Fruit to Fix the Old Sins

This past Shabbat, we read Parshat Shelach, the weekly Torah portion in which the spies returned to the tribes with giant fruits in their arms, and declared that the Jewish people could not survive in the land of Israel.
The spies showed their brethren the land's magnificent fruit, its giant size and miraculous nature and used the fruit of Israel for negativity. We are the opposite, B"H.
It was a very fruity week here in Gush Etzion. We picked almost 100 pounds of fruit for the needy of our communitiy, and for our own families' Shabbat tables. In addition, Friday was Gush Etzion's Cherry Festival and thousands of people picked cherries from our purply-packed cherry trees at the festival and all over the Gush.
Our family had two fruit pickings on Friday. Our grandchildren loved picking yummy fruit right off the trees, and it is never too soon to give our little ones a love and appreciation for the Land and everything that grows in its Holy soil. After our harvests, we shared our fruit with our neighbors.
Our message on this Fruit Shabbat was direct, as in the words of Calev Ben Yefuneh, "'The land is very very good.' We are sharing our fruit to show our brethren that the fruit of our land is delicious and gorgeous. Our land is blessed, and we are blessed to be able to eat the fruit of our labors, grown in our own beloved soil - the Land of Israel."

Our fruit and those cherries, plums, figs, peaches, grapes, apples, apricots and more, that we are able to pick all over our Land are a testimony to the success of our people in Israel. Our fruit picking is actually a tikkun (a correction) of the mistake of the spies.
The spies saw the gorgeous fruit and thought they'd never make it in this Land. We pick the same fruit and declare, "The Land is very very good, and our families and our nation will grow like the magnificent fruit all around us."

Join us at our latest Fruit Harvesting in this clip on Voices TV - http://www.voices-magazine.com/index.php?page=inside_page&id=198