallow one of its seeds and it is gone, so fast you hardly realize you have eaten it all.
As we approach the New Year, 5779, we should taste sweetness that has been long in the making. What is the carob for you this year? What is your Honi moment that you are astounded has come to fruition? And, what Carob seeds are you planting for your future self for the future world?
And, we should also taste the sweetness of the here and now, the seeds of the pomegranate that are sprinkled throughout our daily life. They too are vital. So often we ignore the blessings of the day to day, forget to acknowledge accomplishments that come with no fanfare, forget to thank God every time our lungs expand with air and contract. That too is a miracle.
But, carob and pomegranate not meant to be eaten separately. They are much better tasted together. Move over chocolate and peanut better, tonight I offer you the recipe for the ultimate combination of flavors (that is if you like the taste of carob and pomegranate). While I could not get the fruit themselves – they are both specialty items that no longer store keeps in stock – when you leave the sanctuary we have for you carob chips and pomegranate seeds. Eat them as a reminder that this coming year should be sweet, filled with blessings of the moment and of some distant future moment.
There is actually a Jewish tradition to eat fruit from Israel on Rosh Hashanah. We do so to taste a little of the land our ancestors came from, and to be able to say the “shehecheyanu” prayer for new things. In honor of our two Israeli delicacies please join with me –
First, the blessing of fruit grown on a tree:
Baruch atah A-donay, Elo-heinu Melech Ha’Olam borei pri ha-aitz.
Blessed are You, God, the maker of all things sweet, who creates the fruit of the tree.
And, now theshehecheyanu:
Barukh ata adonai elohenu melekh ha’olam, shehecheyanu, v’kiyimanu, v’higiyanu la’z’man ha’zeh
Blessed are You, God, who has given us life, sustained us, and allowed us to reach this day.
To a sweet and happy new year – a Shanah Tovah U’Metukah
Last Updated on 12/20/2018 by Marc Slonim