National Apple Day

While the apple is a sweet, delicious fruit, it also is something that is attached to mixed metaphors –

The apple promotes good health- “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

It can be transformed into wonderful desserts including apple pie. The idiom “As American as apple pie” has taken the apple baked in a flakey crust and turned it into an iconic symbol of America and its food culture. “Of American-English origin, the phrase (as) American as apple pie means typically American in character—apple pie being here a symbol of American motherhood and traditional family values.” – wordhistories.net.

The phrase "apple of my eye" refers in English to something or someone that one cherishes above all others. It signifies a person who holds a special place in someone’s heart.

And the apple has religious significance in Judaism. It is dipped in honey to welcome a sweet new year on Rosh Hashana, and it is an ingredient in Charoset, a sweet, dark-colored mixture of finely chopped fruits and nuts eaten at the Passover Seder. According to the Talmud, its color and texture are meant to recall mortar (or mud used to make adobe bricks), which the Israelites used when they were enslaved in Ancient Egypt.

But the apple appears in what may be the most important religious parable in the Bible. It is in the story of creation and how humanity came to be what it is – highly developed very imperfect creatures. Eve was punished severely because she disobeyed God’s command not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. By eating the apple, she brought sin into the world and caused humanity to fall from grace. This parable was written sometime between the 10th to 5th century BCE or between 2500 and 3000 years ago.

Has that misguided bite of the humble apple brought about by temptation led to the development and evolution and fate of mankind from the beginning of man’s existence until now and the modern world we live in? True believers think so. And the great scientist and philosopher Albert Einstein made these observations and quotes -

"I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots."

“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”

“Our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilization generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal.”

All you have to do is look around when you are in your car driving and see half the people around you texting and driving and putting their own and others’ lives in harm’s way to see that Albert certainly has a valid point.

And, of course, we live in a world where megalomaniacs have their fingers hovering over buttons that will launch nuclear weapons!

They say that an apple a day

Will keep the doctor away,

But was Eve’s apple thrill

Mankind’s poison pill?

The world today sure looks that way!