Biblical Fruits Challah for the Shabbat of Song and Tu B`shevat!

Figs, raisins, dates, pomegranate, olive oil, honey, barley, and one special addition, the grapefruit from Israel!

As The Shabbat of Song (see post below!) was just a few days before Tu B'shevat, I made a Biblical Fruits Challah for this Shabbat!!

This was a very exciting Challah to make! The ingredients themselves are a song.  They are expressing the 7 biblical species, which are foods mentioned in the Torah and eaten in Biblical times as well as used or represented for various significance such as in the Temple.  I took the challenge of seeing if I could find them here in Oita, Japan.  

 

Tu B'shevat is a holiday celebrated in Israel as the New Year for Fruit trees.  The name  means the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat, which is tomorrow on our calendar, from the evening of January 30 to January 31.  I first learned about it last year, and this discovery of a New Year, or Birthday for Fruit trees excited me.  It became a great delight-filled time in noticing the first blossoms on the fruit trees and gave me a new awareness of this season when the sap from underground begins to enter into the trees, renewing them, a time we don't "see"  much, but a time when much is happening to prepare for the first blossoms.

Blossoms appear in the land, the time for singing has come,

The song of the turtledove

Is heard in our land.

The green figs form on the fig tree,

The vines in blossom give off fragrance.

Arise my darling, 

My fair one, come away!

--Song of Songs 2:12~13

 Once I decided to make the Biblical Fruits Challah, I went Friday morning to gather the ingredients. I already had the Israeli grapefruit (famous post about the first Israeli Grapefruit HERE, and using it in the Challah HERE) And a pomegranate!!

There were dried fruits in the recipe and I also needed pomegranate juice for another recipe so I decided to go to a Department store I hadn't gone to for a while.  When I got to the food floor,  and was looking around at the dry fruits area a song came on the BGM.

Here we are preparing for the Sabbath of Song, I am in the dried fruits area, and a SONG comes to my ears, with words very clear, and in perfect English.

His Grace is enough.

I listened again,

His Grace is enough.

Oh my goodness, I am hearing this!

God I sing,  Your grace is everything!!

I was hearing worship music in our local department store food floor here in southern Japan.  Well, I practically hugged the store man, for playing such great music..

Posting note:   I didn`t realize at the time, but looked it up after from the words I heard, and it must have been the song by Chris Tomlin, Your Grace is Enough.  But how it came to our hometown Department store, ..Well, sometimes we don't need a reason.

God's Grace is Enough for me!!

Sustain me with raisin cakes,

Refresh me with apples,

For I am faint with love.

Song of Songs 2:5

 

He brought me to the banquet table 
and his banner of love was over me.

Song of Songs 2:4

Some notes on the Challah:

The dough was a very easy dough to work with.  Some of the fruity parts are that in the last stages you mix in the dried fruits--raisins and dates.  The recipe includes a fig filling that is rolled into the strands!!  You can find the recipe HERE-- Biblical Challah and Date Butter, and up on the sidebar at right.

For a perfect dish to go with this Challah for a Tu B`Shevat 'banquet`, see this recipe for Pomegranate Salmon