THE CAROB TREE IN JEWISH FOLKLORE: The Jerusalem Post has the story.

Not quite chocolate
By YEHOSHUA SISKIN


In the folklore and imagination of the Jewish people, a special fondness is reserved for the carob tree, which is viewed as a symbol for the sustaining qualities of the Land of Israel.

In the Talmud, for example, we learn that the saintly Hanina Ben Dosa subsisted on a diet of nothing but carobs between one Sabbath and the next.

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No discussion of carob would be complete without the much-loved story of Honi Hame'agel. Honi is bothered by the passage from Psalms that refers to the Babylonian exile, which lasted for 70 years, and seems like a dream. He wonders how anyone could dream for 70 years. Honi then encounters a man planting a carob tree and asks how long it will take the tree to bear fruit. When he hears it will take 70 years, Honi questions the profitability of such a venture and falls asleep... for 70 years.

Because Honi focused only on the immediate material benefits of planting carobs, he lost 70 years of his life; in the same way, the nation's focus on materialism and idol worship in the closing years of the First Temple led to exile and the loss of 70 years of life in the Land of Israel.

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