HOW SWEET IT IS

Unlike non-Jews whose lives are guided solely by the Gregorian calendar and unless we Jews give in to copy-cat behavior, we do not wish one another a Happy New Year. Instead, we extend blessings for a good year, a healthy year and a sweet year. It is this third wish that ought to appeal to our tastes more than any other wish that we either extend or reciprocate.

Wouldn’t it make for a much more interesting Rosh Hashanah, if at each meal, instead of honey, we dipped a piece of our  round challah as well as a slice of our apple into a different type of sugar? We could begin with brown sugar at the first Rosh Hashanah meal, segue into confectioners’ sugar for lunch the first day, go over to sanding sugar (coarse granules, often dyed different colors) for dinner that night and conclude by using table sugar for the final Rosh Hashanah meal, at lunch, the second day of the festival. Aside from the argument found in the Talmud that the honey in question was fig honey rather than bee honey, we would do well to wonder why, in emphasizing a sweet year, we grant honey – that is to say bee honey – an exclusive each Rosh Hashanah?

Those who insist that bee honey is not kosher are unfortunately jumping to conclusions. Savannah Bee, Busy Bee, Sue Bee are three companies that to the best of my knowledge have kosher certification. All three, sell honey derived from bees and honeycombs. Perhaps one of the reasons that honey is our dip of choice is to remind us that an essential ingredient for a a good year is not to jump to conclusions. Just as there is no foundation in claiming that honey from bees can’t be kosher, so too could many a rift have been avoided, innumerable friendships could have remained strong, and untold individuals would have been spared from looking foolish, had all the facts been assembled and carefully assessed a situation. Once someone forgoes the necessary facts and jumps to conclusions, there is simply no way of knowing where that individual will land.

Life is complex. Rarely, if ever are things straightforward. No different is the explanation that while the bee is germane to the production of honey, the bee does not actually “produce” the honey, the same way the cow produces milk. That too is anything but straightforward. Each year, we are apt to find that our pathways of life are filled with blind curves, hairpin turns, lane closures and detours, false stars, breakdowns and accidents. Perhaps for these reasons, we never wish one another an “easy” year. Life is not intended to be easy.

It might very well be that honey is the best visual lingual aid when it comes to explaining the aphorism “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Like so many other foods that any number of us simply love to eat, what is of essence is not the process, but the final product. Few, if any are interested in how hotdogs are made, how hamburgers start out and how Jell-O comes into being. Similarly, I have yet to meet anyone who has been devastated or even hurt  by somebody else’s intentions; I have yet to encounter someone who has been publicly humiliated by another person’s thoughts. It is the bee that stings, not the honey.

We ask HaShem’s blessing for a year that is mere days old. Let’s develop a taste for wishing each other  sweet times ahead. We pray that 5779 is as honey of a year. .