How King Solomon and the Romans Shaped the Judean Date Palm and Groucho Marx in Duck Soup and Sayings by Groucho and You are what you Eat! Parsha Shemini by Rabbi Berel Wein and What's My Line? - Ronald Reagan (Jul 19, 1953) [W/ COMMERCIALS]
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
The Three are Rabbi Yehuda Glick, famous temple mount activist, and former Israel Mk, and then Robert Weinger, the world's greatest shofar blower and seller of Shofars, and myself after we had gone to the 12 gates of the Temple Mount in 2020 to blow the shofar to ask G-d to heal the world from the Pandemic. It was a highlight to my experience in living in Israel and I put it on my blog each day to remember.
The articles that I include each day are those that I find interesting, so I feel you will find them interesting as well. I don't always agree with all the points of each article but found them interesting or important to share with you, my readers, and friends. It is cathartic for me to share my thoughts and frustrations with you about life in general and in Israel. As a Rabbi, I try to teach and share the Torah of the G-d of Israel as a modern Orthodox Rabbi. I never intend to offend anyone but sometimes people are offended and I apologize in advance for any mistakes. The most important psychological principle I have learned is that once someone's mind is made up, they don't want to be bothered with the facts, so, like Rabbi Akiva, I drip water (Torah is compared to water) on their made-up minds and hope that some of what I have share sinks in. Love Rabbi Yehuda Lave.
Parsha SHMINI 5782
All living creatures that exist in our world require nutrition to be able to survive. Human beings, being the most sophisticated of all creatures on this planet, are especially concerned with the food that they eat. Most human beings know that they eat to survive, but there are many, especially in Western society today, that survive to be able to eat.
The variety of foods, recipes and menus that are designed by human beings for their food consumption is almost endless. And medical science has shown us that what and how we eat affects our health, longevity, psychological mood and even our social standing. As such, it becomes almost logical and understandable that the Torah, which is the book of life and of human beings, would suggest and ordain for us a list of foods that somehow would prove harmful to our spiritual health and traditional growth, to prevent man from harm.
In this week's Torah reading, we are presented with such a list of forbidden and permissible foods available for the consumption by the Jewish people, for them to maintain their status as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. The Torah, in effect, is telling us that the physical foods that we consume somehow affect our inner souls, psyches, and patterns of behavior. We are what we eat!
One of the hallmarks of Jewish survival throughout the ages has been the observance of the laws pertaining to kosher food, which takes on not only a physical dimension but an overriding spiritual dimension as well. What Jews eat has become the standard to measure the level of piety and tradition that exists within the national entity of the people of Israel. The Talmud is of the opinion that eating non-kosher food somehow affects our spiritual senses. Commentators thought that eventually generations of Jews who unfortunately consumed nonkosher food became less charitable with their wealth, talents, and time. I know of no survey or statistical study that relates to this issue. However, in my many years as a rabbi of a congregation and as a fundraiser as well, I have noticed that generations of Jews who have assimilated and are no longer observant tend to be less committed towards charitable Jewish causes that were helped by their kosher food-eating ancestors.
There is no question that the laws of kosher food have contributed immensely to the survival of the Jewish people and the strengthening of Jewish core values throughout the ages. Kosher food was and is the hallmark of the Jewish people and remains a bulwark against the ravages of intermarriage and the adoption of value systems that are antithetical to Torah values and traditional Jewish societal life. Perhaps even more than having a mezuzah on the doorpost, having a kosher kitchen brought a feeling of spirituality and godliness into the home, no matter how modest its physical appearance and stature may have been. It is ironic in the extreme that in our current world, where kosher food is so readily and easily available, and with so many varieties of Kosher food, which can satisfy any gourmet pallet, tragically so many Jews have opted out from the observance of eating kosher in their daily lives. A renewed drive to promote the kosher home in all its aspects is certainly needed. Shabbat shalom Rabbi Berel Wein SHMINI 5782 : Rabbi Wein : Jewish Destiny https://www.rabbiwein.com/blog... 1 of 1 3/23/2022, 8:39
How King Solomon and the Romans Shaped the Judean Date Palm
The famed Judean dates began as one variant 2,400 years ago, by the Common Era had become something else and today, are different again
Methuselah, grown from a roughly 2,400-year-old seedCredit: Alex Levac
"And they came to Elim, where were twelve springs of water, and three score and ten palm trees; and they encamped there by the waters." – Exodus 15:27
"They" were the Israelites fleeing Egypt, led by Moses, according to the biblical account. The palm is the date palm and it is mentioned time and again in the Bible. In addition, numerous references to the luscious Judean date appear in historical records from the classical period. The second-century geographer Pausanius for example extols its virtues compared with the Ionian one.
