Olives are a naturally bitter fruit that is typically subjected to fermentation or cured with lye or brine to make it more palatable.
Green olives and black olives are typically washed thoroughly in water to remove oleuropein, a bitter carbohydrate. Sometimes they are also soaked in a solution of food grade sodium hydroxide to accelerate the process.
Green olives are allowed to ferment before being packed in a brine solution. American black ("California") olives are not fermented, which is why they taste milder than green olives.
Freshly picked olive fruit is not palatable because it contains phenolic compounds and oleuropein, a glycoside which makes the fruit too bitter, although not unhealthy.[35] (One exception is the throubes olive, which can be eaten fresh.)[37][citation needed] There are many ways of processing olives for eating. Traditional methods use the natural microflora on the fruit and procedures which select for those flora that ferment the fruit. This fermentation leads to three important outcomes: the leaching out and breakdown of oleuropein and phenolic compounds; the creation of lactic acid, which is a natural preservative; and a complex of flavoursome fermentation products. The result is a product which will store with or without refrigeration.
Now we will discuss humility in relation to one's deeds. This [subject] has four parts to it: conducting oneself in a lowly manner; bearing disparagement; being averse to [positions of] authority and fleeing from honor; and respecting others. --Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, The Path of the Just, page 156
Last week I was in Southern California, where I grew up and where my most of my family has always lived. One of my nephews had unearthed a box of old family photos that he is now copying and cataloging, including some of Jewish ancestors I can’t even identify for sure. Viewing pictures of my grandparents and parents and my own early years made for a melancholy day. My father has been gone for twelve years and my mother for seven and a half, but the photos made my sense of loss fresh. I’m an orphan. But viewing the pictures was a healthy thing too—it’s right, even if it’s sad, to remember those who’ve gone before us and how much they’ve given us. We would not be what we are without all the resources our forebears laid upon us.
There is another extremely high level of humility – humbling oneself before one's teachers, before the wise and before the righteous who walk in just paths – thinking to oneself: These are the servants of the Blessed One, His bondmen and His lovers, and, because of this, lowering himself before them and honoring them. It is also a good variety of humility if he thinks: I shall humble myself before them so that they will draw me near and teach me and chastise me and lead me in the ways of the Blessed One. – Rabbi Shraga Silverstein, Orchot Tzadikim, The Gate of Humility 
Last fall, my wife and I took a 10 mile walk on the Snoqualmie-Preston trail east of 
