Sep 24/05 - Shabbat Ki Tavo

Commentary by Rabbi Alan Green

“You shall answer and say before the Lord your God: ‘My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt, few in number, and he sojourned there; but there he became a great and populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us, and oppressed us. They imposed heavy labour upon us. We cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors. And God heard our cry, and saw our affliction, our misery, and our oppression. God brought us out from Egypt with a mighty hand, an outstretched arm, with awesome power, and by signs and wonders. God brought us to this place, and gave us this land—a land flowing with milk and honey. Therefore, I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You, God, have given me.’“ (Deuteronomy 26:5-10)

Those familiar with the Pesach Haggadah will recognize these words. They form the basic framework for the MAGGID portion of the Haggadah, in which the story of the Exodus is elaborated with verses taken from various parts of the Torah and Tanach. What precisely was the function of these words in ancient times? And why did the rabbis of old seize upon them as the basis of the story told in the Pesach Haggadah?

This was the recitation prescribed for the moment when our farmer ancestors offered first fruits of the harvest at the Jerusalem Temple on Shavuot. It is one of the few instances where the Torah assigns the precise wording of a prayer, rather than leaving it up to spontaneous expression of the worshipper’s heart. We can therefore surmise that these verses must have held a critical significance for the people of Temple times.

Indeed, here is the whole history of the Jewish people, from Jacob down to early Temple times. In remarkably few words, we are told how a temporary stay evolved into centuries of oppression—an oppression that could have lasted a lot longer, if not for the dramatic intervention of the “mighty hand, and outstretched arm” of the God of Creation.

By extreme contrast with the oppression that characterized our time in Egypt, the grateful pilgrim now stands before God, first fruits in hand, farmed from the very soil that God has given as the ultimate gift of freedom to the descendants of slaves. It must have been a stunning moment.

That this “First Fruits Recitation” (as it is called in the Mishna) repeated on a yearly basis hardly diminished the grandeur of that moment. It was towards this very act that all of Israelite history pointed. It was this to which God referred when He instructed Moses to tell Pharaoh, “Let My people go, that they may worship Me” (Exodus 8:16).

In other words, God’s liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery wasn’t enough. Having achieved liberation and a land of their own, it was then necessary for the Israelites to return the favour, and complete the energetic circle. What God had given to Israel in the form of freedom, now had to be returned to God in the form of gratitude. This is why these words were chosen for the offering of the First Fruits.

But why did the rabbis press this passage into the service of the Haggadah? I believe it is because the most significant teaching of entire Pesach celebration is also contained here: “We cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors. And God heard our cry, and saw our affliction, our misery, and our oppression.”

Is it possible to believe that until that very moment, God was unaware of “our affliction, our misery, and our oppression”? In a sense, yes, God was unaware, because we ourselves were unaware. As long as we were willing to live with oppression, God within us was willing to live with oppression.

Only when we finally awoke to the harsh fact of our misery—only when we cried out from the pain of it all—did God hear our cry. Since we awoke, God too, as it were, awoke. At once, the mechanics of liberation from the bonds of slavery were set in motion.

Similarly, the modern Zionist movement. For millennia, the Jewish people hoped and prayed for a return to the land of our ancestors. But it was only when the Dreyfus trial broke the camel’s back of our despair, that the mechanics of return were set in motion. Along with our awakening, God awoke to our misery—and, with our help, facilitated the return to Israel, our eternal homeland.

In spite of some very considerable challenges, those who live in Israel today share something in common with our ancient ancestors: gratitude for the “fruits of the soil which You, God, have given me.”

SHABBAT SHALOM