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There are many Hebrew speakers who do not know the meaning of the word syafot. And many are convinced that sitvaniyot are just colchicums, small rosy flowers that bloom here in the autumn. But both these words signify the last figs of the season. I admit that I didn’t know these important things either, until I came across them one day in the Scriptures and they filled me with great joy: first, because I enriched my vocabulary with two more beautiful, impractical words; second, because the rise and fall of vocabulary in any language of a specific field expresses the changing importance of that field in the speaker’s life. This is how we deduce the importance of the fig to Hebrew speakers in the First and Second Temple, the place it occupied in their lives, and what linguistic richness developed around it. Every child knew back then that a pagga was an unripe fig, and a devela was a dried fig, the difference between a shriveled, inedible fig or grogeret and an overripe fig, tsemel, and between slices of keziah figs waiting to be dried, and novelet figs that fell from the tree. Everyone enjoyed identifying with the description of the exuberant consumption of the bikura, the first fig to ripen: “When he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand, he eateth it up.”

As I related earlier, there was a large and beautiful fig tree in my garden whose trunk was punctured and eaten by longhorn beetle larvae. At first I attempted to save the tree: I inserted cotton wool soaked in gasoline into their tunnels; I cast about for them with a long piece of wire thread bent at one end like a hook, a method of destroying leopard moth larvae taught to me by my grandfather when I was a boy. I managed to catch and pull out two of them—both big and flaccid, with the hard evil head of mining machinery—but it was too late. Their brothers kept going, and the inside of the trunk was eaten away even more, until a few months later the fig tree collapsed. The disaster happened at three o’clock in the morning, and the tumult as it fell awoke me. I hastened outside and saw it lying on the ground.

I was so appalled by the murderous capabilities of these beetle larvae that for several years I avoided planting another fig tree in place of the one that died. Finally, I resolved to plant a new fig tree, in spite of all this. In selecting the seedling, I took an approach taught me by my old friend Puyu, the painter and planter: “Don’t plant a fig tree in your garden if you don’t know its mother.”

And so, my new fig tree has an extraordinary mother whose fruits I have even tasted, and to this day the tree has never been attacked by beetle larvae. On the other hand—it did not grow. And if it grew, it did so at the rate of less than half an inch each year. I went to Puyu to ask what this meant, and he reassured me: “The tree’s investing in its roots,” he said, smiling broadly. But how long does it take to invest in roots? According to this rule, the roots of my fig tree have already reached China, and I still cannot sit in its shade or eat its fruit. And Puyu has meanwhile passed away, and I now have no one to ask or blame. Who knows, perhaps the tree is so busy investing in its roots that it is even ripening figs underground?

Meanwhile I buy figs in stores, receive them from friends, and, on various hikes through Israel, I pluck and eat abandoned figs. These grow in the Judean Hills and Jerusalem and the Galilean mountain range and inner lowlands. A fortunate fig tree grows out of a water hole or close to a spring and is fresh and green. A fig tree whose roots are in dry soil uncultivated by man—its leaves are wilted and slack, and the residue of its fertility is dedicated to bearing fruit. Some of these fig trees were sown by birds, and most of them are located in places that were formerly Arab villages. Like sabra hedges, unpruned olives, untrellised vines, and almonds that have become bitter—they are also witness to life here before the War of Independence.

In Hebrew, by the way, the verb le’erot, “to pick fruit from a fig tree,” comes from the word orr, which means “light,” because the fig tree must be visited at first light. Rising early is important; back in the days when this lovely verb was invented, there were no refrigerators, and at dawn the figs are cool and dewy and much tastier, and the wasps and flies, who are also fond of figs and who congregate around them in hot weather, are still frozen and silent.

And one more thing: if luck is with you and fennel bushes grow around the tree, a pungent, pleasant smell of anise rises up, merging with and enhancing the taste of the figs. And if nature has not provided this marriage, I recommend a pleasant alternative: chill the figs in the refrigerator, cut them in half, drizzle a little arak over their flesh, and devour.

