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Pomegranate & Winter
What is the meaning
of the Pomegranate?
What message does it
bring about learning
to know Winter?
Date: 1/5/2007 1:37:54 PM ( 17 y ) ... viewed 1772 times 11:31 AM
January 5, 07
About this Photo:
Pomegranates, some from my own tree in the Enchanted Garden
were "guests" I brought to the Kabalah Conference, December 18-19,
in San Diego.
Have you a question, Rabbi Yakov Travis, asked me?
"Yes I said, why is it said the pomegranate has 613 seeds?"
About 613 Seeds of the Pomegranate:
In Search of 613 seeds, Pomegranate, I
came upon these:
Another regal fruit is the pomegranate (rimmon) with a crown atop the bright red fruit. It is often used as a new fruit for the second night of Rosh Hashana, since it is not eaten on a regular basis. It also became one of the symbolic fruit with a wish for the New Year:
May your mitzvoth be plentiful like the pomegranate.
This refers to the amount of seeds in the pomegranate.
Again learning Torah can be derived from the pomegranate:
"Did the pomegranates blossom yet?" [in the Song of Songs] - this refers to the young children who sit and learn Torah. They sit in rows like the seeds of the pomegranates. (Shir HaShirim Raba, 6, 17)
Its beauty has made it a favorite among artisans. Already in the Bible, little pomegranate-shaped balls (rimmonim) were stitched into bells at the bottom of the High Priest’s garment. King Solomon placed rimmonim on top of the pillars in the Temple. Artisans craft from silver pomegranate-shaped crowns to cover the tips of the two wooden rods (atzei chaim) of the Torah scrolls
The pomegranate was a national symbol, used in works of art and poems. It appears in ancient mosaics and coins. Its tasty fruit produces a sweet juice. Recently an instrument was invented to extract the juice.
http://www.hagshama.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=1595
Lovely explanation of the 7 Species on this site above.
Good prayers come with good rabbinical myths; this one involves the number of seeds in the pomegranate fruit. There are 613 seeds in the fruit, Chazal tells us, which corresponds with the 613 mitzvot or commandments of the Torah. The only time I tried counting it I was warned beforehand by my father that today’s fruit don’t have that number at all, "just like we don’t find today grapes or figs of the biblical proportions". “We sinned”, my father sighed, “and we don’t see god’s hand nowadays as we used to”.
http://hassid.blogspot.com/2006/11/pomegranate-wisdom.html
The pomegranate, which is actually an oversized berry, is traditionally eaten as a new fruit to herald the year’s beginning for several reasons: It is readily available in the fall; its immense number of seeds are thought to symbolize fertility; and its shape, topped by a “crown,” represents a central Rosh Hashanah theme, kingship, suggest Ellen Frankel and Betsy Platkin Teutsch in their Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols.
Part of Jewish life since the biblical era, the pomegranate was one of the seven species for which the Promised Land was celebrated. When Moses sent spies to scout the Promised Land, they returned carrying pomegranates and other fruits as evidence of the land’s bounty and fertility. A midrash tells us that the pomegranate contains 613 seeds, the number of mitzvot (commandments) found in the Torah.
The pomegranate has been a perennial motif in Jewish art, dating to the Temple in Jerusalem. The only known archaeological object attributed to King Solomon’s Temple is a tiny carved ivory pomegranate that is found in the collection of the Jewish Museum in Jerusalem. Bells shaped like pomegranates are thought to have adorned the Temple’s columns and the high priest’s robes, according to The Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols.
http://www.jwmag.org/articles/04Fall02/p08c.asp
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http://www.jwmag.org/articles/21Winter06/p30.asp
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FU!!
What is Winter?
How do we live through it?
What are we intended to learn from
Winter?
What is this Season of our Life
wanting to tell us?
The Pomegranate:
It is considered a Mystical Fruit
by the Kabbalists.
The Pomegranate:
Is it a central metaphor in the
Greek Mythological story of Persephone.
Here is that story.
Pomegranate:
It is a metaphor for learning
to live through winter.
I am compelled to look at different things
this winter.
I am seeking warmth,
warmth in clothes.
I am feeling the dampness within the bowels
of my being, and the rage that comes from
disregarding the laws of winter:
I cannot eat in Winter as I do in Summer.
Red Foods, what is the meaning of the
redness of the Pomegranate?
What is the Red intended to bring to me?
Questions,
more than answers.
I am compelled to learn the
Kabbalah of Winter,
the Kabbalah of the Holy Earth in Winter.
I am compelled to look at my own mortality
this winter, to experience the color of blood.