The question is, which date exactly was so revered? The date palms growing in Israel today aren't the same as the ones in biblical and classical times. Those died out hundreds of years ago, though possibly an isolated few still survive in and around Jericho in the West Bank.
But following the germination of roughly 2,000-year-old date seeds and subsequent genetic analysis of the seedlings by Israeli researchers, we know a lot more about the extinct varieties that once flourished in ancient Judea.
The date palm species Phoenix dactylifera has scores of variants that produce fruit distinguished by color, size, flavor and aroma, from the gooey medjool to the less-syrupy zahidi and the midnight hayani. Aficionados sound like sommeliers as they extol the fruit's shimmer, textures and/or whispers of caramel.
The resurrection Date palms were apparently domesticated around 7,000 to 8,000 years ago in the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq. They may have been one of the earliest fruits to be domesticated, commensurately with the olive.
From Arabia, date domestication spread westward and by at least 3,500 years ago had reached Egypt, whence it spread to Libya and the Sahel.
The original wild date was smaller, with seeds about a centimeter long. In the course of domestication, the best plants were selected to breed and the fruit became bigger. By the time of the Second Temple, which began around 500 B.C.E., dates were deeply entrenched in Judean cuisine and culture.
"And
there were made on them, on the doors of the temple, cherubim and
palm-trees, like as were made upon the walls." – Ezekiel 41:25
Dates grew in plantations around Jericho along the Dead Sea and in the Jordan Valley, and were exported around the Mediterranean. They were extolled by classical writers like Strabo, Tacitus and Pliny, not to mention Pausanias who thought the Ionian dates positively revolting; they were given as gifts by King Herod to the Roman emperor, says Sarah Sallon, director of the Natural Medicine Research Center at Hadassah Medical Center. She initiated, planned and wrote up the studies.
"Pliny mentions the large size of these Judean dates," Sallon says. "Six of them were a cubit in length; i.e., stretching from the elbow to the tip of the third finger."
In the last decade, Sallon and Elaine Solowey of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura germinated date seeds that were radiocarbon-dated to between 1,800 and 2,400 years old. The seeds had been discovered by archaeologists at sites in the Judean Desert, including Masada. Seven trees grew.
The
seven trees were named, from the oldest seed to the youngest:
Methuselah, Hannah, Adam, Judith, Boaz, Jonah and Uriel. And lo, genetic
The changes in the genetic makeup of these germinated date palms show that Judean farmers used sophisticated agricultural practices and benefited from different varieties acquired from as far away as Arabia, Babylon and North Africa. The hybrid date variants were a product of their own diaspora and long-distance trade from the Iron Age right up to the Roman period, Sallon suggests.
By the way, how does the fruit of Hannah, one of the female resurrected dates, taste? Like zahidi dates, says Haaretz correspondent Nir Hasson. "Drier and sweeter than the medjool with a taste like natural honey."
King Solomon's trading routes
Before dwelling on the varieties of ancient Judean dates, what about the palms thriving in Israel today? Cultivated date palms in modern Israel were mostly brought from North Africa or Iraq in the 1950s.
"By the 19th century, there were only a few date palms around Jericho and the Dead Sea, producing mostly small dates that visitors at that time wrote were fit only for animals," Sallon says.
Which brings us back to the resurrected specimens. Methuselah and Hannah grew from the oldest seeds, dating some time between the first to fourth century B.C.E. They are closer to eastern varieties of date palm, which grow today from Arabia to Pakistan, Sallon explains. Methuselah was similar to modern varieties that are found in Arabia, while Hannah is more like modern Iraqi varieties.
"By the time of King Solomon [the 10th century B.C.E.] there was trade between ancient Israel and Arabia, which had already been domesticating palm trees for 4,000 years," Sallon says. "Perhaps at that time some of their high-producing cultivars were introduced or possibly were even growing here naturally."