In Proverbs it is written: “Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof.” In Hebrew the specific meaning of “keepeth” is “to watch over,” in other words “to guard,” but for what reason is the guarding of a simple fig tree glorified? First, because there are many who desire the fruit of the fig tree, particularly bipeds, meaning birds and humans. But guarding also connotes close supervision, including the way in which the fig ripens. As opposed to fruit trees that produce most of their crop within a short time, the fig tree produces fruit over a few weeks, extending its measured favor with wisdom: every day it honors its owners with a few new figs, and one must wake up early to pluck them before they are devoured by birds or become rotten. This makes it difficult for farmers who grow figs for marketing, but a mere person with a fig tree in his garden will be gladdened anew by the fig tree each morning.

And further ruminations arise while seeking and picking the figs: unlike the hasty picking from deciduous trees that bear fruit with pits, and the violent harvesting of olives with rakes and sticks, using the method of shaking and pulling (and in Hebrew the root of masak, “olive harvesting,” and mashach, “pulling,” are similar to each other), and unlike the harvesting of bunches of grapes with pruning shears, ripe figs must be surveyed and tracked and checked, not only with the eyes but also by touch—with fingers that learn the importance of gentleness and the pleasantness of erudition. When you get to a ripe, ready fruit—soft fleshed, thin cracks spreading over its skin, the gold gleaming, and the red flickering on its underside—you grasp it softly and remove it so gently that the fruit simply drops into the palm of your hand. This is because more than any other fruit tree, the fig tree is the most suggestive, the most acquiescent and alluring, and more often than not, as if asking to justify the associations with its name, the fig tree conceals its fruit within its leaves, which naturally and obviously are fig leaves, embodying everything these associations arouse.

While writing this, I recall a line from my father’s poem “Figs”: “Fumbling through landscape as if straining through garments toward forbidden nakedness, deep and concealed.” And since figs and fingers and nakedness have already been mentioned here, I also have some advice to offer: when picked, the fig disgorges a sticky white juice from its pedicel, and it is highly recommended not to touch any delicate part of the body with fingers that have become sticky with this juice: not the eyes nor corners of the mouth or any other bodily places or tissues. By the way, folk remedies even recommend using the juice as a remedy for calluses. In other words, do not underestimate its capabilities.

In winter the fig tree is bare, but in summer it provides cool and copious shade. The harvester rests there, wolfing down figs he promised to bring back home for breakfast, and realizing a further progression of the Hebrew language. Today’s bland Hebrew subtext of “peace and security” was derived from the wonderful Hebrew expression: “Every man sits under his vine and under his fig tree.” And when the fig tree in question is one of the big, old abandoned fig trees I frequent, it is difficult to avoid another thought: that I, and not the person who planted the tree, now sit under it. I pick and eat its fruit. Meanwhile, under the reign of our respective thorny bushes who think themselves wise and trust in their own might, neither of us knows peace, security, or tranquility.

This is not a new phenomenon. As far back as Deuteronomy, God told the Israelites that, waiting for them in the land of Canaan, were “houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not.” This is indeed what the Israelites found here when they conquered Canaan, and also the Philistines and Assyrians and Babylonians and Persians and Greeks and Romans and Byzantines and Crusaders and Arabs and Turks—everyone found here olives and figs they had not planted themselves, and terraces they had not built, and water holes they had not dug, and each added something of their own for the next in line. This is the story of a land promised by so many gods, a land conquered by so many conquerors, claimed by so many. And this is also the warning issued by the land to each of its children and all of its rulers.

And as for me—my fig tree still stands rebelliously and does not grow, and I do not sit in its shade or partake of its fruit. Every year it bears two early bikura figs, which are eaten by jaybirds before I can get to them. It seems the definition of the word boser, “unripe fruit,” is not the same in their language as it is in mine, but perhaps a beak is less sensitive to unripe fruit than teeth and a palate. Either way, I hope that one day this fig tree will stop investing in its roots and start investing in me, too, and that it will return the love I bestow upon it. In the meantime, I continue to learn from it the importance of patience and anticipation.