Tu B’Shvat 5785 – Questions and Answers

Day of Judgement

Q:

Tu B’Shvat is rosh hashanah for trees. For what are trees judged? If it’s for the fruit they produced in the past year, do they have a choice to make good fruit or bad fruit? And –

A:

My friend, before you go further I want to explain. The trees are not judged on the rosh hashanah for trees. Trees are not judged.  So don’t worry about that.

The most you can say is that men are judged as far as trees are concerned and even that is not true – men are not judged on Chamisha Asar B’Shvat even as far as the trees are concerned.  As I told you, it’s only a rosh hashanah as far as gauging the age of a tree; we calculate the age of a tree by the fifteenth of the month of Shvat. So leave out the element of judging and there won’t be any problem.  It’s only a matter of measuring years and the year has to start from a certain official date.  There’s a technical reason, a botanical reason, why the official rosh hashanah of trees is Chamishah Asar b’Shvat.  That’s all.

Only that we are expected to make use of the day as an opportunity for judging ourselves. In that sense it’s a day of judgement; we ourselves can look at it that way.

So let’s say Chamisha Asar B’Shvat just passed today; you have to judge yourself: “How could I let such a day go by?!  Why didn’t I put on my table a red apple and a golden orange and sit for a few minutes and look at them.”

The apple is saying, “Look what Hakadosh Baruch Hu is giving to you!  I’m a demonstration of His wisdom, of His plan and purpose, of His kindliness!  Did you ever see such a thing manufactured by human beings?  Such a luscious package of food!  It’s a drink too!  And it’s cunningly put together in cells so that when you slit the apple, the juice doesn’t spill out.  The juice is imprisoned in thousands of little cells.”

Of course if you prefer apple juice, put it in a juicer and in one minute it’s a drink.  An apple is a drink really, but it’s a drink imprisoned in cells.  And inside, it’s so wonderfully sugary.  It’s delicious.  Not too sweet and not to sour!  The enjoyment in the apple is exactly suited to you, exactly suited to your taste buds.

And so that apple is talking to you; the apple is criticizing you: “How is it you forget about me?  You let the day pass on Chamisha Asar B’Shvat without paying attention to me?”

And the orange too opens a big mouth and it talks to us:  “Look at my golden skin!  Why is it that I am so beautiful on the outside of the skin and underneath the skin, there’s no color at all? Doesn’t that teach you something? Don’t you see that the color is purposeful?

“And I’m covered with a skin-wax wrapper too. You see that? The purpose of the wax is to keep it waterproof and airproof and also to prevent little insects from chewing through it.  And also to let you know how good it is, to give it a shine to give you a desire to eat it.”

Now all these things seem to us commonplace and we have no guilty feeling that we’re not making use of them in the way the Creator expects us to do. So yes, in that sense Chamisha Asar B’Shvat can be considered a day of judgement.

January 1983

 

Celebrating Fruit

Q:

How should we celebrate Chamishah Asar B’Shevat?

A:

There was a minhag in Yerushalayim – I don’t know if they do it today but in the olden days the Chachamim came together the night of Chamishah Asar B’Shvat and they ate peiros; great men used to come together to eat fruit.

Now, the Gemara (44a) says that Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish used to go out – it doesn’t say when – they used to go out to Genosar and eat peiros Genosar. And they ate so much until they almost fainted from overeating. Reish Lakish ate so much that he became wild – he was eating peiros; maybe it was grapes or something – and finally Rabi Yochanan had to ask the nasi to send policemen to take Reish Lakish home.

And Rabbi Yochanan ate so much that his forehead was slippery that even a fly couldn’t stand on his forehead. It slipped off his forehead.

Now you’re talking about great men! And so you must say that the Gemara is telling us something here.

You have to know that peiros, fruits, is one of the wonderful creations of emunah. וְנֶחְמָד הָעֵץ לְהַשְׂכִּיל – Fruit is most desirable because it gives wisdom (Bereishis 3:6).

Looking at a beautiful orange, a beautiful apple; why is the color so beautiful?

Is it an accident? It wasn’t beautiful when the fruit was still green, when it was sour and unripe. Only when it became fit to eat then it turned a beautiful yellow color or a beautiful red color. Doesn’t that show something? When it’s ready, it wants to attract your attention. It means that fruit is a demonstration of the chessed Hashem.

Tosfos explains in one place (Brachos 37a) what it means בּוֹרֵא נְפָשׁוֹת רַבּוֹת וְחֶסְרוֹנָן. It means that Hashem made many different creatures and supplied them with all of their needs. But עַל כָּל מַה שֶּׁבָּרָאתָ – in addition to whatever they need He also gave mankind luxuries, עַל כָּל מַה שֶּׁבָּרָאתָ – besides for the things they need, He gave them more things לְתַּעֲנוּג בְּעָלְמָא – just for the purpose of giving us pleasure.

And what are the luxuries? Tosfos says כְּמוֹ תַּפּוּחִים, apples for example. You could get along without apples. Apples are like a dessert; it’s chessed.

Now all food is chessed. A piece of bread is also chessed. But apples are an added chessed. Hashem is not merely satisfied that you shouldn’t be hungry. Let’s say a guest comes to your house. You give him a big plate of bread, a pile of bread, a mountain of bread. No. Give him something else with the bread, some butter maybe; whatever it is, something else you have to give, not just bread.

Let’s say you give him a meal but since you have a good heart after the meal you give him some dessert too. That shows you’re a real ba’al chessed. And so Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives us fruit too.

So when you pass a fruit stand, don’t walk by like a horse walks by. Take a look! Those delectable fruits are resplendent testimonies to the niflaos haBorei, the wonders of Hashem. A fruit is a miracle. Every fruit has a skin around it that protects it and keeps it fresh for some time.

And inside when you finish eating the delicious content of the fruits, inside there is a coupon that entitles you to another package; the seeds. It’s like eating a box of cereal and when you get down to the bottom of the box, there’s a coupon there entitling you to another free box.

Seeds! Ay yai yai! Niflaos haBorei! What a seed has in it! There are tremendous secrets in a seed. A seed has within it 100,000 details, all the blueprints for a new apple tree. It’s the chromosomes of the seed, telling it how to make another apple tree; how to produce leaves, and how to produce sap and bark and flowers – all kinds of flowers – and how to produce more apples. More apples with more seeds inside them. All of these plans are in the blueprint of the seed! And so there’s color and taste for chessed, and there’s chochma too. That’s how to look at the fruit.

Now, rabbosai, you should know I’m just spending a minute or two. If you sit and look at an apple or an orange for fifteen minutes, you won’t be the same person anymore.  I guarantee you.  Look at the apple for fifteen minutes and think about the wonders that you see in that creation of Hashem; you’re seeing giluy Shechina.  Absolutely.

