rosh hashanah

A
Sweet
Year

How bees and honey contribute
to the Rosh Hashanah tradition.

LOUIS FINKELMAN C
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

JESSICA POLK

R

ABOVE: Amalia Haas speaks at
the recent Jewish Food Festival,
where she offered samples of
her Bee Awesome honey.

abbi Shlom
Shlomo Ganzfried,
in his Kitzur
Kitzu Shulhan
Arukh (pub
(published 1864),
endorses an old c custom for
Rosh Hashanah:
“. . . We dip the challah in
honey and, after eating
e
a piece
the size of an oliv
olive, we say,
“May it by your w
will that You
renew for us a goo
good and sweet
year.” After this, w
we dip a piece
of sweet apple
i in honey and
s say the bene-
di
diction, “. . . who
crea
creates the fruit
of the tr
tree,” and, after
eating it, we aga
again say, “May
that you renew
it be your will tha
for us a good and sweet year.”
(129:9)
For Amalia Haas, organic
beekeeper and Jewish educator
from the Cleveland area, this
custom has special meaning.
“In the fall, when we wish
each other a Shanah Tovah

U’metukah, a good and sweet
year, we are really wishing for
the adequate rain, abundant
sunlight and healthy soil that
go into a productive year for
honeybees,” she says. “If the
honeybees benefit, all agri-
culture benefits. For bees to
thrive, the landscape for miles
around has to be healthy for a
long period. It is a big-picture
blessing.”
Haas explains that, unlike
the conditions for other farm
animals, the “conditions for
bees are not localized. Bees fly
within a 10-mile radius. A bee-
keeper has to trust her neigh-
bors … The bees depend on the
practices of neighbors in the
whole 10-mile radius.
“The amount of bee labor
that goes into the production
of honey boggles the mind,”
she says. “An 8-ounce jar of
honey may contain the nectar
of a million flowers. A 12th of a

teaspoon of honey may contain
the lifetime output of a single
bee.”
To produce honey, Haas
explains, “Bees need flowers.
Not just an occasional gladiolus
in the front yard or one rose
bush.”
Our landscapes can have too
few flowers, she explains.
“A suburban neighborhood
can become a desert for bees.
More than half the area is
typically paved-over streets
and sidewalks and houses,” she
says. “The double whammy
comes where people have van-
ity lawns. A manicured lawn is
a food desert for bees. To get
a vanity lawn, people use pes-
ticides and herbicides, which
eventually end up on your
table.”
Rabbi Herschel Finman
thinks about a healthy environ-
ment for bees. In designing
Jewish Ferndale, a new mul-

ticultural Jewish facility, he
considered, but opted against,
installing beehives. He decided
that “a place for everyone
should not be off limits to
those with bee-sting allergies.”
Instead, the facility has a flower
garden to provide sustenance
for bees and other pollinators.
Haas, who is founder and
CEO of Bee Awesome, has stud-
ied Torah in Israel and America,
and uses her knowledge of bee-
keeping to teach Torah.
On a recent trip to Detroit for
the Hazon Jewish Food Festival
at Eastern Market, Haas pre-
sented a talk, “A Land of Milk
and Honey,” at which partici-
pants tasted varieties of honey,
relating the different honey
flavors to the ecosystems that
support them, and to the Torah
of nature. •

To order Haas’ honey, go to
honeybeejewish.com.

continued on page 22

20

September 21 • 2017

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