Shabbat Gathering: All about apples.

Dear Chevrei, as is our custom, we will gather tonight at 5.45p ct to welcome Shabbat. These are the coordinates:

Zoom
Meeting ID: 883 8469 4181
Password: 822665
Phone: +1 312 626 6799

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Author’s Note: Special thanks go out to Shane Ovadia who contributed a sheet to Sefaria that explains the following.

Here we go.

On Rosh Hashanah, we celebrate the birthday of the world. This year, the world is turning 5785 years old! Where's the cake? Instead we celebrate but by eating apples. What?!?

We’re not going to get into the whole dinosaur vs. Noah’s ark controversy about 5785, but apples? For a moment, open your mind to a love story centered on apples.

As we know, the Song of Songs is both an erotic and sacred text. We've covered that here before.

What we didn’t cover then was how apples are at the core (sorry, couldn’t resist) of the Rosh Hashanah story. We haven’t covered how the love story (almost any love story) has three essential parts.

There's the “meet cute.” In this case, it’s a seduction and this seduction has something to do with apples. In Song of Songs 8:5 it says, “Beneath an apple tree I aroused you.” So, basically, we’re talking about an NC-17 version of the story. A “partnership” develops between Hashem and human beings. Apples? Check.

Then, there’s the breakup. In the case of Hashem and human beings, the breakup lasted longer than would normally fit into a love story. It lasted hundreds and hundreds of years. The Hebrews became slaves to the Egyptians and suffered. How do we celebrate our release from bondage? Pesach and one of the elements of Pesach are apples, apples in the charosets. Even though some of us like charosets (me raising my hand), as we all know, the charosets is a symbol of the centuries of enslavement by the Egyptians. Hashem seemingly ignores the Hebrew peoples’ prayers. Now, that’s a breakup.

But then comes the reconciliation, and this one is a bit of a stretch. Consider Sinai. Consider it was at Sinai that a contract was made between Hashem and the Hebrew people. Like a ketuba, the contract is between two lovers. Now, at the signing of this contract / ketuba, there’s a extra special event: Hashem lifts Sinai and holds it over the heads of the Hebrews. According to Rashi, holding the mountain over us reminds us of an apple on a tree, ready to be plucked.

Whatever you believe or choose not to believe, apples are a central symbol of Rosh Hashana. I’m looking forward to having a few.

And may it be for all of us a blessing.

See you tonight!
Gut Shabbes!

All my love,
brian.