The Law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; …sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb (Psalm 19:7, 10).
Why dip an already sweet apple in even sweeter honey? If you type this question in on any search engine you will find a number of thought provoking answers. But here, we want to share just one of those many answers from Aron Moss from an article he wrote called called Sweet Stings*:
There is a difference between the sweetness of an apple and the sweetness of honey. An apple is a sweet fruit which grows on a tree. …honey comes from a bee–an insect that is not only inedible, it actually stings. Nevertheless the honey that it produces is sweet. In fact, honey is sweeter than an apple!
Similarly, there are two types of sweetness in our lives: we have times of family celebration, successes in our careers, personal triumphs and harmonious relationships. These are sweet times like the apple is sweet. But then there is a different type of sweetness; a sweetness that comes from times of challenge. When things don’t go the way that we would like them to, when tragedy strikes, when our job is in jeopardy, when we fail to reach the goals we expected of ourselves, when our relationships are being strained and tested, when we feel alone.
At the time when we are facing these challenges, they seem bitter and insurmountable, like the sting of a bee. …We have all experienced events in our lives that at the time were painful, but in retrospect we say, “Thank G-d for the tough times–imagine where I would be without them!”
So we eat apples and honey on the first day of the new year. We bless each other and ourselves that in the year to come the apples should bring sweetness, and that the bee stings should be even sweeter!
EIN PRAT Fountainheads*** recorded a fun Rosh Hashanah parody called Dip Your Apple. You can download the lyrics here and enjoy Dip Your Apple in the You tube link below.
* Sweet Stings
** appointed times
*** The Fountainheads are a group of young Israeli singers, dancers, and musicians, all graduates and students of the Ein Prat Academy for Leadership, who have joined forces to create new Jewish artistic content for today’s Jewish world. – from The Fountainheads website