Leslie
Your Enchanted Gardener
"Rekindling of Faith"
Reissued in December 06
explores the theme of using one
winter to go back to make sense
of the death of my mother, and
find balance between eating disorders
and my life purpose.
For more on that book go here:
FU [Create a web page for "Rekindling of Faith"
please.]
___
Very High Energy,
about Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge,
mentions Pomegranate.
http://www.jhom.com/topics/trees/life_knowledge.htm#1
Looking for the Midrash on 613 seeds.
Have not found it yet.
___
On the Seven Species,
All these grow here at the Enchanted Garden
Intentional Community!
A Blessing For the Land
By: Batsheva Pomerantz
“For the autumn has passed and the rain is over and gone. The blossoms are seen in the country, the season of the songbird arrived and the sound of the turtle-dove is heard in our land. The fig has ripened its fruit, the vine’s flowers have given their scent”. (Song of Songs, 2, 11-13)
Thus King Solomon captures the beauty of Eretz Yisrael at the onset of spring, with examples of the blossom of the fig tree and vines, whose fruit are from the Seven Species of the Land of Israel. The other species that the Land is blessed with are the pomegranate and olive, the palm, wheat and barley.
Tu B’shvat marks the beginning of spring, a literal watershed when most of the rainfall in the Land of Israel has already fallen in the preceding three months.
Throughout the generations, ever since Tu B’Shvat became a holiday expressing the yearning for the Land of Israel, Jews partake in eating fruit, including dried fruit from the Seven Species like dates, figs and raisins.
Since ancient times these Seven Species have had halachic (Jewish Law) ramifications and enhanced the midrash (commentaries). They have been used for therapeutic purposes. In modern Israel they have woven their way into songs, names of people and places, and national symbols.
The fig, the first fruit mentioned in the Bible, with its leaves clothing Adam and Eve, is eaten fresh or dried. In Biblical times, it was a staple known for its sweetness and nutritional value. Abigail, one of King David’s wives, gave his men 200 fig rolls. The dried fig is called kayitz- Hebrew for "summer", the season when the fig ripens.
In the midrash, characteristics of the Seven Species are often compared to learning Torah. Regarding the fig, the rabbis observed that the figs have no leftovers:
The dates have pits, the grapes have pits, the pomegranates have peels, but the entire fig is fit for eating. Likewise the words of Torah, which have no waste. (Yalkut Shimoni, Joshua 1)
The fig and vine mentioned together in the Song of Songs appear in tandem 16 times in the Bible, often marking the idyllic conditions that will exist when peace reigns.
"Each person under his vine and fig" (I Kings, 5, 5)
relates to the tranquility between the tribes during King Solomon’s rule.
The Biblical scouts who came to see the Land before entering took back with them samples of the large, choice figs, grapes and pomegranates. Today, the depiction of two scouts holding a large cluster of grapes has become the symbol of Israel’s Tourism Ministry.
Mentioned more often than any other fruit in the Bible, a cluster of grapes is first mentioned in a dream of Pharaoh’s minister. Unable to interpret the dream, Joseph is located in prison and solves the dream. Because of this ability, he eventually becomes viceroy of Egypt.
A variety of food products are made from the vine: grapes, raisins, wine, grape juice, and grape leaves used in Mediterranean recipes for stuffing. Wine is used for every festival and religious ceremony, and the blessing over wine is a main one. Together with meat it "makes a person’s heart joyful". The wine was used on the altar in the Temple.
Artwork in synagogues, vessels, and mosaics is decorated with grapes and its leaves. Ancient coins and tombstones depict the grape. The IDF uses the grape leaf to designate its higher levels.
In the Bible the grape was mentioned in Jacob’s blessing to his son Judah (although Judah was not the firstborn, he was the leader). Indeed, the region of the tribe of Judah abounds with many vineyards on its terraced mountainsides.
The vine has produced many surnames, first names and expressions:
Eshkol, meaning "cluster", is the surname of Israel’s 3rd prime minister, Levi Eshkol whose original name was Skolnik. The multi-lingual Eshkol probably knew that ba’al eshkolot refers to a scholar. Gefen is a popular surname, often the Hebraicizied form of names with "Wein-". Tirosh meaning "grape juice" is a surname.
First names derived from the parts of the grape include: Smadar - its flower, Einav - grape, and Carmi or Carmela from kerem - "vineyard". These terms are also used for streets and Jerusalem neighborhoods such as Ein Karem and Bet HaKerem, and Kiryat Anavim, near Jerusalem.
