ROSE

ROSE (Heb. וֶרֶד, vered, mishnaic), the genus Rosa. Two species grow wild in Israel, the white rose, Rosa phoenicea, which grows on the banks of rivers, in swamps and woods, and the vered ha-kelev – Rosa canina–which has pink and sometimes white blossoms and grows close to water. These wild roses have five petals and are not particularly beautiful or fragrant. The fragrant rose arrived in Ereẓ Israel from Persia only during the Greco-Persian period. Its Persian name was varda whence its mishnaic name vered (Aramaic varda, Gr. ῥόδον). The rose is not mentioned in the Bible, even though according to tannaitic tradition Jerusalem possessed "a garden of roses (in which fruit trees also grew) that existed from the time of the early prophets" (Ma'as. 2:5; Tosef., Neg. 6:2; BK 82b), though it was otherwise forbidden to plant gardens in Jerusalem. The rose (rodon) is mentioned a number of times in the Greek translation of Ben Sira but, in the Hebrew fragments discovered in the genizah (Ecclus. 39:13; 50:8), the word shoshan ("lily") appears. This substitution of shoshan or shoshannah for vered, even though erroneous (see flowers , of the Bible, Lily), already occurs in the Midrash which speaks of "a red shoshannah" (i.e., a rose, since the lily is white) and even mentions a "shoshannah of a vered" (Lev. R. 23:3). The source of this mistaken identification lies chiefly in the explanation of "the shoshannah among the thorns" (Song 2:2), which was understood to refer to the thorns on the stalk of the rose. The red rose is mentioned in the Apocrypha (I En. 82:16; 106:2). In rabbinic literature, the rose is frequently mentioned: the bridegroom wears a crown of roses (Meg. Ta'an. 327) and idolators decorate their shops with them (Av. Zar. 12b). There is an adage that "youth is like a crown of roses" (Shab. 152a). R. Johanan's beauty was compared to a crown of red roses encircling a silver cup containing pomegranate seeds (BM 84a). A white rose is also mentioned (Git. 68b). A handsome man is called vardina'ah ("roselike," Nid. 19b and cf. Git. 41a). The main use of roses was in the preparation of an aromatic oil made by soaking the petals in olive oil (Shev. 7:6, et al.). It was apparently also customary to soak rose blossoms in water. The Talmud describes a Persian noble's concept of enjoying life as "sitting up to his neck in roses surrounded by naked harlots" (Av. Zar. 65a; Rashi: "sitting in a bath of roses"). Medieval halakhic literature speaks of "rosewater" as a medicament. Jam made from rose petals was a favorite food (Sh. Ar., OḤ 204:11). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Loew, Flora, 3 (1924), 193–211; J. Feliks, Olam ha-ẓome'aḥ ha-Mikra'i (19682), 238–9; H.N. and A.L. Moldenke, Plants of the Bible (1952), index. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Feliks, Ha-Ẓome'aḥ, 146. (Jehuda Feliks)