To Hold Eternity in the Palm of Your Hand
Contributing Your Verse to the Play of Life
By: Rabbi YY Jacobson
Peanut Butter
Every day at lunch time Yankel would open his lunch sandwich and utter the same complaint. "Oh no, peanut butter again!”
One day, after seven years, his co-worker finally loses his patience. "Why don't you ask your wife to make you something different, for heaven’s sake?"
"That won't help", Yankel replies, "I make the sandwiches myself."
The Green Mitzvah
One of the most “green” and organic commandments in the Torah is the mitzvah of Bikurim, the “First Fruits,” in this opening of this week’s portion (Ki Savo.)
If you lived in the biblical Land of Israel, and your orchard grew any of the special fruits with which the Land was blessed—grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives or dates—you were commanded by the Torah to select the first-ripened fruits, place them in a basket, bring them to the Holy Temple, and present them to the kohen, the priest, as a gift,
A magnificent and exciting ceremony accompanied the performance of this annual tradition The Mishnah in Tractate Bikkurim[1] provides a graphic depiction of what the scene looked like some twenty centuries ago:
How does one separate Bikurim? A person goes down into his field, and sees a fig that has ripened, a cluster of grapes that have ripened, a pomegranate that has matured; he ties them with a string and declares: These are Bikurim!
How does one bring up his Bikurim? All of the farmers living in surrounding villages would gather together in one village, they would sleep in the streets[2] – [essentially this was a massive outdoor festival] -- and not enter the homes. At sunrise the appointed attendant would call out, “Let us arise, and ascend to Zion, to the Lord our G-d!”
Throughout the entire voyage they would sing the verse[3], “I was joyous when they told me, ‘let us go to the house of G-d.’”
Before them went the ox, its horns overlaid with gold, and with a wreath of olive leaves on its head. [You see, even the ox leading the way was part of the celebration.] The flute played before them until they came near Jerusalem (2*).
As they neared Jerusalem, they sent messengers to notify the people of Jerusalem of their arrival, and they bedecked and decorated their fruits. The rulers, prefects and treasurers of the Temple went out to welcome them. When they entered the portals of Jerusalem, they began to sing the verse[4] “our legs stood in your gates Jerusalem.”
All the craftsmen in Jerusalem rose up for them and greeted them, saying, "Brothers! People of such-and-such a place! Welcome!"
They would parade in Jerusalem, with the flute playing before them, till they arrived at the Temple Mount. At the Temple mount, each of them would place his basket on his shoulder, even King Agrippa [the last Judean king before the destruction of the Temple and the Jewish Commonwealth in 68 CE] would place his basket on his shoulder and enter in as far as the Temple Court [Azarah], and the Levites began singing...
Each farmer, with his basket of fruits on his shoulder in the Temple yard, would tell the kohen[5]: "I declare this day to the Lord, your G-d that I have come to the land which the Lord swore to our forefathers to give us."
The Kohen would then lift up the basket of fruits, and the farmer would – in a loud and festive voice – utter a moving declaration[6]:
"My father [Jacob] was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous.
“And the Egyptians treated us cruelly and afflicted us, and they imposed hard labor upon us. So we cried out to the Lord, G-d of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. Then G-d brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders.
“And He brought us to this place, and He gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
“And now, behold, I have brought the first of the fruit of the ground which you, O Lord, have given to me."
Then, the kohen returned the basket to the giver. The farmer placed it near the Temple altar, prostrated himself, and left. He spent the night in Jerusalem and then returned home the next day.
What’s the Gevald?
We read this description and we can sense the exhilaration and excitement that slowly grows as the farmers gather, and begin making their voyage to Jerusalem. We sense the ecstasy, the celebration, and the sense of camaraderie in the climactic arrival of the Bikurim at the Holy Temple. The rulers, the dignitaries, and even the King, all took part in the festivities. The music did not stop and the energy was electrifying. They even slept together outside. It was a momentous occasion, a scene to behold.
But was it really?
A poor farmer, a young lad or an old man, is bringing a few fruits in a modest basket to Jerusalem as a gift to the priest who, working in the Temple, does not make a living on his own and is supported by the community. It is a kind gesture and a fine deed. The farmer is not bringing his entire crop; he is donating just one or two or three fruits (maybe more, maybe less). His donation is not unusual in its generosity. His orchard may in fact produce small and impoverished-looking fruits and even the choicest of them may be a far cry from big and delicious fruits. He basically takes a few figs and clusters and brings them to Jerusalem. Things like this happen millions a times a day in the world: farmers deliver their fruits to homes, shops and markets.
What then warranted such an outstanding welcome? Why the ceremonial thrill, the momentous hype? What created such dramatic excitement? A flute leading them all the way, and the Temple dignitaries coming out to greet them?
What is even more astonishing is the fact that each of these farmers did not merely come and deliver his or her[7] gift to the kohen. No! Each of them, entered the Holy Temple, the most sacred space in the world, and made a powerful declaration which retold the story of Jewish history till that point.
Imagine if once a year when the delivery boy came to bring the fruits of the new season to the local synagogue to be given to the poor (or to be used for the Kiddush or the sisterhood meeting), he would place the box of fruits on his shoulder and pronounce this following declaration with a voice filled with gusto:
“The year was 1775 when The Thirteen Colonies began a rebellion against British rule and proclaimed their independence. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, still meeting in Philadelphia, declared the independence of ‘the United States of America’ in the ‘Declaration of Independence.’ In it our Founding Fathers wrote:
“’When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...’
“And here I am today – James Smith the Third, in this beautiful city, bringing fruits to this special man...”
A bit strange, no?
And yet this is what occurred with each and every basket of fruit being delivered to the Temple. A simple farmer is presenting a basket of fruits to a kohen, and he begins waxing eloquently about the entire story of Jewish history from our Genesis in Egypt till his farming in the Land of Israel!
I Want You!
Yet it is precisely this experience which offers a glimpse into an essential idea of Judaism. A simple farmer delivering a basket of fruits to the Kohen in Jerusalem is an embodiment of the entire narrative of Jewish history; his or her daily struggles and gifts constitute an indispensable note in the grand symphony of the Jewish people. Our global story is comprised of individual hearts, individual baskets, and individual fruits.
It is not the only the momentous, dramatic and earth-shattering experiences which deserve to be noted from a historical point of view. Rather, when a Jewish farmer works hard all year in his or her field, plowing, sowing, irrigating, supervising, and finally harvesting and reaping; and then this farmer fills a basket of a few simple fruits to give to G-d in the Temple (presented as a gift to the Divine ambassador in the Temple, the kohen)—this, in the paradigm of Judaism, is a momentous event.