And Hashem made it for the purpose of teaching it to you.  Only in order to make the lesson more delicious, He makes the apple more delicious.  It’s like having a Gemara printed on sponge cake.  So you take a little bite from the margin, a geshmake sugya.

And therefore the fruits are a wonderful opportunity to gain emunah and to gain ahavas Hashem. That’s how to celebrate Chamishah Asar B’Shevat. That’s how to eat fruits on Chamishah Asar B’Shevat. And on the sixteenth of Shevat and the seventeenth of Shevat and all year long.

January 1991

 

Reverence for Trees

Q:

How can we explain that Rabi Chanina’s son died young just because he chopped down a fruit tree?

A:

In Mesichta Bava Kama (Bava Kama 91b) Rabbi Chanina relates that he had a son Shivchas who passed away when he was young.  So Rabbi Chanina said, “My son, Shivchas, died before his time because he cut down a fruit tree before its time.”

What’s the time of a fruit tree?  So the Gemara says when it becomes so old that it produces almost no fruit – the Gemara gives a measure how many pints it’ll produce to still be considered a fruit tree, pints of fruit –  after that, it’s old enough to chop it down because it doesn’t pay to keep it.  And since he chopped down a fruit tree before the time, that’s why he perished before his time.

Now, chopping down the fruit tree, we have to know is a lav from the Torah.  You can’t chop down a fruit tree.  But still, it’s only chayav lavin.  Could it be so severe that a person would lose his life because of that?

Now Shivchas didn’t chop down the tree like a vandal.  He didn’t do it for the thrill.  He had some need.  It was in his way.  Let’s say he wanted to build a sukkah.  You can’t build a sukkah underneath a tree.  When a tree overhangs a sukkah, the sukkah is possul.  He had some other purpose.  And nevertheless he lost his life because he made this error.

And it wasn’t an ordinary person who lost his life! A person whose life was valuable and he could produce fruits of wisdom.  He could produce some more children had he lived longer.  But Hakadosh Baruch Hu rejected him; He said, “I don’t need your fruits of wisdom, I don’t need your offspring. You have no place in the world if you don’t appreciate a fruit tree.”

Now we begin to understand that there’s something sacred about a fruit tree.  It’s a very important object. Because a fruit tree is supposed to remain and to teach and to give benefits to the world.  Of course, to give also luscious fruits to the world.  And when he didn’t understand that lesson – not merely because he deprived the world of that individual tree – but he didn’t understand sufficiently the greatness of this lesson.  He should have approached the tree with reverence.

And that’s how we should approach an apple or a nut.  With reverence!  We’re seeing testimonies of the Creator.  And because he was lacking to some extent in that attitude, so Hakadosh Baruch Hu took him out of the world.  It was a demonstration how important it is to utilize this life to revere and to benefit from the creations of Hashem.

January 1993

 

Torah of the Tree

Q: 
If the purpose of a fruit tree is to teach us wisdom what’s the explanation of the Mishna (Avos 3:9) that if someone stops learning Torah to look at a tree, and says מַה נָּאֶה אִילָן זֶה – “How beautiful is this tree!” so the Torah considers it as if he is deserving of death?

A:
The Mishna says: הַמְהַלֵּךְ בַּדֶּרֶךְ וְשׁוֹנֶה – A person who is walking on the road and learning, וּמַפְסִיק מִמִּשְׁנָתוֹ וְאוֹמֵר, and he stops his learning and says,מַה נָּאֶה אִילָן זֶה – “How beautiful is this tree”, מַעֲלֶה עָלָיו הַכָּתוּב כְּאִלּוּ מִתְחַיֵּב בְּנַפְשׁוֹ – so it’s considered as if he’s deserving of death. You have to understand the following: It’s talking about somebody who’s stopping his learning. However, suppose a person is learning by saying “Mah na’eh ilan zeh.” He’s saying, “How beautiful is this tree; how beautiful are the creations of Hashem! I can see the hand of Hakadosh Baruch Hu in this tree and I’m thanking Him.” And he’s learning it. Learning from the tree? That’s something different. That’s not stopping his learning

So the person who stops learning and he just states an idle remark, “How beautiful is this tree,” but not because he’s studying Chovos Halevovos Shaar Habechina, then certainly he’s doing wrong. It’s the same as stopping and saying, “I want to smoke a cigarette.” He gets no mitzvah stopping for that. Just like there’s no mitzvah by stopping to enjoy a tree. What difference does it make, a cigarette or a tree?

But if he’s enjoying it in order to see the chochmas Hashem and chessed Hashem, and to express his gratitude to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that’s not stopping. Suppose a person is learning Bava Kama, and he stops Bava Kama to learn Bava Metziah in the middle, is it a sin? What of it? It’s stopping Torah to learn Torah.
May 1987

 

Fish Tanks and Fruit

Q:
Is having a fish tank in the home a good way to teach children the niflaos ha’Borei, the wonders of Hashem’s creations?

A:
An apple in the home is a good way. Put an apple on the table and teach your children to admire that apple. “Look how beautiful it is. It looks almost natural. Of course it’s nothing but a plastic, a Hashem-made plastic. But it’s so beautiful, the colors.”

Now, color you have to know is not so simple. Color is not an accident. It’s niflaos ha’Borei. And the purpose of the color in an apple is to make you aware of the Creator. You should think about the apple before you begin to eat it. That’s the purpose.

Isn’t it a pity?  You’ve been eating apples for so many years and you didn’t understand the purpose; all those opportunities went down your throat for nothing.

Why don’t you stop for a moment before you eat and think about the wonders of this color? Where does a color come from?  Is there any red in the seed of the apple?  Take an apple seed and open it up and see if there is any redness in it.  In vain you’ll seek for any pigment.

So where did the red color come from?  It’s a remarkable thing!  It has to come from someplace.  Did it come from the soil?  Soil doesn’t have any pigments.  Did it come from the rain?  After all, an apple is mostly rain.  If you would dry up this apple, if you would desiccate it, it becomes as small as a pea almost. Maybe as small as a plum.  All the rest is nothing but water that fell from the clouds.  But the cloud water doesn’t have any color.  If it would rain Pepsi Cola, raspberry soda, so you might imagine – it’s false too but you might imagine it made the apples red.  But it rains colorless water, so how do you get color here?

There’s wisdom here!  There’s chemistry that they haven’t discovered yet.  They’ll never discover the secrets of the apple.  There’s secrets.  It’s not miracles but the secrets are so profound, that there are secrets behind secrets behind secrets behind secrets behind secrets.  There are millions of secrets that they have to fathom before they understand how to make an apple. So certainly you can teach a child niflaos ha’Borei in the home.

You want a fish tank? Nothing wrong; but you don’t need it if you have fruit in the house. Because anytime you open an orange in the house, say, “My child, look at this! Why is an orange so beautiful on the outside but when we open up the skin there’s no color on the inside of the skin?”

