Of Avocados and Mothers and Philosemites
Only three more shopping days ‘til the Birthday of the Trees, Tu B’Shvat
“Is man a tree of the field…?” Dvarim 20:19
This started as a whimsical post, but with the news in Israel, I could not stay completely on the lighter side.
The avocado is my favorite fruit. I am calling it a fruit because it hangs from a tree.
I have the reputation of being an avocadophilo, a word I made up meaning, “a lover of avocados.” Something like a Philosemite— a lover of Jews. I believe there are more avocadophilos in the world at this moment than there are Philosemites. Sigh.
A strange custom was going around for awhile on Israeli social media: people said that if you slice an avocado in half, take out the pit and put the pit in water, the avocado will stay fresh and green. When you take the pit out of the water, the avocado turns black. And the weird thing is, it doesn’t matter how far the pit is from the avocado! The child pit could be across town from its mother avocado!
Not to be overly dramatic, but this seems like a pretty cool metaphor for the relationship between a mother and a child. The situation of a child (the pit) has a tremendous effect on the life of a parent. If the pit is in water, in other words, if the child is doing swimmingly well (so to speak),
then the mother feels healthy and relaxed.
But if the child/pit is taken from the water—in other words, feeling out of place, or perhaps the child is literally out of his place—
then the mother’s emotions become darker and darker.
What can we do? A mother is intimately connected to the emotional wellness of her child. Also her adult children, by the way.
Apparently, a question arose about using this avocado tool as a communication device on Shabbat. I quote (translation mine from the Hebrew): “Rabbi Avraham Gnichovski writes in his book…that many have tried this: to put the pit of an avocado in a cup of water, and as long as the pit is in the water, the avocado does not become black, even if the avocado is far from the pit [italics mine].”1
A woman in Rachavia thinks she may give birth on Shabbat. Her mother lives on the other side of Yerushalayim in Kiryat Moshe. The daughter puts the avocado pit in water and, before Shabbat, brings the avocado itself to her mother. They agree that if the daughter needs to go to the hospital, the daughter will remove the pit from the water. Then, the avocado that is with the mother will turn black, and the mother will rush to meet her daughter at the hospital. Of course this is useful because a Shabbat-observing Jew does not use the phone on Shabbat, except to call an ambulance.
It turns out it’s fine to do this on Shabbat, although I don’t think I would let my daughter try this trick at home. Maybe she should just come to my house for Shabbat if she is expecting to give birth.
Imagine the possibilities! A child could bring a pit in water to school; when she takes out the pit, the parent will know she arrived safely at school. A mother could pour out the pit instead of being a nag to her son: when his avocado turns black he will remember to pick up the milk on his way home.
Think of all the reduced screen time! Maybe someone could create a new Israeli startup called ivocados!
Still, does the avocado really stay green if the pit is in the water? I did an experiment.
My daughter and her husband are Philosemites. They live in Belarus, teaching Jewish children. She went back to Pinsk the other day from my house in Beit Shemesh. I wanted to see if their avocados would stay fresh as long as the pit was in water on my kitchen counter. I made them avocado sandwiches and put the pit in water.
Well, unfortunately, someone threw out the pit when cleaning up my kitchen. However, my daughter did report that the avocados stayed fresh—until the sandwiches were confiscated at the border. In the end my daughter used the traditional method to tell me they arrived safely in Belarus: she just called me. So much for science.
Actually, it is proven that a mother’s heart turns dark when her child is being held captive thirty-five miles away to the south. And I wish the Philosemitic mothers of Philosemitic soldiers could use this method to be able to sleep again: when the soldier takes the pit out of the water, his mother will know he is safe.
Fellow avocadophile 🥑
Yes, I wish...