September 16th: Ki Tavo
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
How does one introduce oneself? How is one’s story told? Whether in a biography, a job resume, a college application, or even an obituary, it is an interesting exercise summarizing the important events or qualities or relationships in someone’s life—and then leaving out the rest. Each and every life has hundreds and thousands of details, but which ones should be chosen for a particular context?
The ancient Levites must have addressed this question when they put together the thanksgiving ritual described in this week’s Torah portion. Note how each Israelite is instructed to tell his story:
“My father was a wandering Aramean who went down to Egypt and lived there--small in number, but there our family grew, and we became a great people, an enormous tribe. The Egyptians oppressed us and treated us badly, imposing harsh labor on us. We cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, and the Lord heard our voices and saw our suffering and our misery and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, with amazing power and with wonders and miracles. Then the Lord brought us to this place and gave us this Land, the Land flowing with milk and honey. Now behold, I have brought the first of the produce of the Land that You, O Lord our God, have given me.” (Deuteronomy 26.5-10)
It is a moving story—an important story that hits the highlights, but think of the many parts of our sacred history that are left out. All the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are subsumed in the phrase, “My father was a wandering Aramean who went down to Egypt…” The story of the Exodus from Egypt gets good attention, but quite a bit less than the fifteen chapters the Torah gives it. There is no mention of the Ten Commandments, or the elaborate Levitical system of ritual purity and atonement from sin. or the wandering in the desert for forty years. And, there is no mention of the moral laws like Leviticus 19’s: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” It is a less-than-complete statement of spiritual identification.
The fact that this recitation is part of a ritual may be one reason for the short form.
“When you come into the Land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance and a possession, and you dwell in it, you shall take of the first and best of all the produce of the land that you harvest from the Land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall place it in a basket and travel to the place where the Lord your God chooses for the Divine Name to dwell. You shall go into the priest who is on duty at that time and say unto him: ‘I declare today to the Lord your God that I have entered the Land that the Lord promised to my ancestors, to give us.’ Then the priest shall take the basket from your hands and lift it up before the altar of the Lord your God. Then you shall recite….” (Deuteronomy 26.1-4)
Perhaps it is like the shortened history we have in Avot v’Imahot in the Amidah. We praise the Lord Who is also the God of our ancestors—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah, but we leave out most of the people in our family chain of tradition. Since the point of the prayer is to praise God, our liturgists found it expeditious to summarize.
Perhaps the point is obvious: We select and edit information to fit various contexts and formats. Since this harvest appreciation prayer is to be recited individually by every single Israelite presenting his first fruits, a more a complete sacred history would simply take too long. And yet, in this brief format, only certain facts are included—and thus it is fitting to consider their message.
Though there is much for which we should thank God (think Dayenu from the Passover Seder!), here the focus is on God’s promise of the “Land flowing with milk and honey.” Worshippers are instructed to thank God for all their blessings and for the fact that God followed through on the promise. We started with nothing. We sank into slavery and degradation. Then God saved us and gave us everything. This prayer expresses a profound sense of appreciation. As the prayer book puts it, “na’eh l’hodot / it is supremely appropriate to give thanks!”
Today we often hear the word “privilege” in a political context, but it can also speak to a deeper truth. We are the recipients of blessings which we did not bring about ourselves. Our ancestors and families, the founders of our country and the people who built it and defended it, the founders and sages of our religion, and the wisdom and contributions of civilization in general are all our benefactors. We who are privileged in these many ways should feel a deep sense of thankfulness. We should also feel a strong sense of responsibility to pass the blessings along.
This ethical sentiment is expressed in a passage in the old Union Prayer Book—one so powerful that I included in our Siddur B’rit Shalom:
“How much we owe to the labors of our brothers and sisters! Day by day they dig far away from the sun that we may be warm, enlist in outposts of peril that we may be secure, and brave the terrors of the unknown for truths that shed light on our way. Numberless gifts have been laid in our cradles as our birthright. Let us then, O Lord, be just and great-hearted in our dealings with others, sharing with them the fruit of our common labor, acknowledging before You that we are but stewards of whatever we possess. Help us to be among those who are willing to sacrifice that others may not hunger, who dare to be bearers of light in the dark loneliness of stricken lives, who struggle and even bleed for the triumph of righteousness. So may we be co-workers with You in the building of Your kingdom, which has been our vision and goal through the ages.” (Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1940, page 45, slightly adapted)