“Dip the apple in the honey, make a bracha loud and clear…have a happy, sweet new year.”
During Tishrei we use honey to both symbolize and request a sweet new year.
When asked to describe honey in one word, most would answer sweet.
But honey is also sticky. It is a pain to get out of the jar. It gets hands and faces all sticky.
And good luck cleaning those measuring cups and spoons after filling them with honey.
So perhaps there is an important lesson here. The same honey that is sweet (good) is also quite sticky (bad).
Some people are willing to ignore the bad and focus on the good, while for others, their focus is squarely on the bad, despite the overwhelming good.
When we asked Hashem to send us a sweet year through honey, maybe we aren’t just asking him for sweetness, perhaps we are also asking him to assist us in focusing on the good and not being distracted by the small amounts of bad that accompany it.
