JOINING THE MARINE (PARK) CORE!

BS”D

Wow! “Gold and Silver Flower” Spotted Right Here in Marine Park!

(A Tribute to My Newly Engaged Grandson and His Kallah, Shehtichyu)

      By

Rabbi Hillel L. Yarmove ©

I just knew that the title of my column this week would make you feel like a million bucks! “Gold and Silver Flower! Unreal!”

Good! But first, I have to ask you a question.

How’s your Chinese? Ah, so!

You see, Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica is its scientific name) has finally blossomed, its famed heady fragrance poised to perfume our everyday ambience. And in China this marvelous vine—this honeysuckle of my earliest memories—is called “Gold and Silver Flower,” undoubtedly because the young vine-supported flowers are white but become a deep yellow with age.

When I was a good deal younger (and I mean a good, good deal younger!), I used to amuse myself by plucking an aromatic flower or two from a Honeysuckle vine, biting off the tip of its floral tube and sucking out the tiniest drop imaginable of nectar from the bottom of each flower (where the blossom’s nectary had produced it—mimeila as part of the process to attract bees and other insects to pollinate the Honeysuckle plant as a whole.) No wonder that the plant is named “Honeysuckle”!

But if you believe that Honeysuckle is “only for kids,” think again!

Drs. Steven Foster and James A. Duke inform us of the some of the medical properties of Japanese Honeysuckle which might classify it as a “medicinal miracle”: “Experimentally, flower extracts lower cholesterol; also antiviral, antibacterial, tuberculostatic. Widely used in prescriptions and patent medicines in Traditional Chinese Medicine to treat colds and flu. Pills are made from floral concentrates. Both authors [Foster and Duke] have used such preparations for bronchitis, colds, and flu.”

Unbelievable! Why, such wonderful little blossoms might very well be “worth their weight” in gold and silver!

But I have something personal to say about all this.

What an apt metaphor this flower is for our newly engaged grandchildren, Moshe Chaim and Elisheva! May Hashem grant them a sparkling marriage—a silvery sensation, so to speak, that will metamorphose into the purest gold with the ineluctable passage of time. May it be filled with the heady fragrance of Honeysuckle blossoms and be imbued with the curative properties that make a Jewish home the cynosure of all eyes, the focus of our holy nation.

May Hashem bless this young couple with a warm-hearted, genuine bayis ne’eman b’Yisroel.

Ah, yes! Or as the Chinese might say, “Ah, so!”

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Questions or comments? I may be reached at hillyarm@yeshivanet.com. Thanks, dear readers!