You know that’s a kasha that no scientist can answer? They’ll stand on their heads but they can’t answer that. Why is the orange’s skin so beautiful on the outside while on the underside of the skin there’s no color, no color at all? Nobody can answer that.

Because there’s only one answer. Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants you to see the color, to be seduced by it. And so the purpose of color is chessed; it’s for kindliness. Not only He gives you something to eat. He gives it בְּחֵן בְּחֶסֶד וּבְרַחֲמִים הוּא נֹתֵן לֶחֶם לְכָל בָּשָׂר. He makes the color to make you happy; and you don’t need color underneath. Once you open it up, you see the color inside, the fruit, so you’ll eat it anyhow – you don’t need color on the underside of the peel.

So there’s a lot of niflaos ha’Borei in the home without a fish tank. Only you have to teach yourself. If you teach yourself, you’ll be able to teach your children too.

March 1995

 

The Proof is in the Fruit

Q: 
Can you prove clearly that there is a G-d? 

A:
Now that’s a question that I like to hear. I’m going to prove it clearly right now to you. And I won’t charge extra for it. Now, some of our people here are veterans, but bear with me for the benefit of the newcomers.

One night I slept in the country. And outside my window there was a wild cherry tree.  Now, for months the wild cherries had been available only to birds. If you couldn’t fly or you didn’t want to climb the tree you couldn’t get them. But that night, all night long, I could hear the pit-pat of falling cherries. Pit pat, they were falling on the lawn. Pit-pat, pit-pat, all night long they were falling. And I was thinking, “Why all of a sudden are they coming down? The cherry was holding on tightly all the spring months. What makes it come loose and come down?”

If you study a little bit of botany, you know that a fruit doesn’t fall by accident. Because if so, why doesn’t it fall by accident at the beginning of the season? It first has to become ripe – it has to become sweet. And then, at the same time, it has to acquire a pleasant color. And only then, certain cells start developing in the stem – where the stem is connected to the twig of the tree certain abscission cells develop. And it is these cells that cause the fruit to fall.

So the question is, why is it that when the fruit is still unripe it doesn’t fall down? That’s a question that we have to face – and don’t try to dodge that question because it’s a question that is of the utmost consequence: Why does the fruit let go only when it’s ripe? You’re not talking here about a random hurricane that comes and blows down unripe, green fruits. Why does the fruit fall only when it’s ripe? Every time!

And the answer is that we couldn’t get up to it otherwise. The tree knows you don’t have wings. The main eaters, the most important eaters of the fruit, don’t have wings. And that’s why the tree lets go when the food is ripe.

Now, pay attention to something else. Why is it that before the fruit is ripe, that it’s always green? All unripe fruits are green. Whether the fruit eventually becomes bright yellow like a banana or an orange, or beautiful purple like grapes, or bright red like apples – whatever happens – but before it’s ripe it’s always green. Why is that?

There’s only one answer. Because you have to understand – why isn’t it another color? Why isn’t it bright yellow when it’s unripe? Why isn’t it bright red when it’s unripe? All over the world wherever you go, you won’t find a single fruit that when it’s unripe it should be any color but green. You know why? Because green is the color of the leaves. The fruit is hiding among the leaves. When it’s unripe the fruit is saying, “Don’t look at me – I’m not old enough yet.” When it’s green it’s still unripe and it lets you know, “Don’t touch me because you’ll get a stomachache by eating me now!”  It’s hard and sour, so it remains green to hide among the green leaves.  As you pass by, you don’t notice them before they’re ripe.

After it becomes soft and sweet, then it switches on the red light and as you pass the tree, you see them hanging like presents on the tree; like a Chanukah tree, “Take some.” Presents on a tree! You won’t find an apple that is beautifully red when it’s raw and sour, tart. It’s plan and purpose! It’s only when the fruit becomes ripe, then it acquires an attractive color. Then it says, “Look at me.”

And so, when you look at the tree, you’re looking at a miracle! The apple testifies that a Creator made it with the infinite wisdom of kindly purposefulness.  Who hung all those beautiful and luscious fruit on the tree?  And they’re packaged in such gay colors!

Now, if you never saw an apple tree before – I was a city boy and the first time I saw an apple tree full of apples I was in my late forties and it was an apparition to me. I davened in a certain shul; I was the only kohen and I didn’t want to bother them always to give me an aliyah, so when the time came for kriyas haTorah, I used to walk out in the alleyway and listen to kriyas haTorah through the doorway; they shouldn’t have to call me.

I got my reward for that.  I stepped into the alleyway and lo and behold in the yard of the shul was an apple tree loaded down with these beautiful treasures.  Big red balls were hanging on the tree.  The first time in my life I saw it.  It was an apparition!  A tree with apples on it?!  I had never seen apples before except in a basket. Apples hanging on the tree! And they’re all brightly colored!

The question now is why is it that this series of adjustments took place? That the apple, all the fruits, when they’re unripe, they’re all green. Do you think that happens by accident? Do you think it’s a coincidence that green is also the color of the leaves? It happens by accident that the fruits can hide among the leaves? And why is it that when a fruit is ripe –  and only then – does it acquire a conspicuous color. By accident, apples become red? By accident bananas become very yellow? By accident, grapes become red or purple? And why is it that when they’re ripe, they’re ready to come down?

So the question is: How is that possible? And therefore if you look at a red apple it’s enough proof for you. It’s enough proof for anybody. Nobody can dispute this proof that there’s a Creator with an Intelligence that is far beyond the ability of all the scientists put together to even begin to fathom.

April 1976

 

Plain Potatoes

Q:

The Rav said that Hakadosh Baruch Hu made fruit beautiful so that we should recognize His kindliness. Wouldn’t we be able to recognize Him even more if He also made potatoes beautiful?

A:

This person wants to know why Hashem didn’t make potatoes more colorful.

So imagine here is a beautiful red potato with a touch of yellow too; and it’s so beautiful that immediately you take it and you bite into it. You won’t recognize Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s kindness for that. You’ll be holding your belly and saying, “Why did Hakadosh Baruch Hu tempt me for nothing?!”

So the potato says, “Be patient.  Take your time with me.  Put me on the stove in some water.  Cook me.  Some onions too.  And then you’ll see it’s worth waiting.  Patience will pay off.”

And so Hakadosh Baruch Hu made everything with a plan.  Those fruits that are luscious when they’re ripe, so they’re beautiful as soon as they’re ripe because they are telling you, “Please eat me right now. I’m ready for you”  Hakadosh Baruch Hu, when He gives us food, He’s not just throwing us a lump of vitamins and saying, “Eat.”  No.  He is serving us with kindness.y “Look, my children,” He says, “Doesn’t this look nice?  Go ahead.” It’s like a mother who is down on her knees begging the child, “Please, my child, take a bite.  Do me a favor.”  That’s the Almighty saying to us, “Look, isn’t it nice?  I made it beautiful for you. I want you to be attracted to it so you should get busy eating it.”

