5787: Blessing for the BEES, Devorah Brous

This is an ode to the honey-makers as we dip apples to launch a year of plenty.

Source of Life, bless the honeybees for alchemizing apple blossoms into fruit. Bless the hive-tenders and the elements so the lands overflow with abundant honeycomb.

Bless the bees to tumble in pesticide-free meadow, food forest, & urban hive. Bless their honey, pollen, and nectar to feed worlds, salve wounds, and coat throats. Our Sages teach that honey sharpens the mind and restores vision – may the gifts of the honeybee inspire us as harbingers of prophetic insight to soothe the anguish we carry, and we cause.

Just as bees that hum while foraging for their hive - let us labor with love, harvest only what we need, and give back more than we take. Guide us far from extractive practices until body and hive collapse - may we value a sweet rest.

Too often overworked, feared, and undermined, remind us that bees guard what they treasure—and so do we.

For hive collapse holds the ghastly echo of war: blossoms withering unvisited, fruit orchards still under rubble. Landscapes barren—an erasure that is both elegy and urgent call to tend those pained by swarm and sting. May we cross-pollinate with the most equitable ideals of our “hive mind” and may this ancient ritual of dipping apples in honey, heal, by touching lip and deed.

Blessed are You, the One who Regenerates, for feeding the honeybees that feed all of life, and for spreading sweetness that heals. Amen.

מקור חיים, תודה שהאכלת את דבורי הדבש כדי שיוכלו להכיל את כל החיים ולהפיץ מתיקות מרפאה

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ, אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הָעֵץ