(Not) Knowing the Words- Ki Tavo 5784

One of the most striking passages in all of Tanakh is found in parshat Ki Tavo, which we read this Shabbat. The words of the bikkurim ceremony, when the Israelites bring the first fruits of their crops as an offering, read as follows:

“My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but he became a great and populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. And we cried to the Lord, the G-d of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice, and saw our affliction, and our toil, and our oppression. And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs and wonders. And He hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

This passage, I imagine, is familiar to many of us. It has made its way into our liturgy; they’re found in the Haggadah which we read at Passover, in the Maggid section when we retell the story of how we were brought out of slavery into freedom. In fact, it can be read as a succinct summation of the entire journey of the Israelites in the narrative of the Torah.

The rabbis teach that each farmer, upon bringing their first fruits to the priest, would individually recite the same formula word for word, as spelled out in our text. Those individuals who were more learned in Torah than others knew the words by heart; the ones who did not know the words were assisted by a prompter. When those who needed assistance stopped offering their produce out of embarrassment, the procedure was changed so that everyone was assisted by a prompter.

This dichotomy is emblematic of our current-day model of Jewish prayer. There are those who know the words- so much so, in fact, that they can pray without a siddur and have huge swaths of our sacred texts committed to memory. On the other side of the spectrum, there are those who don’t know the words that the Sages have mandated we say as part of our communal prayers. Due to this divide, certain poskim– rabbis who make and interpret rulings of halakha– have decreed that when praying in public, every individual should use a siddur in order to not cause someone shame who is not as familiar with our set liturgy. 

Our tradition, as we know, has a plethora of fixed blessings for any number of situations: blessing for various foods, for seeing various natural phenomena, for lifecycle occasions, and even for using the bathroom. Despite the abundance of seemingly “ready-made” blessings, Jewish tradition also allows for spontaneous, personal prayer. If we consider the Shabbat Amidah, which we recited just a little while ago, there is a fixed liturgy that has been handed down by the rabbis. The blessings themselves are fixed and said communally, although there have been halachically-approved changes by the Conservative movement and others over the years, such as the inclusion of the imahot– Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah- along with the avot– Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the first blessing. However, at the end of every amidah, there is always an opportunity for personal prayer. After we see ourselves as members of a community, praying on our communal behalf, we are then able to turn our attention to our own personal needs. It’s often in this moment where our most personal and deepest supplications are given voice, and it’s an integral part of the prayer experience. 

I want to draw our attention to the opening words of the bikkurim ceremony: Arami Oved Avi- “My father was a wandering Aramean”. Those words really hit home for me- while I may be settled in my own place, those who came before me from whom I descend were not. As I think of this week’s news, in which immigrants and others have been falsely demonized by those in power- again, sadly- it occurs to me that we all have been wanderers. We all, for one reason or another, are where we are now because someone a few generations ago (or maybe we ourselves) up and left, decided to get out, and headed from Yenemvelt (“the other world” in Yiddish, as a certain generation of Jews called it) to Die Goldeneh Medineh, the Golden Country, where life was better.

Let’s not lose sight of that. Let us remember who’s here, why they’re here, how they got here, and how we can help them. The commandment to love the stranger, for we were strangers in the land of Egypt, is repeated no less than 36 times in the Torah. As we enter this High Holiday season and evaluate how we’ve treated others, we evaluate our own personal history as well. We always have the opportunity to do better, and to be a dugma, an example, to others. Hillel famously said that the whole Torah can be summarized as: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; the rest is commentary.” We are fortunate to have the opportunity to put that especially important commandment into practice over the next several weeks of the upcoming high holiday season, and have it be for our benefit. Let’s not squander such an opportunity.