The Forbidden Fruit

"Don't eat from that tree, it's the forbidden fruit," Aaron said as we passed a pomegranate tree (rimonim in Hebrew). What? I had always heard that the fruit picked from the tree of knowledge was an apple. Thinking about it for a moment, it occurred to me that apples probably don't grow so well in this region. I know, it takes a genius to figure that one out. Apparently lots of people came to this conclusion long before I did. We started talking about it more, and there are numerous theories about what the forbidden fruit actually was. Pomegranate? Fig? Wheat?! Wheat seemed odd to me. But it is a staple of life, and some attribute this incident to the need for humans to become an agriculture-based society. Some food for thought.



Speaking of food...something I have been told many times since arriving here, in fact, it has probably happened every time I walk past the date trees with a kibbutz member, I am told about the land of milk and honey. The honey referred to in this context was probably not the honey that comes from bees, I am told, but very likely from dates. It must have been some pretty intensely sweet honey.

Interestingly, a 2000-year-old date seed was found on Masada, efforts were made to germinate it, and now there is an attempt to grow a tree from it. The really cool thing is that Dr. Elaine Soloway, an expert in desert agriculture, a professor at the Arava Institute, and a member of Kibbutz Ketura, is the one doing it. She has successfully grown a sapling at this point and believes that in the next couple of years we will know whether it is male or female, and soon we will hopefully know what the dates tasted like when the Romans occupied the land. There is a great article in Ha'aretz that gives a nice summary of the project.

Dates are one of the economic pillars for the Kibbutz. Not only does it have a lot of historical meaning, but it is central to life here. They are definitely found in abundance. We can visit the date sorting area, where the "rejects" are removed and the rest are prepared for export. The rejects are probably better than anything I've ever had in the States, though. At some point I will probably get sick of eating this delicious and rich food, but like hummus, it hasn't happened yet.



Ketura also relies on their dairy cows for revenue. There is a kibbutz maybe 2 km away from here that has a huge dairy processing plant, and the milk produced on Ketura is sent there along with all of the other milk in the region. You can thank Ketura and the other Kibbutzim in the area for Kibbutz Yotvata's famous chocolate milk in a bag.

Interesting that the land is now literally flowing with milk and honey, yet a lot of it isn't even staying here for our own consumption. This economic structure also contradicts the original conception of Kibbutz life, but reality requires such contradictions (and possibly compromises) sometimes. More food for thought, perhaps.

- M