Parashat Ki Tavo—The Last Mitzvot

If someone were to ask us to choose one or two mitzvot with which to conclude the entire list of mitzvot in the Torah, what would they be? Perhaps one would be the mitzvah to believe in the One God, which is the foundation of Judaism, and which represented a rebellion against ancient polytheist beliefs and culture? Perhaps another would be Shabbat since it has been one of the hallmarks of Jewish observance throughout the ages, or Kashrut—the Jewish dietary laws—which has served as one of the distinguishing features of daily Jewish life?

The answer to this question can be found at the beginning of Parashat Ki Tavo that we read this week, and it is surprising, to say the least. After Moses opens the book of Deuteronomy with a (selective) overview of the 40 year journey from Horeb (elsewhere known as Sinai) until Moab on the east side of the Jordan, he continues with a discourse on the covenant that God establishes with the People at Moab, and which covers the bulk of the book from 4:44 until 28:69. The heart of this discourse is the section from 12:1-26:15 that includes a very long and comprehensive list of mitzvot and that ends at the beginning of this week’s parasha. So, what are the mitzvot at the end of this list, and why did Moses choose these mitzvot in particular?

The first is known as mikra bikkurim, a ceremony involving a declaration that the farmer in the Land must recite upon bringing his first fruits to the Temple. The second is known as viduy ma’aser, a ceremony involving a declaration, or a confession, that the farmer must make after giving the poor-tithe every third year. The text of the mikra bikkurim, familiar to most of us from the Passover Haggadah, begins with the farmer’s declaration that he has entered the Land that God had promised to our ancestors. What follows is the recollection of our landless beginnings, our enslavement and oppression in Egypt and then God’s miraculous redemption, and, finally, the farmer’s declaration that he is now bringing the first fruit from the soil of the Promised Land. The viduy ma’aser involves his declaration, or confession, that he has divested himself of all the portions of crop that are to be donated to the poor, and that he has not violated their sanctity by handling them improperly. So what is it about these two mitzvot in particular that helps explains why Moses deemed them worthy of concluding the entire list of mitzvot?

I believe that the uniqueness of these two mitzvot is that they serve to impart no fewer than 10 critical lessons that the people must internalize and implement as they prepare for life as a sovereign nation in the Land:

1. Gratitude—we must be grateful to God for all He has done for us, both in the past and in the present.
2. The verbal expression of gratitude—it is not enough to feel gratitude. We must be able to express gratitude in words.
3. Awareness of God’s role in history—one of the foundations of Judaism is the belief that God intervenes in the course of history, then and now.
4. The covenant between God and the People of Israel—God formalized His relationship with us through a covenant. This covenant binds God to us and us to God.
5. The final destination of the People of Israel is the Land of Israel—the Exodus from Egypt was not the goal but merely the first step in the fulfillment of God’s promise to bring us to the Land where we are meant to both realize our mission as God’s people, and to enjoy its blessings.
6. The God who redeemed us from Egypt and brought us to the Land is also the God of nature and the source of the Land’s fertility.
7. Within the Land there will be a Temple that will serve as the People’s religious and spiritual center.
8. Every individual is a member of the collective. Thus, the farmer must acknowledge that his blessings are a manifestation of the blessings that God bestows upon the entire people.
9. The Land is a source of material blessing for all those living there. It is a land “flowing with milk and honey” and the first fruits that the farmer brings to the Temple are a vivid illustration of this.
10. We are required to share the blessings of the Land with others—the obligation to give a tithe of one’s produce to the poor sends a clear message that we may not enjoy our own blessings until we have shared some of them with those who are less fortunate.

With all that has been going on in Israel since October 7, it is difficult to notice the extraordinary blessings that the Land of Israel has to offer and to be grateful for the opportunity to re-constitute ourselves as a sovereign nation within it after over two thousand years of living under foreign rule elsewhere.

Nevertheless, that is precisely why I believe the lessons of mikra bikkurim and vidui ma’aser are so important today, even though we do not observe these mitzvot in the absence of a Temple. For they serve to remind us that whether this Land is a blessing or, God forbid, a curse is not a function of the land per se, but of what we do with it, the kind of state we seek to build, and the kind of society we wish to create within it now, and for the future.