“Dip the apple in the honey, make a bracha loud and clear…” Apples and honey is one of the most well-known and cherished minhagim that Jews throughout the world observe on Rosh Hashanah. Let’s try to move beyond the surface to obtain a deeper mindset as we practice this custom. What is the power of these sweet treats that it accompanies our Yom Tov and Shabbos tables throughout the High Holiday season?
“Have a happy, sweet new year.” The classic answer is that honey is sweet and we daven for the coming year to be one filled with sweetness. Rav Wolbe in “Alei Shur” explains that the honey reminds us to keep our behavior on Yom Tov in line with such sweetness, to be agreeable and delightful. Every moment on Rosh Hashanah lays the seeds for what will happen in the upcoming year. It is important to spend these 48 hours in pleasant interactions, to avoid getting angry or upset so we encode kindness, courtesy and graciousness into the new year. If we experience minor (or major) annoyances in our homes or shul, instead of responding with anger or frustration, honey reminds us to smile and forgive. Doing so will set a year of goodness, compassion and tolerance.
Rabbi Brazil in “Bishvili Nivra Haolam” focuses on the halachic property of honey. If a forbidden substance falls into honey, and is absorbed by the honey, it becomes permitted to eat. Honey can transform that which it incorporates to become part of the honey itself. The Chafetz Chayim explains that Torah has this quality. Torah transforms the negative into something good. By eating honey, we symbolically display our yearning to be transformed, to become full of positivity and goodness; our hope throughout the chag is to take on a new, more favorable persona.
In “Machshava L’maaseh,” Rabbi Noach Weinberg focuses on the qualities of bees. Usually, something that comes from an impure animal is also considered impure. How, then, are we permitted to eat honey that comes from bees? We can answer that the honey is not actually part of the bee, rather, it is something that the bee expels. Similarly, at this time of year, we emphasize that although we have sinned and behaved improperly at times, none of it is intrinsically part of us. Any negativity we have engaged in is merely an outer layer, an external aspect. As we eat apples dipped in honey, we ask that Hashem not identify our inner selves with our sins.
Another idea that Rabbi Weinberg offers is based on the pesukim that describe how Yechezkel HaNavi is told to eat a scroll, “veochla vatehi befi kedevash lematok – so I ate and, in my mouth, it was as sweet as honey” (Yechezkel 3:1–3). One fascinating feature of honey is that we don’t see it at all throughout its production, from its beginning stages as pollen collected by the bees, to the hive; one only sees the honey when it is finally extracted. Likewise, so much that happens in our lives is elusive and hidden from us. So often we only see the results. Yechezekel HaNavi ingested the entire scroll, absorbing everything, the good and bad. In doing so, he tastes its sweetness, affirming that the whole picture is Hashem’s design. At times, we too can look back and see all the steps in whatever process we have gone through all the way until the outcome. On Rosh Hashanah, when we coronate Hashem as King, we recognize the limitations of our understanding and perceptions of the workings of this world, acknowledging that all that Hashem does is just, fitting and perfectly constructed. May we merit to experience the lessons of honey and the blessing of sweetness this year and always.
Mrs. Shira Smiles, a lecturer, author and curriculum developer, is a member of the Mizrachi Speakers Bureau (www.mizrachi.org/speakers). The RZA-Mizrachi is a broad Religious Zionist organization without a particular political affiliation.