Rabbi Yosei bar Yehuda appreciates the quality, mature grapes when he speaks about learning Torah:
One who learns from the young, who is he like? To one who eats dull [not ripe] grapes and drinks wine from the wine-press. And one who learns from the elderly, who is he like? To one who eats ripened grapes and drinks mature wine. (Ethics of our Fathers, 4, 20)
The date is called d’vash which today means "honey". The tree is also called tomer or dekel. It’s fruit is the tamar. Tamar is a popular girl’s name, and Tomer is the male version. Dikla is a girl’s name.
Palms grow naturally in the valleys and lowlands. Jericho, near the Dead Sea, is referred to in the Bible as the "city of Palms." Not surprisingly, the Talmud mentions the palm in different contexts, since it was written in Babylonia (today’s Iraq), a fertile region for date palms.
The palm is tall and strong, pleasant and fruitful. The righteous person (tzadik) is compared by the Psalmist to the lofty palm tree, bearing fruit and enduring.
In addition to the date and the lulav (the palm branch in the Four Species for Succot), its different parts are put to many uses, as the following midrash explains:
The nation of Israel is compared to the palm tree: The palm tree has no waste, its lulavs are used for prayer, its fronds for shade, its fibers for ropes, its twigs for a sieve, and its beams for houses. Likewise the people of Israel - there is no waste: Some learn Bible, some learn mishna, some learn aggadah, some perform mitzvoth and some do charitable deeds. (Breishit Rabba, 41)
The wheat (chitta) and barley (se’ora) are such important staples that their harvest was celebrated in a ceremony with special offerings. Because of the climatic conditions in Eretz Yisrael its harvest was not taken for granted. The harvest holiday started with the harvest of barley until the end of the harvest of the wheat. This period began on the 16th of Nissan (Passover) and continued until after the Shavu’ot festival. Rain or even snow in this period of time was seen as a curse. Also dry heat spells in the spring would affect the harvest.
The barley is sturdy, as was seen during the plague of hail in Egypt - the barley is less vulnerable than the wheat. It is very ancient and grows in relatively dry areas. The omer offering was brought from the barley every day from the second day of Passover until Shavu’ot. Wheat that ripened at the beginning of the summer was used for the bikkurim - the first fruit.
In 1906, agronomist Aaron Aaronson, discovered in Rosh Pina in the Galilee the "wheat stereotype" (em hachitta), a significant discovery for the cultivation of fields. Aaronson was also famous as head of the NILI spy ring which opposed Turkish rule in pre-State Israel.
Years later, the State of Israel adopted as its symbol Menorah with two olive branches flanking its sides. The esteemed olive tree (zayit) is common throughout Israel, covering its mountains and slopes throughout the year.
The olive branch and the dove have become a symbol of peace. This refers to the Biblical story of Noah’s ark and the flood that devastated the world. The dove was sent to find life, after the failed efforts of the raven. The aggadah says that the dove took the olive branch from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
According to the midrash, the dove had a request from God:
Rabbi Yirmiya Ben Elazar: When the dove sent by Noah to see if the waters were subsiding it said to God: "Lord of the Universe: May my food be as bitter as the olive, and provided by Your hands, rather than sweet as honey and dependent on people." (Tractate Eiruvin 18)
Its fruit is bitter, yet quite popular in the Mediterranean and Mid-Eastern diet. In addition to cooking, the oil derived from the olive is used for medications, cosmetics and lighting. The olive oil was chosen to kindle the Menorah in the Temple because the oil is a symbol of light to the world. It was also used to anoint the High Priest and kings.
Another regal fruit is the pomegranate (rimmon) with a crown atop the bright red fruit. It is often used as a new fruit for the second night of Rosh Hashana, since it is not eaten on a regular basis. It also became one of the symbolic fruit with a wish for the New Year:
May your mitzvoth be plentiful like the pomegranate.
This refers to the amount of seeds in the pomegranate.
Again learning Torah can be derived from the pomegranate:
"Did the pomegranates blossom yet?" [in the Song of Songs] - this refers to the young children who sit and learn Torah. They sit in rows like the seeds of the pomegranates. (Shir HaShirim Raba, 6, 17)
Its beauty has made it a favorite among artisans. Already in the Bible, little pomegranate-shaped balls (rimmonim) were stitched into bells at the bottom of the High Priest’s garment. King Solomon placed rimmonim on top of the pillars in the Temple. Artisans craft from silver pomegranate-shaped crowns to cover the tips of the two wooden rods (atzei chaim) of the Torah scrolls
The pomegranate was a national symbol, used in works of art and poems. It appears in ancient mosaics and coins. Its tasty fruit produces a sweet juice. Recently an instrument was invented to extract the juice.
"A land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olives producing oil, and honey". The abundance of the Seven Species is felt throughout the year in the colorful stalls of Israeli markets as well as in lore and culture.
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