Rights and Responsibility of Jewish Sovereignty

Ki Tavo: The rights and responsibilities of Jewish Sovereignty

Ki Tavo begins with the words:

“When you enter the land you shall take a portion of every first fruit of the soil which you harvest from the Land that Adonai your God is giving you, put it in a basket and take it to the place that Adonai will choose to establish his name. You will give it the priest and then recite the following affirmation:

“My father was a fugitive Aramean who went down to Egypt and there became a great and populous nation. The Egyptians oppressed us and after we cried out to God it was God who heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression and brought us out of the land of Egypt.”

I’m sure that this paraphrase of the opening verses of Ki Tavo sounds familiar from our Passover Haggadah.

A couple of notable characteristics of these opening verses of Ki Tavo are:
1. The command is addressed in the second person singular. God through Moses is addressing each of us not Merely People Israel as a corporate entity.
2 Bringing offerings were certainly a form of taxes to support the priests and Levites but the tithe is also commanded to be given to the widow, the orphan and the stranger. Why?
4. Moreover, why in the section of the Parsha we read this morning from Chapter 27 and 28 are Blessings and Curses delineated in the same weekly portion where we begin with gratitude?

Each of these questions is worthy of a Dvar Torah. This year I want to focus on yet another question: namely: what do these opening words have to say to us, when after nearly 2000 years of exile, we live in an age when we The Jewish People have re-entered The Land of Israel and established sovereignty there.

As we approach Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur where the focus in the liturgy is upon self reflection, renewal and atonement, what should we as Diaspora Jews, as well as our Israeli brethren do with the dual command found in the opening of our Parsha to exhibit both Gratitude and Humility; and also extend some form of affirmative action to not only the widows and orphans of our own communities, but to the Ger the stranger living in our midst? What responsibility do our blessings of living as Jews in the 21st century impose upon us? Moreover, what curses hang over the horizon if we act entitled rather than grateful?

For me the High Holy Days are a time to not only seek forgiveness for my transgressions, but also, to count my blessings. Our liturgy for the High Holy Days focuses attention upon the responsibility to stand accountable before God, my family, my community and the world at large for where I fell short in the year past.
Elul is a time for each of us, individually, and all of us, as a Jewish People, to count our blessings and to reflect upon how each of us has been a source of blessing to others. It is also a time for each of us to acknowledge where we have missed the mark. As we approach the two year mark in the Gaza War, what are the responsibilities that accompany the Blessing of the existence of The State of Israel?

In the Balfour Declaration of 1917 that was incorporated into the San Remo treaty which in dividing up the Ottoman Empire gave the British a Mandate for creating a Jewish National home it also stated “this was not to any way intended to deny the rights of existing populations “nor the rights of Jews living elsewhere in the world . This was the beginning of the process that led to the November 29, 1947 UN resolution that provided the International support for the creation of The State of Israel. As the UN General Assembly convenes in New York on Tuesday, Israel’s isolation in the community of nations will be on center stage.

As we approach 5786, I suggest to you on this Shabbat Ki Tavo that as we go forth, the political divides within Israel, the consequences of the the last two years of active war, along with the impact upon the body and soul of the Jewish People of the cancers of both antisemitism and Sinat Chinam, the challenge for us individually and communally is to find ways on this Rosh Hashana to count our blessings and express gratitude to God, while simultaneously standing strong against the cancers of hate that have become an international epidemic. I acknowledge that these challenges seem more difficult than in past years.

For many of us, it may be a lot easier to recite the traditional litany of transgressions found in the Al Cheyt and beat our breasts to the words and melody of the Ashamnu, than it is to count our blessings, express gratitude to God and to the people who have made our individual and communal lives better.

For me expressing gratitude, as commanded here in Ki Tavo is as crucial a part of the High Holy Days as the confessionals. I hear in the challenging words of our Parsha the message that by the exercise of our personal and communal Free Will we can choose to be either a source of blessing or curse, to our family and friends; to our fellow Jews around the world and our fellow Americans across our nation; as well as to all the widows orphans and strangers living on our shared planet we call earth.

The opening words: Ki Tavo, of our Parsha are calling out to me this year challenging me to ask: When you and I enter our Rosh Hashanah services, this year, can we all come with gratitude for our blessings? Can each of us this Rosh Hashanah come determined to focus our attention on the ways that we can each be a source of blessing to others? Can we recognize our own imperfections and accept that only God is Perfect. Similar to our Biblical ancestors described in the opening of our Parsha, are not each of us a Wandering Aramean?

I believe that our challenge in the year ahead is not to seek perfection, but rather, to be better selves tomorrow, than we were yesterday. May the sound of the Shofar awaken us from our slumber of entitlement and expectation and call us to take our responsible place as God’s voice and hands in the world.