The Eight O’Clock
News October 2018
8 am Service, Christ Church, Kenilworth 021-797-6332
The Four Kinds I‘ve just finished reading a
marvellous book, The Land Where Lemons Grow by Helena Attlee—the story of Italy and its Citrus Fruit. As one reviewer put it, Every lemon-scented page made me feel it’s time to pack for Italy… and I concur. Italy: food, history, art, literature...
what more to delight? When I was reading the book, a business associate from Milan had just spent some time in Cape Town and I had told him about the book. On messaging him on a Saturday morning, I sent him a picture of the book’s cover. He messaged back that lemons remind him of the Italian poet, Eugenio Montale, who describes a melancholic mood being cured by the lemon yellow scent bringing joy alive. How lovely, I thought, turned two pages and there before my eyes was an excerpt from the poem! I let him know this and he replied, Life connections unpredictable. Now—something from the book to set the scene with regard to another remarkable connection. ‘Although the citron has more varieties than almost any other kind of citrus, Calabria is the only place in the world that produces the Cedro liscio di Diamante, the smooth-skinned Diamante citron that takes its name from the small town in the north of Calabria. For Lubavitcher Jews, a Hasidic movement of Orthodox Judaism, the Diamante citron is one of life’s essentials. They believe that Moses sent a messenger to Calabria to collect an example of the local variety of citron. This enabled him to show the Jews the fruit they should use during the celebration of Sukkoth (the festival of Tabernacles), an autumn festival of thanksgiving for the harvest and the survival of their ancestors as they wandered through the desert for forty years. Rabbis and citron merchants remain in Calabria for at least a month to supervise the harvest and buy esrogim used at Sukkoth all over the world. ‘It looks like the beginning of an idea about fruit, a rough prototype made at an early stage of the design process, a crude unfinished thing, a dinosaur that evaded extinction, a Neanderthal on a tree.’ The citron could fall in and out of fashion in the kitchen, but for observant Jews esrogim occupied a position from which they could never be ousted. Jewish exiles first saw citrons during their captivity October 2018 Eight O’Clock News
in Babylon after the fall of the Temple in 586 BC and when the Persians conquered Babylon in 539 BC and issued a decree allowing them to return to their homelands, the citron tree made the journey with them from Babylon to Palestine. In Leviticus 23:40, the Jews are given the instructions for the preparation of Sukkoth: On the first day you shall take the fruit of the goodly tree, the branches of the palm trees, foliage of leafy trees, and willows of the brook and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. They interpret the ‘foliage of leafy trees’ as the myrtle and the ’fruit of the goodly tree’ as esrogim. On each day of the festival except Shabbat— the esrog and the branches (or lulav) are blessed and then are shaken together in all six directions: left/right, up/down, forwards and backwards. This part of the ceremony is called the taking of the Four Kinds. Four Kinds represent the different types and personalities of Jews (gentiles too?): 1) Those who study the Bible and follow its commandments (citrons—because they are both perfumed and edible) 2) Those who follow the law but neglect bible study (the palm— bears fruit but has no perfume) 3) Those who study but don’t practice (the myrtle— perfumed but bears no fruit 4) The liberals, who neither believe in God nor follow His commandments (the willow—pretty but can offer neither perfume nor fruit). ‘In the eyes of God all are equal, and the shaking of the citron together with the three kinds of branches is an acknowledgement of the unity of Jews all over the world.’ Another amazing connection, after Sukkoth just celebrated in the last week of September this year. Which of The Four Kinds are you?
- Cheryl Anderson