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The HAMIZRACHI GUIDE to the SEVEN SPECIES

Wheat Les Saidel

y uncle always used to say as the Hebrew word for sin – chet. necessary to process or alter them,
“Bread doesn’t grow on It is well known that infants do not so for all eternity we have to process
Mtrees.” He was referring to begin to acquire knowledge until they wheat to make it into bread.
the monetary kind, but it is common begin eating grains, grains being the
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knowledge that the edible kind doesn't embodiment of knowledge. Rav Kook Following the sin, the wheat tree was
either. takes this one step further by pointing also ‘demoted’ and reduced in stature
from a tree to a lowly grass, the wheat
This was not always so. At the dawn out that the gematria (numerologi- we know today. Thus ever since man
of time, in the Garden of Eden, bread cal value) of chita is 22, the number was evicted from the Garden of Eden,
actually did grow on a tree, a wheat of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, the he has been forced to labor hard to
tree. Adam and Chava just had to do foundation upon which all knowledge produce his daily bread or perish.
step out into the garden and grab a is based.
delicious something off the tree. Not only did Chava eat from the for- As we celebrate Tu BiShvat, the New
Year of Trees, we should be mindful
This may sound fantastic to you, but bidden wheat tree, but she also com- of G-d’s bounty, express our gratitude
it is part of a famous debate in the mitted an additional sin by taking and try to reverse the process that
Gemara in an attempt to define what the wheat, grinding it into flour and brought us to this sorry state.
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the eitz haDa’at (the tree of knowl- making it into bread which she fed to
edge) actually was. We all know the Adam. She thus sinned by thinking The good news is that this saga
more popular opinions – a fig tree, she could improve on G-d’s creation. will eventually come full circle.
a grapevine (no not an apple tree, Until then all food was eaten straight When Mashiach comes, wheat will
that came later as part of a Christian off the trees in the Garden. be restored to its former glory and
depiction), but very few are familiar This fits well with the theory that “will again be as high as a date palm
with the hypothesis that the tree of states that Adam would never have and tower over mountains. Lest you
knowledge was wheat. eaten directly from the Tree of Knowl- wonder how its fruit shall be har-
vested, G-d will bring forth a wind
According to this opinion, wheat was edge, but that he was duped by Chava, which will blow through the tree.
originally created in the form of a who fed him an altered form of the Man will walk in the field and catch
tree, a spectacular tree towering over wheat, hence his retort “This woman, the falling fruits for himself and his
mountains, but still lesser in physical who You gave to me, she (deceived) family.” 3
stature than the other trees. In fact it gave me to eat.”
was the lowliest and least attractive Perhaps the clinching fact in support This article originally appeared in the Jeru-
salem Post in January 2014.
of the trees in the Garden, but none- of the wheat theory is the punishment
theless assumed pride of place in the Adam received – “you shall eat bread
center due to its inherent spiritual- by the sweat of your brow.” Chava’s 1 Berachot 6b.
ity rather than its material, outward (and womankind’s) punishment was 2 Berachot 40a.
appearance. twofold, not only would she suffer 3 Ketubot 111b.

To try to prove this theory a number the pain of childbirth, but she would
of interesting facts emerge. also have to rise early each morning Les Saidel, a master baker originally from
to prepare bread for her family (Mid- Johannesburg, South Africa, lives in Ginot
The Hebrew word for wheat – chita rash). Adam and Chava were unsat- Shomron with his wife Sheryl and four
– has the same grammatical root isfied with G-d's gifts and thought it children

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