But the potato, He doesn’t want to attract us to this.  You’ll get a stomachache if you’ll hurry and eat it. So He gives it a plain unattractive color.  “Take your time, My son,” He says. “Don’t be in a hurry.  When you’ll bake it and you’ll cook it, then you can eat it.”

So all those fruits and vegetables that are not fit to eat right away, Hakadosh Baruch Hu makes them not colorful in order to engender patience. The bland color means, “Don’t be in a hurry because it’s not good to eat us right away.” But all those things that are pre-cooked on the tree and are ready to eat, they are beautiful.

June 1999

 

Family Fruit

Q:

Watermelons are now in season and it got me thinking. You said that ready to eat fruit are colored by Hashem to attract our attention. So why is a watermelon not colored gaily outside?  It should be colored red like an apple or golden like an orange.

A:

He’s asking a good question. An apple is bright red. An orange has a beautiful golden color. Why isn’t a watermelon bright red on the outside? Inside is a bright crimson but outside is green. Why isn’t the watermelon red on the outset like an apple?

The answer is that an apple is a one-time offer. It’s intended for one person, a one-time morsel, because if you bite into the apple in all probability you’ll finish it up. You don’t need help to eat up an apple. And therefore Hashem made red to attract you, to make you want to eat it.

But a watermelon – let’s say you’re walking by a fruit stand and you see a bright red watermelon. So you get in the mood and you buy it and you’ll take a knife and cut into right away. And you’re eating it as you walk down the street.

But how much can you eat already? You would dive in and eat a big chunk but that’s all you can do. Any more and you’ll get a stomachache. What can you do with it? In the olden days, they weren’t as rich as we are today; there was no refrigeration.  So you throw it in the gutter. It’s a pity. The rest would rot away. It would go to waste. You had to eat up now or nothing.

So Hashem says, “Nothing doing.” He gives it a ‘patient’ color that doesn’t attract you right away. These big fruits, melons, cantaloupes, don’t have beautiful colors on the outside because they are community fruits, family deserts.

So the watermelon says, “Have patience!” And before you cut into it, you say, “I’ll call together my family first.” Only when the whole family gathers and you’re all squatting on your haunches around your watermelon, that’s when you decide to open it up. No impatience, no impulsiveness, and everybody will eat his share and it won’t be wasted. And so because of the watermelon’s patient color, it’s something the family can eat.

That’s why all the big fruits are not colored so beautifully outside, to encourage patience whereas one-man fruit, oranges, bananas, grapes, apples, are beautifully colored to induce you to eat them right away.

You have to study that because we have two reasons, two cases why the color is not attractive. Either the thing is not fit to eat now; like the potato; it’s injurious to eat it now and the color warns you that you would only cause harm to yourself by eating it now. And the second is, if it’s too big for one person so the color causes you to be patient until the family gathers and then you can make the best use of it.

December 1979

 

Stealing Kiwis

Q:

Kiwis are a one person fruit so why do they have a poor look?

A:

The kiwi has a poor look because when the kiwi grows –  they’re originally a wild fruit and the monkeys and rodents and other animals of the jungles have different ways of being attracted to the fruit. Kiwis, Hakadosh Baruch Hu made for animals in the wild. The monkeys are the ones pulling it out of the tree and therefore when the kiwi is ripe, it attracts the monkeys. The monkeys pull it off. Only that people in those neighborhoods near the jungle, they keep a sharp eye out and they try to get them before the monkeys. The kiwi looks like a monkey’s head.

March 2001

 

Nuts for Traveling

Q:

Why aren’t nuts also beautifully colored to attract our attention?

A:

Why isn’t the pecan brightly colored? Or the filbert; why isn’t a beautiful red or pink?

The answer is their Creator doesn’t want them to be beautiful. He wants them to be carried along in your pockets for journeys because inside it’s full of nourishment.  It’s full of fat and protein.  You know sometimes you can take a match and ignite the meat – you can ignite it; it’ll burn because it’s so full of fat. Because that’s what you need for energy if you’re on the journey.

Now, if it had a beautiful color you’d eat it up immediately and nothing would be left for the rest of your trip.  So the Creator makes it a color that encourages patience:  “Nothing to be excited over the color here.  There’s nothing exciting here.” So you have patience with it.  That’s why nuts don’t have any beautiful colors because it’s supposed to encourage patience.

That’s why nuts have a tough carrying case by the way. Because they’re for later, for lunch.  But if you carry your lunch like a plum it’ll get squashed and spoiled.  So Hashem made a lunchbox, a hard carrying case and you can carry it for weeks and months.

September 1984

 

The Self Made Man

Q:
How does one fulfill bechina, the study of Hashem in nature? From one’s own abilities or from outside sources?

A:
I’ll answer this question – but first an introduction. Bechina is the study of nature; a study of the world around us that we undertake in order to recognize the wisdom of Hashem and the kindliness of Hashem.  And according to the Chovos Halevovos in Sha’ar HaBechina it’s a very important function of our lives.

So this gentleman asked a question.  Should we study bechina from our own minds or do we have to go to the libraries to read books, or maybe other places, to get information on ways to study bechina?

And the answer is, the best source of bechina is your own two eyes, your own common sense.  The world is full of good things to testify to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.  טוֹב יָצַר כָּבוֹד לִשְׁמוֹ – The Good One created all this glory for His name.  הַכֹּל יוֹדוּךָ – Everything praises you, הַכֹּל יְשַׁבְּחוּךָ – everything increases the honor of Hashem. Only that you have to open your eyes. If you do, wherever you turn, you’ll find food for thought for this subject of bechina.

So you go to your refrigerator and you take out an orange and you put it on the table and look at it. You’re thinking, “Such a beautiful peel. Hakadosh Baruch Hu defends the fruit with a beautiful peel and the peel is coated with a wax, a plastic, to repel small insects. Also it gives it a shine to make it more attractive.

“And inside there’s a pulpy part of the peel so this orange can lie on the table many times for weeks and weeks and still be just as fresh as it formerly was because it’s airtight and it allows the contents to remain fresh and pure. I could leave it here on the table and it’ll be fit to eat after a long wait outside the refrigerator.”

Now, let’s say you’ll take a knife to cut it open. When you look at this beautiful ball of luscious food, it’s all juice, in a golden container. And still this juice, when you cut the container it doesn’t pour out. Now if you take a knife and cut in half a container of orange juice, it would immediately spill out.  But this container you cut in half and it doesn’t spill out.

Now don’t say it’s all pulp.  It’s not all pulp.  The pulp is almost nothing; it’s negligible.  It’s all juice.  But the juice is imprisoned in many tiny cells.  And so when you cut it in half, you rupture a few cells but the juice is contained in the remaining cells.  It’s waiting for you.  It doesn’t spill out.  It’s made like that purposefully.