Adam and Judith are 2,000 to 2,200 years old. Boaz may be as young as the mid-first century C.E., and Jonah and Uriel date from about the first or second centuries. These younger palms are more similar to varieties that grow today in North Africa and may reflect Roman trade around the Mediterranean at that time, Sallon says.
As for Hannah and Judith, both are more like modern Iraqi varieties of date palms. "We know from the Talmud that the Jews worked in date plantations during their 70-year exile to Babylon," Sallon says.
"It's possible that on their return to Eretz Israel, they brought back with them female offshoots that are true clones of the mother, a high-producing female tree. When planted, these offshoots would then grow into another super-breeder identical to their mother."
Genome analysis of the ancient date family at NYU by Gros-Balthazard and Prof. Michael Purugganan has shown something else as well. Modern dates today are actually a hybrid of two species of palms, the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) and the Cretan palm (Phoenix theophrastus). This mixing probably happened in the very distant past, and modern dates still show a trace of the Cretan palm in their genome.
Interestingly though, the ancient Judean date palms show significantly more of the Cretan palm than modern dates, and the older they are (Methuselah, Hannah, Adam), the more they have of these genes.
Thus dates growing in the land that is today Israel profoundly changed, starting from tiny things discovered many years ago during excavations at Jericho, possibly wild or in the process of domestication, to the luscious fruit fit for kings by Herod's time, incorporating elements from Arabia, Mesopotamia and North Africa.
A wild date
Are no wild dates left in the Middle East? There might be. A paper in October 2021 by Gros-Balthazard and colleagues discusses the discovery of wild ancestors of the date palm in remote mountains in Oman.
The Omani wild trees are genetically diverse, as befits a true ancestral population, and have rounded seeds that do resemble a close sister species as well as archaeological samples, but not modern cultivars, the scientists write.
It bears adding that these trees do not hold a record for growing from the most ancient seeds. A Russian team reportedly grew a flower, of Silene stenophylla, from a 32,000 year old seed found in deep permafrost, it was reported a decade ago.
Back to the resurrected Judean dates. What are the future plans for them?
"Well, we want to grow them in large quantities using tissue culture and reestablish them in commercial plantations," Sallon answers. "If successful, in a few years, Judean dates may again be a major export of this country ... as they were 2,000 years ago."
Aside from her research into these fascinating dates, Sallon is also keen to have her children's book "The Dates' Tale" published (it will be in English). "It's Methuselah's story from his point of view," she says. "It's also about nature's extraordinary resilience: how seeds so old could be brought back to life. It's a beacon of hope in these difficult times."
Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) meets Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont) for the first time and runs circles around her.
FILM DESCRIPTION:
In this 1933 Marx Brothers film, the mythical country of Freedonia is broke and on the verge of revolution. Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont), Freedonia's principal benefactress, will lend the country 20 million dollars if the president withdraws and places the government in the hands of the "fearless, progressive" Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx). At his inauguration, Firefly shows up late, insults everyone in sight, and sings a song about how he intends to abuse his power. Naturally, the crowd cheers wildly. Meanwhile, Ambassador Trentino (Louis Calhern) of neighboring Sylvania schemes to oust Firefly and take over Freedonia himself. To gather enough evidence to discredit Firefly, he sends his most trusted spies, Chicolini (Chico Marx) and Pinky (Harpo Marx). Five minutes after they show up in Freedonia, both spies become important members of Firefly's cabinet, though Chicolini keeps his day job as a peanut vendor. Firefly eventually declares war on Sylvania, an absurd farrago with Firefly changing uniforms from scene to scene, Chicolini going to the other side because the food is better, and Pinky parading around the battlefield with a sandwich board reading "Join the army and see the navy."
Screenwriters: Bert Kalmar, Nat Perrin, Harry Ruby, Arthur Sheekman
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10 Terrific Quotes By Groucho Marx Edited By: Shai K.
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977), an American comedian and film and television star, was known as a master of witticism and is still considered one of the best comedians of modern times. His razor-sharp wit and incredibly fast answers have created some of the most famous, hilarious and funny quotes that people still use today.
