Ki Tavo

Zvi Solomons, rabbi, is the Senior Minister at Princes Road Synagogue, Liverpool Old Hebrew Congregation.

The words at the beginning of parshat Ki Tavo are very familiar. These words are cited in the Pesach Haggadah, which talks about Laban the Aramean seeking to enslave our ancestor Jacob. The passage is notable for the large amount of Rabbinic exegesis on the verses; indeed those less versed in the intricacies of comparing biblical verses in the high Rabbinic style may well remember this as the passage when the Haggadah kind of loses the plot, and our attention with it. To do it justice we need a Hebrew dictionary and a complete Hebrew Bible and Concordance, and most of us just don't have these things at the seder table.

Yet in the context of Ki Tavo this passage is very different. For a start this passage is recited when making an offering in the Temple of our First Fruits. The Haggadah conveniently forgets the actual context of this passage and even edits out the additional verses explaining who we are and what we are doing.

Viewed here, in our parsha, the passage is a reminder of our identity. It serves to remind us that the fruit of the land we have inherited is God's gift. We offer the fruit as a way of acknowledging our debt to Him for the land. The passage also reminds us of our humble origins. Indeed the proof of the authenticity of our story lies in the story of our liberation from slavery. What other people in the world boast of having been slaves? This would in other circumstances be a source of great shame and anger. Yet last week the Torah taught us that we should treat Egyptians well; after all, though we were slaves in their land they did provide for us. We are repeatedly exhorted not to oppress the Egyptian or the stranger in our midst. What better way to remind us to treat such people decently, than to remind us of our own times of weakness and need?

The first fruits would be collected and presented as they arrived during the year. We aren't talking about the first fruits of everything, just the seven kinds of produce mentioned earlier in Chapter 8 of Deuteronomy. These are wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. We have to say a special threefold blessing after eating these things, because they typify the fruitfulness of Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel), which was given to us by God. Because of the nature of our festivals, which coincide with the harvest, the first fruits would be taken at about the same time as the three great pilgrimages to the Temple - Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot.

The personal nature of the passage, the intimacy of the language, and the direct way in which we speak to our Creator before the Cohen (Priest) serve to accentuate our sense of duty and responsibility. Similarly when the Torah later goes on to talk about tithes, the declaration is a short personal conversation with God. It is interesting to note that the fruits are enjoyed by the Cohen, not burnt.

As we approach the High Holy Days, and start reckoning our own fulfilled or unfulfilled responsibilities, could reading this ritual be a timely reminder to make our own lives fit for a similar declaration, with regard not to our agricultural goods but (more relevantly) to our relationships?