Now when you see that, that’s bechina. It’s looking at the world around you and seeing Hashem everywhere. That’s one of our most important functions in this world.

You don’t need any books for that.  The world is full of wisdom – use your eyes and you’ll be able to discover Hakadosh Baruch Hu like Avraham Avinu did.  He didn’t go to the library. He looked at the world and he recognized Hakadosh Baruch Hu by means of his eyes and his common sense. הֵכִּיר אֶת בּוֹרְאוֹ – He recognized Hashem without any libraries and that made him great. And everybody can do the same.

May 1987

 

Wisdom in the Trees

Q:

Why do trees grow so high with the fruit out of reach? 

A:

The answer is that the Creator says, “I am preparing something now for people and I want them out of reach while it is being made ready. I don’t want the horses eating from the fruit.“

Horses like apples too, by the way, but it’s not necessarily good for them.  They love apples.  But it’s not good for them, so Hakadosh Baruch Hu put the apples out of reach of horses.  A lot of animals like apples.  Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, “Run after something else. Horses you want to eat, here’s grass. Leave this for human beings.”

And that’s why they’re all on high, these delicacies, these bonbons, red and yellow bonbons.

And while they’re high up they’re being cooked on the tree.  You don’t have to cook them when you get home.  They’re all cooked on the tree.  In the summertime they’re cooking.  You should enjoy the heat of the summer.  It’s a kitchen, cooking these apples.

And the whole time they’re out of reach of the animals.

Now, when the time comes, a man comes along, he says, “How can I get to those apples, all the way up?”

So the tree says, “Look, you’re going to let me by.  Look how beautiful my fruit is.  Look how delicious it is!”

So a man gives a shake and they start coming down.  A horse cannot shake a tree.

And when they’re perfectly ready they begin to even come down on their own. I was once in a place in the summertime and during the night, I happened to wake up.  It was min haShamayim.  Outside was a tree of wild cherries and I heard a pit-pat all night.  The wild cherries were falling.  All night the wild cherries were falling.  Pit-pat, they fell on the lawn underneath.  Pit-pat, pit-pat.  And this rhythm, this music, reminded me of Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s plan that it’s not supposed to remain there.  The purpose is it should come down to us.

Why did it fall off? It was hanging on the tree for months and now it falls off. The answer is that the tree knows that we cannot climb. We can’t fly so it drops the apple down to us. There’s a timer inside the apple, a timer, that’s connected to the tree. After a certain time the timer says let go and down comes the apple. We have to think about that.

Because that tree knows that we don’t have any wings to fly up to it. It means the Creator of the trees, He knows we don’t have wings.  If it’s only for the birds, it should remain there.  The tree knows we don’t have wings and therefore it drops its fruit to us. Now isn’t that a remarkable statement?  Only when it ripens it falls down. Niflaos ha’Borei!

June 1995

 

Peaches and Pits

Q:

Why is the peach pit so hard?

 A:

If you walk outside early in the morning, sometimes you see peach pits on the sidewalk. Boys were walking in the street at night eating peaches and they threw the pits on the sidewalks.

Now inside the peach pit, there’s a luscious almond like seed.  So why didn’t the boys eat that seed? The answer is the peach pit is too hard for them to get at the seed.  My father-in-law, zichrono livracha, said this: “In the peach tree, there is nothing as hard as the peach pit.  In the whole tree, there’s nothing as hard as the pit.”

It’s so tough that even the squirrel with its sharp teeth can’t break it open. And that’s saying a lot. If you want to find out, feed a squirrel in the park and while you’re feeding him, try to grab him.  Then you’ll discover what a squirrel’s teeth are.  I once did it when I was a boy.  And still, a squirrel’s teeth can’t break through a peach pit.

Why is it so hard? There are so many materials in the peach tree that could become hard and just this one by accident is hard?

The answer is the peach – it means the Creator of the peach – wants to protect its seed for the generation to come. Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants to protect the seed and it must be protected at all costs. He has to protect them more than anything else on the tree because that’s the future of all peaches in this world.

You know who said that? Benjamin Franklin. A wise goy. That’s why they put his face on a hundred dollar bill. He said the purpose is in order to protect the seed inside. Inside the seed tastes good. If it would be easy, you might open it and eat the seed and then you wouldn’t have any more peach trees or plum trees or apricot trees. So Hashem put it inside this pit to protect it and nobody can get to eat; even animals can’t get at it; it’s too tight, it’s protected. So now we study what’s the purpose of this. In order you should have some more apricot trees. That’s why it’s so hard.

So the peach says, “Come, eat me. Enjoy me. That’s what I’m for.  But the seed, I won’t let you eat.”  And if you try too hard, you’ll go to the dentist.

You know, they sell dates, pitted dates, in the store.  Today they put a warning on the box: ‘Caution: Sometimes there may be a pit left,’ but I ate dates before they put that on the box. And one time I wasn’t careful and it happened to me. I cracked my tooth. I had to go to the dentist the next day and I have a false tooth in front because of that. It cost me 70 dollars, but it was a valuable lesson.  It was worth it because I discovered how hard a pit is.  I lost a tooth but I acquired daas because I was thinking about this subject – why are pits so hard. That’s the most important function of the peach pit – to give daas.

August 1980

 

Made to Open

Q:

Why are nuts more easily opened than peach pits or plum pits?

A:

A nut is fruit to eat.  That’s why it’s there. Forget about what the books say.  A nut is a fruit inside of a carrying case.  If you want to go on a journey in the olden days, you filled your pockets with nuts and you had fats, you had protein, for a long trip. Nuts are a food that’ll last for a half a year or year and it’s in a carrying case.

But in that case, you can break them.  You take a stone and bang it, it breaks.  Nutshells are made to break.  You give them a bang and they break.  It proves they’re made to break.

But the peach pit and the plum pit, even though it’s also as clear as day that it’s made to open up because there’s a seam all around it but you can’t do it. It’s too difficult. It won’t open even with a stone or a hammer. Even with a saw you couldn’t cut it in half. If you take a scroll saw, a coping saw, and try to saw through a pit of a peach, you’ll have some job.

There’s a paste there that is holding it very tight. Try it. You can’t do it. You can’t open it.  But – I want everybody’s attention on this – when you put this pit into the ground it opens up by itself.  It opens by itself!  Because it’s made to open! That’s why there’s a seam. It doesn’t have a seam at the beginning; at the beginning it’s one solid case but as it grows it develops a seam because it’s made to open up in the ground.

March 1981

 

Miracle Soil

Q:

If the peach pit is so hard how does the seed come in contact with the soil and begin to grow?

A:

Isn’t it a wonder that this peach pit that you can’t open with your teeth, no matter how strong your jaws are, but if you throw it into the earth, it’ll open by itself? Did you ever think about that?

