Cultural Significance
The Jewish Talmud features a parable of altruism, commonly known as "Honi and the Carob Tree", in which a carob tree takes 70 years to bear fruit; the planter did not benefit from planting, but did so in the interest of future generations.
In reality, the fruiting age of carob trees varies: cuttings taken from fruit-bearing trees may bear fruit in as few as three to four years, and seedlings grown in ideal conditions may fruit within six to eight years. Although it is native to moderately dry climates, two or three summers irrigation will greatly aid the development, hasten fruiting, and increase the yield."
In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Prodigal Son, having squandered his inheritance, wishes that he could also partake in eating the pigs' diet of carob pods.
Read more about this topic: Ceratonia Siliqua
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or significance:
“We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture. Not an idiot sub-culture, which every society has bubbling beneath the surface and which can provide harmless fun; but the culture itself. For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal.”
—Carl Bernstein (b. 1944)
“It is necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)