The Mystical Apple Slice You Never About
“Why You Should Slice Your Apple Differently This Rosh Hashanah”
On the first evening of Rosh Hashanah, many have the custom to dip an apple in honey as a prayerful symbol for a sweet year. But there is a deeper mystical layer when we look at how the apple is cut.
The Horizontal Cut – Revealing the Star Within
Most people instinctively slice an apple vertically, straight down through its stem. But if you instead slice it horizontally across its equator, a hidden pattern is revealed: a five-pointed green star at the core, ringed by ten small seeds or seed chambers.
This star is not just a curiosity of nature—it carries profound spiritual symbolism. The star shape reflects divine order within creation, a reminder that HaShem placed harmony and meaning even within the simplest fruit. The ten dots around it beautifully correspond to the Aseret HaDibrot—the Ten Commandments, the eternal covenant that anchors Jewish life.
Mystical Sweetness – Torah in Honey
When this star, with its ten symbolic seeds of Torah, is dipped into honey, the act becomes more than just a custom for sweetness. It becomes a prayer that the coming year be “sweetened with mitzvahs”—that our connection to G-d’s commandments should not only obligate us, but bring us joy, delight, and inner sweetness.
Jewish mystical sources (particularly in Chassidic and Kabbalistic writings) often emphasize that the hidden layers of creation mirror the hidden layers of the soul. Just as the star is concealed within the apple until you cut it the right way, so too the divine spark within each of us—and within every moment of life—awaits to be revealed by looking at it from a higher, truer perspective.
A New Way of Seeing the New Year
Thus, by cutting the apple horizontally, we train ourselves to see differently. Instead of the usual downward slice that divides, we reveal what is within, whole, and shining. It’s a small shift of perspective that mirrors the larger shift Rosh Hashanah asks of us: to look deeper, uncover hidden meaning, and bring sweetness through Torah and mitzvot into the year ahead.