Judaism
Parashah of the week: Ki Tavo
“And you shall call out and declare before Hashem your God: ‘An Aramean [Laban] attempted to destroy my ancestor [Jacob], and he descended to Egypt’” Deuteronomy 26:5
August 31, 2023 13:36
“And you shall call out and declare before Hashem your God: ‘An Aramean [Laban] attempted to destroy my ancestor [Jacob], and he descended to Egypt’” Deuteronomy 26:5
August 31, 2023 13:36This statement forms part of the surprisingly elaborate ceremony that accompanied the bringing of the first fruits, bikkurim, to the Temple in Jerusalem. Its purpose seems clear. At the conclusion of the first harvest, farmers would journey to the capital with a selection of their choicest fruits and sanctify them in order to express thanks to God for His sustenance.
However, unlike any other offering, the individual is required to recite aloud a unique declaration, partly quoted above. This unusual requirement led our sages to institute a beautifully sensitive system whereby the priest would repeat the declaration word-for-word with the farmer so as not to embarrass anyone who could not read Hebrew.
Intriguingly, the passage is a crash course in ancient Israelite history, tracing Jacob’s struggles in Aram, then the slavery in Egypt, the Exodus and finally settlement of the land of Canaan. Only after this synopsis does the reader move on to express actual gratitude for the land’s produce.
The mishnaic sages describe the extravagant build-up to the event. Villagers across Israel would gather their bikkurim at designated meeting-points in the town squares. At dawn, they journeyed to Jerusalem, accompanied the entire way by music and dancing.
The capital’s residents would drop everything and rush to greet them. Even the kings of old would carry baskets on their shoulders along the home stretch to the Temple.
It becomes clear that the ceremony is about so much more than simply expressing gratitude. Its deeper purpose is to locate that gratitude within the bigger picture of something far more empowering.
Small-picture gratitude struggles to transcend the immediacy of the grateful person’s specific situation and circumstances. A simple farmer looking to say “thank you” to God above and his workers below need only say the words with sincerity, and the box has been ticked; life moves on until the next harvest.
But what if there is so much more at play? What if, as we stand on the brink of returning to schools, universities and places of work, we started seeing our successes and results not as isolated incidents for which we are indebted to an isolated group of people, but as another thread in a tapestry which we weave together with countless others?
Through this, gratitude becomes transformative; no longer shackled to the bottom line or profit margin, but reflecting the big-picture narrative of a school, college, office or even a nation that has existed since antiquity. Here, our successes are not celebrated in disconnected isolation. Rather, they — and we — are celebrated as unique and indispensable contributors to the pages of a much grander story.