Now, we see that it’s made to open because it grows into two halves that are pasted together. Why does it grow into two halves?  Why didn’t it grow in one perfect shell?  The answer is it has to open up so it can’t grow in one perfect shell.  So it grows into two halves and there’s a glue between the two halves. A remarkable thing.

Now, you should take a peach pit in your hand and study it (the Rav took a pit out of his pocket). You see that it’s composed of two halves that are pasted together. And if you look at it a little longer, you see that the rim around the edge of these two halves extends beyond the cavity. Why is that? In order to give it more space to join together so that the paste should make a stronger bond.

It’s remarkable to study that — it’s worth looking at it closely and seeing how the rim juts out beyond in order there should be more space to join the two ends together; the paste has a bigger space to work and it accomplishes a stronger bond because of that. It’s impossible to open.

And yet, when you put it in the ground it opens up ‘by itself’. The two halves separate and the seed is now exposed to the soil to begin growing. How does that nes happen?

The answer is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the great Chemist with a capital C, knows what kind of glue to make. It’s a miracle glue, a special ingredient that when you put it in the ground so the bacteria in the soil they get busy on that glue and they destroy it and it opens up by itself. Otherwise it wouldn’t open up and we wouldn’t have peaches.

So what does the peach pit come to tell us? It comes to tell us there’s a Borei pri haeitz. It’s not a natural thing. It’s a nes. It’s a nes! And so this little peach pit saying, “Look at me and recognize the greatness of my Maker.”

More than for making peaches their function is, יוֹדוּךָ הַשֵּׁם כָּל מַעֲשֶׂיךָ – Hashem all your works praise you, כְּבוֹד מַלְכוּתְךָ יֹאמֵרוּ – they speak of the glory of Your kingdom.

That’s why I say that once in a while you shouldn’t throw the pit away. Wash it off, dry it, and put it in your pocket to carry with you at all times. And use it as a study; every so often take it out of your pocket and study it.

“Why did I make a peach pit?” Hashem says to us. “Just to throw it into the wastebasket, in the garbage can?! I made it for the purpose you should look at it. לְהוֹדִיעַ לִבְנֵי הָאָדָם גְּבוּרֹתָיו – to make known to man the mightiness of Hashem.

And so now we have two reasons for the peach pit. One reason is it’s so hard in order to teach us that we have to save the seed to plant some more peach trees. And the second reason is it’s made that way to teach us to see the hand of Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the world, the yad of Hashem in the briyah. It’s an eidus, it testifies to the Borei. And that reason is more important. It’s more important than the purpose of having some more peach trees.

November 1974

 

Watermelon and Hitler

Q:

What did you mean earlier when you said that you can prove the existence of Gehenom from the watermelon?

A:

Now this is going to take the rest of the hour so relax and listen.

You know, once you open the watermelon you’ll notice a queer thing. Why is it that only the outside is deep green but the peel inside has no color at all? Why doesn’t the dark green continue into the depth of the peel? The peel is a half inch thick and except for the outside peel, it’s colorless. And then the red starts. A cross section will show three colors. What kind of business is this? The fruit is like a flag – red, white and green.

It’s a marvelous thing that it can manufacture such various areas of color.

A red area? Where does it get the red from? You think the red comes from the seed of the watermelon? Cut open the seed. There’s no redness inside, no dark green, no colors.

So the plant can manufacture a red color for the flesh and it makes it colorless for the rind and green for the outside, for the thin layer of green. So you see something there. It’s purposeful.

What’s the purpose? Outside is green because that’s how you know whether it’s ripe or not. If it’s deep green, experienced people know whether it pays to buy this watermelon. But a watermelon that’s not ripe it’s not deep green. But why waste color? So the color is very thin. No wasting. It’s all planned.

Now the rind doesn’t have to be any color but when you come to the meat, the meat is red. The question arises why is it that the watermelon flesh inside is colored red?  Is red an accident?  Why is it that before it’s fit to eat, it’s not colored deep red?  People who sell watermelons and they want to show the customers that it’s ripe, they plug the watermelon.  They cut a plug out and say, “Look at it.” And they show you how deep red it is.  Why is something red when it’s ripe?

The answer is to make it more fun when you eat it.  It’s more fun to eat red watermelon.  That’s why when your wife makes ice cream for the children’s parties, even if it’s white ice cream, she sometimes will put in a coloring to make it pink.  Why make it pink?  Because it’s more fun to eat something pink.

Isn’t that right?  That’s why the bride has pink cheeks.  A bride could have white cheeks, white as chalk.  They’re colored pink in order to make it more attractive.  And so Hakadosh Baruch Hu makes watermelons red inside because He wants it to be more fun. That pink ice cream won’t taste any better than white ice cream but the answer is it looks better. It’s more appetizing. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu when He is serving you this ice cream – watermelon is better than ice cream – so He colors it red, a beautiful tint of red. And that way you eat it with more gusto, with more zest. It’s to make it more enjoyable.

But why isn’t it red throughout?  As soon as you come to the rind, about three quarters of an inch, it’s white.  It’s no longer red.  Why isn’t it red down to the green rind?  The answer is you need a thick shell for the watermelon.  It’s a heavy fruit.  It can’t have a thin shell.  It would collapse of its own weight so you must have a heavy shell around the watermelon.  Therefore you need a thick rind, almost an inch thick, to protect the watermelon.  But if the rind had been colored red, you would continue eating your way through the watermelon into the rind and it would give you a stomachache.  So therefore the red color stops before you reach the rind to let you know ad kan; up to here you can eat and from now on you reject.

So the color is purposeful.  It’s clear as could be that there’s a plan here. The outside is colored green only with a very thin layer of color to let people know that it’s ripe. The purpose of the redness is to make it delectable, to make you happy, and the colorless rind warns you when you should stop eating so you shouldn’t get ill, so you should discard it.

Now, there’s more. The watermelon is sugary, it’s sweet. But the question is if you open up the seed of the watermelon, you don’t see any red and it’s not sugary.  Why is it that the seed doesn’t have the same taste as the watermelon?  And the answer is the seed is not supposed to be eaten.  The seed is to be protected against eaters.  The seed has to prepare a new generation of watermelons for you.  If the seeds were just as delicious as the watermelon, people would make it their business to eat up the seeds.  So Hakadosh Baruch Hu made the seeds not colored inside, not red.  There’s no color inside.  And no taste.  There is a certain fat there but no taste of watermelon.  It’s not sugary. So even though you might be a persistent fellow and you’ll bring in from your tool chest a pair of pincers and hold onto the seed and you’ll bite into the seed, it’s not as rewarding as a watermelon. And that’s because there’s a plan here – the Creator of the watermelon doesn’t want you to eat the seeds.

