Ki Tavo. This Too Shall Pass

Our sidra opens with the description of the joyous ceremony of bikurim, the bringing of the first-fruits of the harvest to “the place where G‑D will choose” (Deut. 26:2). Every farmer, whether rich or poor, selects of the seven special kinds (wheat, barley, olives, dates, grapes, figs and pomegranates) from his new harvest and brings it to the Kohen. If he is wealthy he will place it in a container of gold or silver; if poor, a simple basket made of willow will do nicely. He hands his basket to the Kohen and makes a declaration of acknowledgement and gratitude to G‑D.

What does he say? We may have expected something like the passionate text of Nishmat (ArtScroll Siddur p. 400) or Hallel. But no. At this momentous time when he is coming to Jerusalem in the company of other farmers whose harvest may have been better and whose baskets more beautiful than his, he is not expected to say what he may not feel in his heart.

Chakham Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, the Ben Ish Chai (1832-1909) famously relates the parable of a king who requests his advisor to engrave his signet ring with a message that will uplift him in difficult times and will humble him in good times. (If only such sensitive leaders existed in the world today!) The wise advisor engraved the ring with the words This too shall pass.

This parable helps us explain the aptness of the declaration the Torah prescribes for the pilgrim farmer. It is the declaration-for-all-seasons that we know so well from the Pesach Hagada whose centrepiece it forms together with copious midrashic commentary. Aptly so, as it is a succinct summary of the troughs and peaks of the early history of the nation of Israel – how the Aramean Lavan (Rashi to 26:5) tried to destroy her even before she was a nation, how that crisis passed and how Jacob sires twelve sons who go down to Egypt and prosper thanks to Joseph’s rank and influence – but that too passed and the benign regime became an oppressive one in which we were enslaved, persecuted and tortured – but thankfully that too passed because G‑D heard our cries and saw our suffering and brought us out of the cauldron of Egypt and enabled us, through the gift of the Torah, to become a strong and prosperous nation in our own land.

This entire odyssey of national tragedy and triumph becomes a paradigm of personal inspiration on the lips of the farmer.

If the farmer’s circumstances right now are ideal, if he is carrying a golden basket laden with luscious fruits, the products of his prosperity, he must internalize the knowledge that Jacob and his sons were more prosperous in Egypt than he is now – but that passed and this too shall pass. Nothing material is permanent. “Upon his death, he will take nothing (of his wealth) with him (into the grave)” (Psalms 49:18).

Let that farmer therefore be not complacent but humble and let his paean of praise be tempered with compassion for those whose circumstances are dire and in whose leaky boat he may be one day.

But if, on the other hand, the farmer carries his meagre bikkurim in a flimsy willow basket with a spirit as drooping as the willows, let him know that Bnei Yisrael felt the same way in Egypt – but it passed. G‑D heard and He redeemed.

And this too shall pass and in a year or two from now, with the help of G‑D the penury he is experiencing now will be but a bitter memory.

Then, when the farmer has internalized the lesson of “this too shall pass”, whatever his circumstances, the farmer can declare heartily and honestly in first-person-singular without dejection and without complacency I am bringing the first-fruits of the ground, the ones You G‑D have given me (Deut. 26:10). They may be luscious and plentiful, they may be meagre, misshapen and small but they are “what You have given me”, they are my G‑D given portion in life – and for that I am thankful!

Who would have predicted, amid the pre-2008 euphoria, an economic downturn as cataclysmic as the global recession of a decade and a half ago? Only an individual with the humility and far-sightedness to wear the king’s metaphorical engraved signet ring on his hand throughout those good times. And only such an individual will have imagined it still there amid the harder times of 2008 and 2009, bearing the encouraging message this too shall pass. (And, thank G-D, it did!)

Neither diamonds nor dire straits are forever!