As a little girl, when I thought of bees, my immediate association was: bee sting. And to do anything and everything to avoid that predicament. I still remember once holding up Rabbi Twerski of Denver’s TRI by a good few minutes when he was picking up his daughter and me at some teen event, and I would not budge, as there was a swarm of bees between me and his car. No way was I going to attempt to cross these stinging specimens’ path.
Over the years I grew to adore the bee, though. There is an aesthetic beauty to the flying yellow and black friends. Diligent, elegant and whimsical, and tiny to boot, with the added auditory experience of the bees’ musical vibrations, all while swirling about announcing the arrival of springtime. There’s a certain bee mojo they have going on.
As Naomi Shemer’s song goes, “al ha-dvash ve-al ha-oketz, for the sting and for the honey.” As time passed I became more entranced by seeing the black and yellow bees pollinating among gorgeous flowers. It almost became a game of spying on them in the process of cultivating their golden nectar.
Honey, in all its variations and shades of gold-brown, from sticky glossy and shellacked looking pools of whiskey or amber drinks to the color of pale light just on the horizon, honey projects a subtle yet shifting pallette of color, to say nothing of its floral scents.
Clover is the most typical, the one we are most familiar with, dripping out of plastic bears no less.
Without ever getting near a buzzing honey beehive, without ever donning beekeeper going-to-the-moon-looking protective gear, you can taste so many floral honeys, from thyme to orange blossom to lavendar to so many others.
When the Torah describes the land of Israel as “a land of milk and honey” a pastoral scene of goats grazing and bees buzzing is evoked. Actually, the honey the Torah speaks of is the syrup oozing from plump dates, one of the seven species of the Land of Israel. Think fresh medjools or Deglet Noor. So you might as well add high palm trees to that visual scape.
Biblical honey is in fact that date syrup, called silan. It is ubiquitous in Israel.
When it comes to the upcoming Rosh Hashanah, we all have different customs or ritual foods and heirloom recipes. Purple Italian plums baked into dimpled magenta cakes, all night caramelized quinces, sticky toffee pudding, apple roses, tarte tatin and the list goes on, as long as the different types of Jews there are.
But there is nothing, nothing quite like those old school divine honey desserts of Rosh Hashanah. I speak of the humble honey cake and its sibling, the honey cookie. Basically, kiddush fare.
In true old country heimish parlance, my late Bubby called honey cake lekach. And lekach it shall remain.
The shelf life of honey cake is a long one. It’s a good sticky and moist cake that keeps on the counter from the beginning of the holiday until the final stars of night emerge days later.
Have you ever baked a honey cake any other time of year? You might also bake a chocolate cake for Rosh Hashanah, but you might bake that any other time of year too.
Lekach comes but once annually. At the High Holiday season. Otherwise, it’s not the cake you normally come up with for other occasions.
A slice of lekach, then, let’s just say it’s not quite like murmuring a prayer. But it is laden with the timing and meaning of the season. A little bite of Rosh Hashanah.
That is full of sweet and no sting.
Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News
