June 22, 2006
How You Like 'Dem Apples!
At last night's Chumash shiur, the topic of discussion was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. R. Gottlieb reviewed the midrash which explains the various different fruits that could have been the Forbidden Fruit. It is well known that the apple, probably the most recognizable choice, is not found in any statements of Chazal.
In Western Christian art, the fruit is most commonly depicted as an apple. One possible reason for this arises from a medieval pun. It was a source of humor to monks that the Latin word for evil was similar to the word for apple. Thus it was often said that by eating the malum (apple), Eve contracted malus (evil). There is, however, no textual or historical evidence by which to argue the literalness of this image.
I find this unlikely; rather, I would think apples were called malum because of their cultural association with evil.
I knew I had read something about this somewhere, and after a little searching found what I was looking for. In Nefesh HaRav (pg 209-210), R. Herschel Schacter writes:
I heard once from [the Rav] that the GR"A had a custom not to eat grapes on Rosh HaShannah, because according to one opinion the Tree of Knowledge was a grapevine...and when he mentioned this, someone asked, "But the Tree of Knowledge was an apple (tapuach)?!?" Our teacher answered him immediately that this was incorrect, rather that according to one opinion, it was an etrog, which in the language of the Tanach is called tapuach, and the Christians mixed up the tapuach from Tanach with the tapuach of today, as in the times of the Tanach, there were no apples in the Land of Israel.
Posted by Greg at June 22, 2006 4:14 PM
