Anyone can follow a shopping list, but it takes experience to choose the perfect produce. The smell, the appearance, the touch, the season. The pears should feel firm. The peaches soft. Veteran shoppers are sensitive to The knock of the watermelon, the smell of the strawberry, and the weight of a grapefruit.
With assistance from the internet, people like me can usually figure it out, but eight hundred years before Google, the Ramban taught us a general rule of thumb when searching for produce.
In this week’s parsha we are introduced to Orlah, requiring farmer to refrain from harvesting trees during their first three years of growth. Come year four, the fruits are deemed holy, and the farmer brings those fruits to Yerushalayim to be sanctified to Hashem.
The Ramban suggests the rationale for this mitzva. The first fruits of each season are brought as Bikkurim in praise and thanks to Hashem, and it is fitting for the first fruits of a tree to be sanctified as well. Why year four? The Ramban explains that the first three years of growth are weak: the tree remains immature, its produces undeveloped, its fruit unfavorable. The fruit peak at year four and are ready to be sanctified.
So when shopping for produce, make sure not to choose a fruit from a tree in its first three years.
Is the Ramban correct? I can’t speak for the botanists, but the Tamudists point out that he seems to contradict a gemara at the end of Yevamos (122a.)
The gemara there tells of a non-Jewish merchant advertising his produce as Orlah. He proclaims his trees are only two years old. If we believe him, we would prohibit purchasing the produce.
The gemara concludes that he is not believed: we assume he is simply bragging about his produce and lying about the age of the tree to deceive the buyers to imply the fruits are of higher quality.
Asks the Chassam Sofer: this gemara flies in the face of the Ramban! The merchant is bragging that his trees are young! Clearly it is not true that young trees produce inferior fruits!
The nineteenth century Lithuanian Rabbi Moshe Betzalel Luria https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%94_%D7%91%D7%A6%D7%9C%D7%90%D7%9C_%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%90 (in his commentary to the Tashbetz shivaas haneros siman 364) explains that it depends how the tree was planted.
When you plant a seed, it takes a few years for quality produce to grow. The growth the first couple years is what the Ramban refers to. After those few years pass, the mature tree produces quality produce year after year. But that quality peaks at that point; the tree will consistently produce at the same level.
How can you improve the output? By replanting. When you replant the tree, in fresh soil with better nutrients, it now can grow even better.
The Ramban is correct that the first three years produce inferior fruit when planting seeds. The farmer in the gemara didn’t plant seeds; he planted a tree. He was bragging that he REplanted his tree. Though technically the fruits are subject to orlah the first three years, now they are mature and have fresh soil, thus thee produce is superior.
Our young couples community is known as a transient community, as most of us temporarily plant ourselves here in Riverdale. But each of us can decide if we are planting ourselves here as a seed or as a tree. If we plant ourselves as a seed, we are deciding we are not ready to contribute. Our fruits are immature, and we’ll take our fruits with us to the next phase in life. But twenty and thirty year olds aren’t seeds. We are trees. Joining together as part of a larger community, we have so much to provide for the community. When we get involved in chessed, when we attend minyanim and shiurim, we make a huge impact on our community. RJC Connections and the Salami, Scotch and Shiur are examples of initiatives by members of our minyan and ways we all can take part in the community. With Shavuos in less than a month, the time is ripe to get involved.
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