What is the origin of the custom of eating honey on Rosh Hashanah: 5 things you didn't know

September 18, 2020   

What is the origin of the custom of eating honey on Rosh Hashanah? The Gemara cites types of foods that are eaten on Rosh Hashanah as a good omen. However, there is one food that is not mentioned in the Gemara and almost everyone is careful to have on the table on Rosh Hashanah - honey. This custom is already ancient and has already been mentioned in the sayings of the rabbis, and this is in the words of the great Rabbi Nutronai: "And what we eat of barley grains and drink of honey, is so that the coming year may come to us with good." In Or Zar'u (Reish Hilchot Rosh Hashanah) and in Mordechai (Reish Yoma), the verse stated in Ezra is cited in connection with the custom of eating honey: "Eat of fat things and drink of sweets." The Sefer Harokach (Hilchot Rosh Hashanah, Section 6 - 2nd ed) wrote that there is an allusion to this in the verse in Psalm 5 of the Psalms: "In the month of the trumpet in the cover of the day of our feast" etc. ... and at the end it is stated: "And I will feed him with milk of wheat and with honey of honey, which I will bless you.". The scientific discovery that illustrated the words of the sages Later studies have revealed two amazing facts: 1. The bee has two stomachs. The nectar from which honey is made does indeed enter the bee's mouth along the same path as food, but it does not enter the digestive stomach but rather a special stomach, the honey stomach, which has a one-way valve that completely prevents the nectar and the honey it produces from any kind of contact with materials from the bee's digestive system. This special stomach has no digestive juices at all! 2. The bee turns the nectar into honey by mixing it with enzymes, most of which break down after they have turned the nectar into honey and almost no trace of them remains! (Apart from the fact that they are not large enough for the eye to see without a magnifying glass, and therefore they are considered bacteria, and their consumption is not prohibited) and the amount of them remaining in the honey relative to the pure nectar is less than one percent! Which is defined in the halachah as invalid by sixty. It is now clear why we are permitted to eat bee honey. And here, 'amazingly', all of this was already accepted by the Sages in the Oral Torah, in the form of the following short and energetic sentence that appears in the Talmud: "Honey from bees is permitted. Because they put it into their bodies, and they do not exhaust it from their bodies" (according to the article by the rabbi, Rabbi Zamir Cohen). Specifically raw honey, and specifically bee honey In the book Leket Yosher, he wrote: "Live honey is a good sign to eat in the sight of God, and bee honey is the best - because bees are blood for judgment, because they sometimes take revenge, as is proven from the verses, and what comes out of them is sweet. And it is a sign that we are moving from the standard of judgment to the standard of mercy; and it is precisely live, a sign of life..."" The special clue to the answer in honeybees Another reason is written in the book Ya'ata Moreh (p. 77) that for this reason they used to eat honey with a grain of salt, to imply that there is a remedy for those who return to God with a whole heart, because just as honey turns the complete prohibition into a permissible one (P., Daita in Matani, Bekorot 5:2: That which comes out of the unclean is unclean. And they said there, in the Book of Genesis, page 7:2: Why did they say that bees' honey is permissible? Because they put it into their bodies, and they do not exhaust it from their bodies. He said, Rabbi Ya'akov, who said, "Dubsha, Rachma, Shariya, p. 111) so also if your sins are like years, they will be white as snow. (From the article by Rabbi Aryeh HaCohen Pleshnitsky in the issue of Me'orot Kashrut, Tishrei 5779). Allusion in the Torah, a change in the prophets, and a triplet in the scriptures The Maharil brings it on behalf of Mahari Segal, because this is implied in the Torah, repeated in the Prophets, and tripled in the Scriptures: In the Torah – it is written (Exodus 15:25) "There He appointed for Him a law and a statute"… and Rosh Hashana is the day of judgment, and the emphasis on it is "and the waters were made sweet," meaning: on the day of judgment, they would eat sweet things. In the Prophets: it is written (1 Samuel 25:33) "And it came to pass in the ten days that Nabal died," and it is written in the Book of Genesis: 'And Nabal made wine and sweet things.' And the ten days were the ten days of repentance. Is it not from here that it is written (Isa. 8:11) "On a good day we have come," and Erzal is the day of Rosh Hashanah, and he is referring to it as bringing to David a sheaf of raisins and raisins, which are types of sweets. In the scriptures: In the Book of Psalms (19:10-11) it is written: "The judgments of the Lord are true, righteous together," and he is referring to it as "sweeter than honey and the nectar of the stars," a judgment of the Lord on the day of judgment on Rosh Hashanah (and he also cites there the verses that the AoZ and the pharmacist brought, above). • Courtesy of 'Darshu''