Sketching Out Blog: Sketches of art, watercolor, photos, recipes, books, interviews, Jewish topics, and Highland Park, New Jersey

Visualizing the Parsha

figThis week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, starts with the bikurim, the first fruit offering. Are these all fruits or just some? According to Rashi, the bikurim are only the fruits of the seven species. He learns that it is not all fruits from the “mem”, the word that translates as “of”:

Devarim (Deuteronomy) 26:2–

You shall take of the first of all the fruit of the ground

Rashi learns that the word “eretz” used both here and when it mentions the 7 species teaches us that it is the seven species that one needs to bring as bikurim.

It says in Devarim (Deuteronomy) 8:8–

a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig-trees and pomegranates; a land of olive-trees and honey;

So in order to learn this better, I decided to draw some pictures. And who decided to join me but my daughter. First, some notes for next year: we both need to learn what wheat and barley look like:

Next on the list are the grapes. Can you guess who drew which grapes:

Do these look like figs:
fig

Now our pomegranate drawings:

(I am hoping to work on a pomegranate watercolor, as a pre-Rosh Hashana siman post)

Olives:

Finally, the honey was supposedly the honey of dates:

Hope you will remember this Rashi, having seen all these drawings to go with the bikurim.

 Check out Daniel Saunder’s post on the bikurim.

hihorosie says

Love the side by side drawings. Your daughter is quite the artist. :)

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Ilana-Davita says

I was wondering whether you'd put them up since you had mentioned drawing them. given that I am quite a visual person, it shoud help me remember them all. Congratulations to both artists.

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Daniel Saunders says

Thanks for the link.

I like the fruits. The grapes were my favourites.

Shavua tov!

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Batya says

Wow, I could never draw. Lucky there's a camera.

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Leora says

Rosie, Ilana-Davita, Daniel and Batya, thanks for taking the time to look at our visual 7 species! We had fun.

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