That’s why, in addition to not having a watermelon taste, the seeds are slippery. In case you were interested in chewing the seeds, you’d find that by putting a little pressure on them they fly out in all directions. Because it’s not just wet. The wetness of the watermelon is not slippery. It’s not the juice of the watermelon that’s slippery.  Take the juice between your fingers.  You see that it’s not slippery.  The seed is coated with a certain mucus that makes it slippery.

Now they’re slippery on purpose, for the purpose of evading you. In case you want to bite into it, it flies out and that’s how you find it under the furniture a half year later when you go do bedikas chametz. At bedikas chametz you find watermelon seeds in the most unexpected places. You find some seed hiding under the furniture because watermelon seeds have a system of flying out into space because they’re slippery.

I told you once.  I once visited many years ago a farm and on the farm there was a group of cottages where the Negro workers had lived.  I walked over to the cottages and I saw a watermelon growing right next to the steps.  I was a city boy and I thought somebody had left a watermelon there.  As I tried to pick it up, I saw it was attached to the ground.  How was it that watermelons grew next to the steps?

So the old man who owned the farm told me the colored people, in the evening when they came home from work, they took big slices of watermelon with a knife and began chewing. And as they were eating, the seeds were shooting in all directions.  And because they ate on the steps, that’s where the watermelons grew, on the side over there.

By nature that’s what’s supposed to happen.  If you didn’t spoil nature by having rugs on your floor and underneath the rugs parquet and underneath the parquet you have boards, if you had real earthen floors like I saw in Europe in the small towns, and you would neglect to sweep them, you’d have watermelons growing in your floor.  And that’s the purpose of the slippery seeds.

And so the purpose of the seed is to evade the eaters; so you see it’s purposeful.  The purpose is that the seed should elude your teeth. As your teeth close down on the watermelon seed, the seed gains impetus from the force and it shoots out like a bullet across the room.  That’s a mechanism to protect the seed from the eaters.

But how did the seed become slippery? Is it an accident?  Could this ever happen by accident?  It’s so purposeful, it’s so planned.  You see that the purpose is that the seed should be protected from the eaters.

And that’s why the seeds are spread out. As you eat the watermelon, wherever you eat you have to spit out seeds. Why aren’t there seeds in one place? Because that’s the plan – you can’t avoid spitting them out. And they’re loose for that purpose too. Why is it that the watermelon seed is loose inside the watermelon?  It didn’t grow loose.  It can’t grow loose.  Nothing loose can grow.  Connecting the watermelon seed to the watermelon in every case there was a little pipe, a little water main through which the material flows from the fruit into the seed.  So why is it that when it becomes ripe all the seeds are now loose? And the seeds never become loose too soon.  You won’t find unripe seeds that are loose.  It’s only after it ripened and it’s capable of germinating when you put it in the earth, only then it becomes loose.

So you see that the watermelon was created with loose seeds and they’re spread out all over the watermelon. What’s that about? The answer is that the watermelon was created so that you can’t eat watermelon without spitting out seeds. Because spitting is part of the job. You have to work while you’re being fed. In the good old times when you didn’t have any sidewalks so you spit out seeds and the next year watermelon vines were growing all over the place.

So what do we see from the seed?  The watermelon seed teaches us that there is purpose in nature.  There is intelligence in nature, that every little detail is planned with a purpose.

The truth is what we said about the purpose now is just kindergarten talk because we didn’t talk yet about the seed itself. Inside the seed itself, each seed has recorded instructions how to produce a watermelon vine, how to produce roots, how to produce branches and leaves, how to produce a watermelon, how to make colors, how to make different layers, how to make the entire layout that it all should be one harmonious design.

Do you know how many volumes of encyclopedias you would need if you put the instructions that are coded on the DNA molecules in the watermelon seed and put them in print? This hall here is not big enough to have enough shelves with books that would be filled with blueprints to reproduce the plans that are coded in one seed. It’s a fact. They’re encoded on the strands of the DNA instructions in one watermelon seed and it doesn’t go wrong. No errors in print.

Now even the best scientific books today you’ll find mistakes in printing. They spend a lot of money proofreading. Always there’s some error in printing but there are no errors in the DNA. They always reproduce faithfully.

And not only the instructions are there but the machinery to carry it out is there. That’s even more than instructions. The entire apparatus to actually put the instructions into effect is in the seed.

Now, when you see all of that, you understand there is a plan here. But the question is, who made that plan? By itself it happened? So you see there’s a great Designer here. There’s infinite plan and purpose in the watermelon. It’s only a crazy person, a lunatic, who will say that the DNA is a result of an accident, that this whole design happened by itself. Of course they’re saying it but when people say things in unison, they’ll say a lot of silly things because each one is supported by a great array of lunatics, a great regimen of lunacy. All the lunatics together saying the same thing so therefore each one is reinforced by the presence of the others. But we understand they’re crazy. It’s an act of supreme design and how can you have supreme design without a Supreme Designer?  It’s common sense.  Unless a person is willfully blind it’s just plain common sense that there’s a Supreme Designer.

Now if there’s a Supreme Designer – not only a watermelon but in billions of objects that are in this world, sometimes much more complicated – so the question is how could He make a design that people like Hitler should be able to kill innocent victims and in the meantime he’s living a life of luxury?  Hitler had every kind of ta’avah that he desired. And finally when he no longer wanted to live, he saw he was losing, so he took a painless and perfumed poison and he was wafted out of this world.  Is that yosher?  Can that be the end result of a Supreme Designer?  If a Designer is so perfect that billions of details all cooperate in the utmost precision, how is it that this detail doesn’t cooperate?  If Hitler can leave the world painlessly and pleasantly so this detail is not cooperating.

If there’s plan and purpose, infinite plan and purpose just in a watermelon seed, so you’ll say the whole world is chaotic, that the whole world is purposeless? Certainly the world has a purpose. So what purpose is there if a Hitler can murder six million innocents for nothing just out of plain wickedness, deviltry and then when he sees that the allies are beginning to close in on him and he might be put to trial and hanged like the others were hanged, he takes a perfumed poison and he floats off out of this world and he escapes punishment? Is that a plan? Is that a design? Can’t the One who made a watermelon seed make a better plan for this world than that?

The answer is certainly. There’s a beautiful plan there. As soon as he slipped out of this world he fell into the hands that were waiting for him and he was taken right to the bottom place in Gehinom. There’s no question. Hitler is burning in Gehinom for now and forever. For now until forever he’s burning in Gehinom. If anybody will have the slightest doubt of that, he is contradicting all the purposefulness of creation, all the wisdom that we see in the world.

Now, I am just starting the subject. I need another half hour at least. The subject isn’t finished yet but for now that’s enough.  The watermelon proves that there’s a Supreme Designer Who created a very very wise world and it’s axiomatic that in a wise world, in a purposeful world, the wicked will not get away by dying from the retribution that they deserve for their misdeeds.

