Honey for Rosh Hashanah? Time to Think Again

It’s hard to find many things all Jews can agree on. In fact, it’s probably impossible. But there is one tradition that unites the Jewish people (ok, most of them) for one moment, during Rosh Hashanah: dipping a slice of apple in honey and wishing each other a sweet new year.

But with declining bee population due to the harmful large scale honey industry, and the ethical debate over industrial honey consumption, does honey still have a place on our Rosh Hashanah table? Is there any substitute to this biblical staple, that carries the same weight as one of the traits of the promised land?

“The term honey in the Bible is not conclusive,” said Professor Abraham Ofir Shemesh of
Israel Heritage Department, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ariel University in Israel. In fact, it may mean dates, date syrup (or silan, as it is known in Israel,) or sometimes bees honey. “It depends on the context.”

When God promises the Israelites in the desert to bring them to a “good land,” “a land of wheat and barley, vines and figs and pomegranates, a land of oil producing olives and honey” (Deuteronomy, 8:8) honey is likely refers to the fruits of dates. “The seven species of the land of Israel refer to the agricultural corps of the land, and bees honey is not an agricultural corp, but a natural source in Israel at the time” said Shemesh. “According to the sages of the Mishna and Talmud, this means the honey here refers either to date honey or, more likely, to the dates themselves,” 

The seven species promise is an antithesis to Egypt, which is a desert. But although Egypt has dates too, the dates of Israel are considered better. “The date palm tree is thermophil, it likes the heat,” said Shemesh “and Israel is on the northern most area where the date grow. The more south you go, the hottest it gets, the dates become harder and drier. The more you go to the north, dates become more juicy, moist and honey-like.” At the time of the sages, date corps in Israel were well known as the best of their kind.

But biblical honey refers to bees honey as well. When God promises Moses at the burning bush “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8,) he refers to the natural sources of the land of Israel, “cows’ milk and bees’ honey, as opposed to Egypt, which is a desert land.” Said Shemesh. 

When we talk about bees honey at the time we know it means a wild bees honey, as the honey industry did not reach Israel at the time, although Egypt and Syria already had agricultural bees honey.

A few of the later sages identify the biblical honey with grape syrup called dibs. Dibs is a thick syrup made of grapes, that was popular in Israel at the time of the sages, and is still prepared these days by the Druze in northern Israel and in Syria. For example, 19th century Italian Jewish scholar, Samuel David Luzzatto, said the dibs is when Jacob sent to his son Joseph in Egypt “take some of the choice products of the land in your vessels, and take down to the man as a gift, a little balm and a little honey, wax and lotus, pistachios and almonds.” (Genesis, 43:11.) The seven species, though, may not refer to dibs, because grapevine is mentioned there specifically, and there cannot be a reiteration.

When Ezra and Nehemiah directed the Jewish people in Jerusalem on Rosh Hashanah in the 5th century BC to “Eat the fat, and drink the sweet….. for this day is holy unto our Lord” (Nehemia 8:10,) that’s the first time we see the connection between honey, or sweets and Rosh Hashanah. “But sweet here means sweet wine,” said Shemesh, “or sweet drinks made of fruits such as figs or grapes, as fruit were the main sweeteners at the time.” Sugar was brought from India to the area by the Arabs only in the 7th century AD.

The book Our Zaru of the 13th century quotes an answer written by the Geonim in Babylon between the 9th and 11th centuries AD, they explain their Rosh Hashanah customs  of eating symbolic foods, including “eating peeled barley and drinking honey and all kinds of sweets to have a fat and sweet new year and so it says in the Book of Ezra eat the fat and drink the sweets.” The ancient traditions were kept for more than a thousand years at this point.

The same book quotes 12th-13th century Rabbi Eliezer Ben Yoel HaLevi as saying his community used to eat a head of a ram and live honey and dip the head in honey remind us the ram of Isaac (the binding of Isaac), and honey so the next year will be fat and sweet.

And how did we get from drinking honey to dipping apples in Honey? Apples, specifically red ones, are first mentioned as a Rosh Hashanah food of the Jews of France in Machzor Vitri, a book written in 1208. “Jews of France used to eat on Rosh Hashanah red apples.” In this part of Europe apples are in season in the fall, during the holiday.

14th century Rabbi Ya’akov ben Asher wrote …”in Ashkenaz, where they are accustomed to eat at the beginning of the meal a sweet apple with honey [and] to say ‘May we have a sweet year’.” 

“But the emphasis here is on the apple, a good apple, and not the honey” said Shemesh. “In the Jewish mystic, the apple has a very significant meaning. Hinting to the Garden of Eden.”

According to the Kabbalists, such as Rabbi Yossef Hayyim of Baghdad in 18th-19th century, apples should be cooked in sugar and not served in honey. This, indeed, is how Iraqi Jews served apples on the holiday until today, as a jam cooked in sugar and spices like cardamom. He even specifies to say the blessing “a sweet new year” without adding “”as sweet as honey” as customary in many communities.

“Honey in the Kabbala doesn’t have a very good symbolism,” said Shemesh. Honey was not allowed as a sacrifice for God in the Temple “For you shall not cause to [go up in] smoke any leavening or any honey, [as] a fire offering to the Lord;” (Leviticus 2:11) the leavening symbolizes the evil inclination. “The leaven rises. That’s a symbol of pride, or arrogance,” added Shemesh, “and so is the honey, as oppose to other liquids, is thick, it has volume, and it suggests something that’s not very good.”

“Maimonides said that the pagans used to spread honey on their sacrifices, and to detach ourselves from the pagans, the Torah forbad to bring honey to the temple, so it will not look like pagan worship.”

Do you want to to spare the bees and try something new this year? You can choose between fresh dates, date syrup or honey (silan,) dibs or just cook apples in sugar, as the Iraqi Jews do. There’s a lot to choose from. And may the new year be as sweet as Israeli dates.