Fruit for Thought
But grass that’s only the beginning of ֹבוּטו¿ו ֹלו¿„ָּ‚, of Hashem’s blueprint of Wisdom and Kindliness. Because what about the summer fruit? All of the fruits that are abundant in the summertime, they’re not only for eating—they’re also for chochma. You have to know that peiros, fruits, is one of the wonderful creations of emunah. ילƒּכ¿ׂ ַ̆ה¿ל ı≈ﬠָה „ָמ¿ח∆נ¿ו – Fruit is most desirable because it gives wisdom (Bereishis 3:6).
So here’s a yeshivah boy or a Beis Yaakov girl in summer camp and she’s eating an orange. The question is how are you eating it? On which side of the ideological spectrum are you living?
So you take the orange and you put it on the table and look at it. “Such a beautiful golden skin,” you’re thinking. It’s coated with a wax that keeps it waterproof and airproof and also prevents little insects from chewing through it. But it also gives it a shine to make it more attractive.
Now, when you begin to peel the orange you note that there’s no color on the underside of the skin. Why is it that it’s so beautiful on the outside of the skin and underneath there’s no color at all?
Baffling the Scientists
You know that’s a kasha that no scientist can answer? They’ll stand on their heads but they can’t answer that. Because there’s only one answer. Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants you to see the color, to be seduced by it. And so the purpose of color is chessed; it’s for kindliness. Not only He gives you something to eat; He gives it לָכ¿ל ם∆ח∆ל ן≈ ֹ̇נ ‡ּהו יםƒמֲחַר¿בּו „∆ס∆ח¿ּב ן≈ח¿ּב רָׂ ָּ̆ב. He makes the color to make you happy and so color is not needed on the underside.
Now, when you look at this beautiful ball of luscious food, it’s juice in a golden container. And still this juice, when you cut the container it doesn’t pour out. You know, if you take a knife and cut in half a container of orange juice, it would immediately spill out. But this container you cut in half and it doesn’t spill out.
Now don’t say it’s all pulp. The pulp is almost nothing; it’s negligible. It’s all juice. But the juice is imprisoned in many tiny cells. And so when you cut it in half, you rupture a few cells but the juice is contained in the remaining cells. It doesn’t spill out; it’s waiting for you. It’s made like that purposefully. Now when you see that, when you think about it, that’s bechina—that’s called living on the right side of history.
Seeds for Thought
While you’re enjoying it you’re bumping into seeds, seeds for thought. You know what type of blueprint is required for an orange seed that will develop into a tree; roots and bark and sap and branches and leaves and new oranges? And new seeds too!
Do you know how many volumes of encyclopedias you would need if you put the instructions that are coded on the DNA molecules in the orange seed and put them in print? The biggest library is not big enough to have enough shelves with books that would be filled with blueprints to reproduce the plans that are coded in one seed. It’s a fact; millions of instructions encoded on the strands of the DNA instructions in one seed.
And not only the instructions are there but the machinery to carry it out is there. That's even more than instructions. The entire apparatus to actually put the instructions into effect is in the seed.
So you begin to think, “Such a design, a wisdom. There are brains here, a real wisdom in the seed. There is a Divine Wisdom that has planned everything and knows everything. That’s what an orange seed says: “Look at my Creator! ה∆ּל≈‡ ‡ָרָב יƒמּו‡¿ר – Look at Who created me! (Yeshaya 40:26).
Bitter Seeds
That’s why I recommend carrying around orange seeds in the summertime. Spit out the seeds and put them in your pocket. I do it. I keep seeds in my pocket, and when I’m walking down the street I take them out sometimes to look at them. I marvel at them. People write to me that I should send them some of my seeds. I go to the post office and I mail my seeds to people.
Now if you bite into an orange seed, you see right away it’s bitter. Try it once. The seeds of the orange are bitter. So years ago I said that it’s in order that we shouldn’t eat them; we should spit them out to make sure that our children or we in our old age will have orange trees.
I said that on my own many years ago by myself until finally I came across a Department of Agricultural bulletin and it said the same thing. Only he’s an apikores. He’s an evolutionist and he said, “Oranges evolved a protective mechanism. The oranges had the foresight to evolve a mechanism to avoid eaters.” It means that according to this ‘chochom’, billions of years ago oranges were planning ahead so the oranges should remain for the future so they made bitter seeds.
That’s what they preach to the youth in the colleges, that it’s all an accident; that somehow, in ways we don’t yet understand, the seed developed a bitterness inside the sweet orange. Well, if these dopes—the university professors at Harvard and Yale, or that scientist at the Department of Agriculture —would be willing to sit here and let me talk to them for one or two hours, they would learn something. They wouldn’t be able to answer a word.
Fruit Seforim
But of course, they wouldn’t listen. That’s what it means to have ideological enemies. They’re on the other side of history, the wrong side. And so for them summertime is a waste of time. But we, the bnei Avraham, we know what our function is. We know what the good times of Olam Hazeh are for.
And so you frummeh, when you see an orange, you have to know that it’s a Mesillas Yesharim. An apple is a Chovos Halevovos. A peach, Shaarei Teshuva. Ok, maybe that doesn’t impress you. So the orange is Chidushei Rabbeinu Chaim. The apple is a Nesivos. And the peach, an Aruch Laneir. All the sugyos HaShas are in the summer fruit. And don’t think you’re yoitze by the other seforim. Yes, they’re precious seforim—we should look at them too, no question about it—but you have to study ma’asei yadav shel Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
Because that’s the purpose of it from the beginning; ַיﬠƒ„ֹהו¿ל – to make known, םָ„ָ‡ָה י≈נ¿בƒל – to you, יוָ ֹ̇רוּבו¿ּ‚ – those are the most important words: ַיﬠƒ„ֹהו¿ל! To make known to people the Greatness of Hashem. The purpose of all these things is to make known to us Hakadosh Baruch Hu!
