Dear Rabbi Kornfeld,
Why are sycamore and carob trees so particularly important and unique to be treated differently here and elsewhere?
Don't other trees provide shade (sycamore) and food (carob)?
Thanks.
Yehuda
Joel P. Wiesen, Ph.D., Director
Applied Personnel Research, Newton Mass.
Rashi writes in Erchin 14a DH Ela Charuv, that these two trees (Sadan ha'Shikmah and Charuv ha'Murkav) are very old and large trees, and they nurture from the soil in which they are planted more than other trees.
It is possible that because these trees require more care and nutrients than others, why they are given a "name of their own" (i.e. people don't call it "part of the field" but "the Shikmah" and "the Charuv"), as the Rashbam writes on the bottom of 68b, DH v'Es ha'Charuv, DH Besulas.
M. Kornfeld