Ashes to Apples:A Shofar Call from Northern Israel

For farmers in northern Israel – where almost 95% of all Israeli apples are grown – the past year has been anything but sweet. 

These agricultural heartlands are reeling from the devastation wrought by almost 2 years of war. 

Over 9,000 rockets rained down across the region, reducing well over 40,000 hectares – twenty times the size of Haifa –  of orchards, vineyards and pastures to ash. Even partial estimates of agricultural damages exceed $100 million.

I wish the losses were only agricultural. 

Over 130 soldiers and civilians died as a result of these attacks. Moshe’s son was one of them. Omer z’’l, a gifted farmer and agronomist, was killed – alongside four farm workers – by a rocket strike while tending their fields in Metula. 

Moshe, who turned 75 this year, now walks the rows of his orchards alone. Nonetheless, he still returns to the field, determined to keep going. “At my age, most people rest. I will plant until my last day.” 

Moshe is not alone. Across the north, farmers are clearing the ash and replanting what was destroyed. The task is momentous and the end of this ordeal is nowhere in sight: once planted, it still takes years for vines, apples, and other trees to bear fruit again. 

Somehow, despite these odds, our farmers remain undeterred. The resolve of Moshe and others like him is the stuff of legends. 

But, much like the famed definition of Tikkun Olam, this is a task far too great for any one person to undertake. We all have a part to play in rebuilding, renewing and replanting the north. 

So this year, remember that the apple is not only a symbol. It is someone’s labour of love.

The shofar is not only a mitzvah. It is a wake-up call. 

The new sowing season is not only for farmers. It is for all of us, until the words of the Prophet Micah ring true for our northern farmers:  

“They shall sit under their vine and fig tree, and none shall make them afraid” (Micah 4:4)