Be Fruitful...Which Fruit? Lessons from the Song of Songs, the Garden of Eden, and Sukkot

(18) There are three things which are too wonderful for me, Yea, four which I know not: (19) The way of an eagle in the air; The way of a serpent upon a rock; The way of a ship in the midst of the sea; And the way of a man with a young woman.

(11) She is riotous and rebellious, Her feet abide not in her house; (12) Now she is in the streets, now in the broad places, And lieth in wait at every corner. (13) So she caught him, and kissed him, And with an impudent face she said unto him: (14) ’Sacrifices of peace-offerings were due from me; This day have I paid my vows. (15) Therefore came I forth to meet thee, To seek thy face, and I have found thee. (16) I have decked my couch with coverlets, With striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt. (17) I have perfumed my bed With myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. (18) Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning; Let us solace ourselves with loves.

(28) And God blessed them; and God said unto them: ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth.’

(10) And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine, That glideth down smoothly for my beloved, moving gently the lips of those that are asleep.’ (11) I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me. (12) Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.

(7) Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, And drink thy wine with a merry heart; For God hath already accepted thy works. (8) Let thy garments be always white; And let thy head lack no oil. (9) Enjoy life with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which He hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity; for that is thy portion in life, and in thy labour wherein thou labourest under the sun.

(10) Thus saith the LORD: Yet again there shall be heard in this place, whereof ye say: It is waste, without man and without beast, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without beast, (11) the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that say: ‘Give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good, for His mercy endureth for ever’, even of them that bring offerings of thanksgiving into the house of the LORD. For I will cause the captivity of the land to return as at the first, saith the LORD. (12) Thus saith the LORD of hosts: Yet again shall there be in this place, which is waste, without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, a habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.

(9) And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

What was the tree from which Adam and Eve ate?

R. Meir said: it was wheat chitim, for when a person lacks knowledge people say, "That man has never eaten bread of wheat." R. Shmuel b. Yitzhak asked R. Zeira, "Is it possible that it was wheat?" "Yes," he said. "But surely 'tree' is written?" he argued. "It grew lofty like the cedars of the Lebanon," he replied.

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R. Judah b. Ilai said: "It was grapes, for it says, Their grapes are grapes of poison, they have clusters of bitterness (Deut. 32:32): those clusters brought bitterness into the world.

R. Abba of Acco said: It was etrog, as it is written, And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food (Gen. 3:6). Consider: go forth and see, what tree is it whose wood eitz can be eaten just like its fruit? And you find none but the etrog.

R. Yose said: They were figs. He learns the obscure from the explicit, and a statement from its context thus: This may be compared (mashal) to a royal prince who sinned with a slave girl, and the king on learning of it expelled him from court. He went from door to door of the slaves, but they would not receive him; but she who had sinned with him opened her door and received him. So when Adam ate of that tree, He (God) expelled him and cast him out of the garden of Eden; and he appealed to all the trees but they would not receive him. What did they say to him? Said R. Berekiah: "Behold, a deceiver who deceived his Creator, who deceived his Master!" as it is written, Let not the foot of presumption come unto me (Ps. 36:12), which means, the foot that presumed against its Creator; And let not the hand of the wicked shake me (ibid.), i.e. let it not take a leaf from me. But because he had eaten of its fruit, the fig-tree opened its doors and received him, as it is written, And they sewed fig-leaves together etc. (Gen. 3:7). Of what species was that fig-tree? R. Abin said: It was the berath sheva (lit. "daughter of seven"), so called because it brought seven days of mourning into the world. R. Joshua of Siknin said in R. Levi's name: It was the berath ali (different fig species), because it brought lamentation (eli) into the world.

R. Azariah and R. Judah b. R. Simon in the name of R. Joshua b. Levi said: Heaven forbid [that we should guess what tree it was]! The Holy One did not and will not reveal to man what that tree was. For see what is written: And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, you shall kill the woman, and the beast (Lev. 20:16). Now if man has sinned, how did the animal sin? But [it is killed] lest when it stands in the market place people should say, "Through this animal so-and-so was stoned." Then if the Holy One, blessed be God, was anxious to safeguard the honor of [Adam's] descendants, how much more his own honor! [So it might not be said: "Through this tree Adam brought death into the world."]

(40) And ye shall take you on the first day the fruit of hadar trees, branches of palm-trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook, and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.

(4) "Fruit trees:" That the taste of the tree should be like the taste of the fruit. And [the earth] did not do so, but rather (verse 14) “the earth gave forth, etc. trees producing fruit,” and the trees [themselves] were not fruit. Therefore, when man was cursed because of his iniquity, it [the earth] too was remembered for its iniquity and was cursed.

(6) Set me as a seal upon thy heart, As a seal upon thine arm; For love is strong as death, Jealousy is cruel as the grave; The flashes thereof are flashes of fire, A very flame of the LORD.