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Dip the Apple

5 min read September 28, 2011

Why are we supposed to dip an apple which is already sweet into something even sweeter?

And why is the sweetest substance in the world produced by a nonkosher stinging insect the bee?

I ask a few people.

“Because we are a sweet people but Hashem wants us to be even sweeter”is Faigy’s reply.

“I have to think about it” says Sima let’s call her.

After Shabbos Sima calls back. “I got it” she says. “I saw exactly what dipping the apple in the honey is all about.”

Sima’s son came home for Shabbos she explains — “not a usual event as he’s been busy a good few years trying to take a taste of the ‘other side.’

But life got tough out there in the big bad world and Erev Shabbos he kind of landed on her doorstep.

“It wasn’t one of those sob scenes where boy comes home after three years” she clarifies. “He comes home regularly. What was unusual was that this time he came home ‘to keep Shabbos.’

“It was easy for him to get into the swing of Shabbos. The food served with honor. The glow of Shabbos candles. It was as if his whole body could finally relax and let go of the tension he’d been holding onto for the last years.