From: Stan Tenen <meru1@well.com>
Subject: Apple

	I have hesitated to contribute to the discussion about the origins
of the apple in Eden story, mostly because I had a sense the request was
for accepted references and not for speculation.  However, after reading
some of the postings, I was surprised not to see what I believe are the
primary kabbalistic references even alluded to. 
	Apple, Tapuach in Hebrew, refers not to an apple, per se, but to
any form that "Puffs through itself", that is, its represents a generic,
torus-shaped fruit, of which an apple is an excellent example, that fits
the description in Genesis I.11: "... fruit tree yielding fruit whose seed
is in itself"  This is an _operational_ description of the process of a
fruit-seed-tree-fruit-cum-new seed system.  It is not the description of
any particular fruit.  This system outlines one generation of a life-cycle
and this is why it has been recommended as _the_ fruit of Eden.  (This is
also why, to a mathematician, this process is identified with a torus, the
first form that "puffs through itself" like a smoke ring.)
	The Tipuach appears rather mysteriously in Jewish tradition as the
form of the ashes on the alter in the Temple. But that is too much to
discuss here. 
	The fruit in Eden is also described as a pomegranate - because a
pomegranate is full of seeds packed closely together.  This is a natural
model of an abstract discussion in the introduction to the Sefer Zohar, a
major kabbalistic work.  Here it states that there is a "...rose with
thirteen petals surrounding it on all sides....with 42-kinds of second-
matter..." 
	To a person familiar with the marketplace, where pomegranates,
oranges, apples and other round fruit is stacked - or to a person familiar
with solid geometry 101, or the work of the late Buckminster Fuller - this
is a unique description of what we call cube- octahedral sphere packing. 
Spheres pack most closely (in space) when there is one sphere on the
inside of an outer sphere consisting of 12- spheres.  The outer 12-spheres
are then surrounded with another sphere consisting of 42-spheres, and so
on. (Fuller gives a simple formula for the number of spheres in each
sphere of spheres.) The process of expanding from a single central sphere
to a sphere of 12 spheres to a sphere of 42 spheres is unique.  It closely
models how a seed sits within a real fruit, within a fruit, within a
fruit, within a fruit.... ad infinitum, as a chain-of-being - or as a Tree
of Life.  This is why the pomegranate is mentioned. 
	Also mentioned is wheat.  An examination of wheat shows layers of
branched sections that look somewhat like a small pine tree or like a
miniature spinal column.  This also expresses the chain-of-being and Tree
of Life model. 
	The fig is mentioned because it is an alternate, inside out, model
to the apple geometrically.  The fig's flower is inside.  It represents
self-reference, as its Hebrew name discloses.  Fig = T'en-ah (Tov-Alef-
Nun-Heh); the root is Alef-Nun, related to Alef-Nun-Yod, Ani, "I" preceded
by Tov, an indication of self-reference.  Thus the fig is the fruit of the
tree of self-reference.  Self-reference is represented personally by
self-awareness, what Adam and Eve gain by eating the fruit in Eden. 
	Thus, the fruit of the tree in Eden includes certain aspects that
are represented by all fruit and certain aspects that are represented by
several different fruit, including apples, pomegranates, wheat, and figs. 
	There is considerable discussion of this in the kabbalistic
literature, but most of the references are so obscure that they are no
longer unambiguously understood. 
	There is also Robert Graves' understanding of Apollo as referring
to an apple.  Apollo, like the God of Abraham, was considered to be
Unitary and Whole.  This is not the place to elaborate further, but there
was a likely a geometric, if not a theological, relationship between the
Abrahamic and the Greek views of the sacred geometry of creation and
consciousness.  Thus, Apollo as an archetypal or idealized apple, not as a
pagan God, is not out of place in an Abrahamic context. 
	Stan Tenen