July 1981

 

Seeing Seeds

Q:

How can we achieve a real sensory perception of the wisdom of the Creator?

A:

The Kuzari quotes the Navi who says שְׂאוּ מָרוֹם עֵינֵיכֶם – Rraise up your eyes on high, וּרְאוּ מִי בָרָא אֵלֶּה – and see who created these (Yeshaya 40:26).  “Look at the stars,” the Navi says, “and see the greatness of their Creator.”

So the Kuzari says, “You don’t need the stars. You can look at the seeds under your feet too.”

And so we’ll obey the Kuzari. מִצְוָה לִשְׁמוֹעַ דִּבְרֵי חֲכָמִים – It’s a mitzvah to listen to him.

So take this sample that I gave you, the seeds that I gave out, and hold it in your hand. And you have to know that in this tiny space, in this little seed, you have all the details, all the plans, of how the apple tree has to be produced.

Now that’s something that will require a tremendous amount of printed information. If you would put it in books, you wouldn’t find a library big enough to hold those fat volumes of information for how to produce even one leaf of a tree. But an apple tree has not only one leaf – it has leaves and it has sap and it has roots and it has bark and it blossoms.  The blossoms themselves are a complex industrial complex.

Therefore in order to produce an apple tree, you must have hundreds of thousands of volumes of printed information and they’re all here, in code.  They’re put on shelves.  If you would see illustrations of how the code is arranged you’d see it’s arranged in shelves.

Now, that in itself should give us the greatest admiration for this object here.  No computer – the most expensive one – is as equipped with as much information as this seed is.

But a computer after all, even if it would contain all this information, is not a factory.  It only can give you information.  But this tiny little bunch of Divine wisdom has in it not only all the knowledge, all the information that’s necessary, but it has all the apparatus that’s necessary to produce an apple tree.  That’s even more remarkable! It’s a factory!

And so the seed spits in the face of the evolutionists!  A seed with such planning! Will you say a computer happened by accident?  And the seed makes a computer as simple as a pebble in comparison. A not only a tremendous computer but a tremendous factory.

Suppose you’re eating an apple and suddenly you bit into a quarter inside of it.  Ah!  That would be a miracle.  A quarter inside of an apple.  A quarter shows purposefulness.  A quarter is a very purposeful thing.  It’s not an accident.

Now, for people who are dumbbells like most people are, a seed is an accident, but a quarter, even they admit is not an accident.  A quarter has a stamp on it.  A quarter has a picture on it and a date and it tells how much it’s worth.  And a quarter has on it, “In God we  trust.”  A quarter has milling around its edge so you shouldn’t slice off pieces of the silver and make profit on it.  That’s why there’s milling around the end of the quarter and a dime.  So the quarter you understand is a chochma.

But the seed makes a quarter look like nothing.  Only that Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn’t want you to notice them so he makes them inconspicuous. If it looked fancy like a quarter so people would take seeds and put it in their pockets and no more trees would grow.  So Hashem made the seeds inconspicuous.  You know, they have no color.  There’s almost no color; it blends with the soil.  So as you’re eating the apple the seeds fall on your beard and after you finish eating, you make a borei nefashos and you stroke your beard, and the seeds fall on the ground.  You don’t notice them.  The seed says, “Don’t notice me.”  The seed doesn’t want to be noticed.

Why do people spit out the seeds?  Why don’t they eat the seeds?  Apple seeds are not bad to eat.  Because when you get through with the apple, you’re discouraged from finishing up the whole thing because the ovaries where the seeds are are covered with a plastic stuff; you’ll find there are plastic shields around the seeds. Sometimes you get them in your teeth.  They’re quite troublesome and you shouldn’t swallow them.  It’s like bones. They get stuck in your throat.

That’s why everybody leaves over the core of the apple. When people come to the core, instead of bothering with extricating the seeds from all that mess, they throw the core away.

Oh, you throw the core away?  “Thank you,” nature says.  And nature accepts the core with thanks; and it falls on the earth, the seeds get to work and another apple tree is coming up.

So you’ll ask what about the orange seeds? They’re not protected in plastic. The answer is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu made the seeds taste bitter. You noticed that? The seeds of the orange are bitter. So years ago I said that it’s in order that we shouldn’t eat them; we should spit them out to make sure that our children or we in our old age will have orange trees.

I said that on my own many years ago by myself until finally I came across a Department of Agricultural bulletin and it said the same thing.  Only he’s an apikores.  He’s an evolutionist and he said, “Oranges evolved a protective mechanism.  The oranges had the foresight to evolve a mechanism to avoid eaters.”  It means that according to this ‘chochom’,  billions of years ago oranges were planning ahead so the oranges should remain for the future so they made bitter seeds.  Alright. A real genius. Such a design, a wisdom, evolved from nothing. There are brains here, a real wisdom in the seed.

So you have to ask a question: Let’s open up the tree and looks for its brains.  Where is all this learning at?  Where is it stored?  Where is the wisdom that the tree possesses?  In which region?  Is it in the bark?  Is it in the pit?  Where is the wisdom of the tree?

The answer is, the tree is nothing at all.  There is a Divine Wisdom that has planned everything and knows everything. That’s what an apple seed says. An apple seed says, “Look at my Creator! רְאוּ מִי בָרָא אֵלֶּה – Look at Who created me!”

That’s why I recommend studying the apple seed. Let’s say you’re eating an apple; spit out the seeds and put them in your pocket. Carry it around with you from time to time. I do it. I keep apple seeds in my pocket, and when I’m walking down the street I take them out sometimes to look at them. I marvel at them. People write to me that I should send them some of my seeds. I go to the post office and I mail my seeds to people. Apple seeds are nissei nissim!

October 1999

 

Epilogue

Now all this, you have to know, is the alphabet of studying peiros.  This is kindergarten-wisdom that you heard here tonight. Although it’s worth going to such a kindergarten because as we study these fruits we’re fulfilling the main purpose of the fruits.

Because we learn there are two purposes in nature.  One purpose is to cause mankind happiness.  That’s one of the purposes in nature.  Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave these things to make us happy.  Like Tosfos says in Brachos, we don’t need apples – it’s in order to make us happy.  Grapes, figs, dates, olives.  The purpose is to afford us more pleasure in life.

But there’s another purpose and that purpose is to teach us wisdom, to teach us emunah, to teach us to recognize the Creator as if we actually saw Him with our eyes. All the things we spoke about, all the niflaos ha’Borei.

Now of the two benefits, the benefit of enjoying the apple, and the benefit of gaining the wisdom of the apple and learning about His Creator, the second benefit is the most important. And if we’ll approach Chamishah Asar B’Shvat with this attitude we could utilize it to have a lasting effect not only for that day but for the rest of the year and the rest of our lives.

January 1983