Living in the desert, where we regularly have 110-degree days in the summer, having access to a swimming pool is a life necessity. We’re lucky enough to have a neighbor, Sarah, who regularly lets us use her pool, and right next to her pool gate is a low-hanging pomegranate tree. For the entire summer we’ve been watching these pomegranates emerge: first as hard tiny green knobs, then growing larger and larger, heavier and heavier, changing their color into bronze and rust and, only now, starting to redden. It’s been a reminder since early June that Rosh Hashana is coming, Rosh Hashana is coming, and what are you planning to do about it?
The shape of the pomegranate with its little crown is so uncanny that it feels like something you would read about in the Land of Oz, where trees grow lunchboxes complete with mains, sides and a drink, and rose bushes sprout princesses who, once fully ripe, open their eyes and begin walking and talking. How unusual it is to have a fruit with its own royal crown, and timed to ripen just as the holiday of G-d’s kingship arrives.
Our neighbor Sarah’s pomegranates aren’t edible, but they still have made their mark. Just seeing them all summer long has been a reminder of Who designed the world, and to Whom we will be answering shortly. And that even a sober holiday can have an emblem of beauty and whimsy.