Parshat Ki Tavo September 21, 2019 21 Elul, 5779 TORAH Rabbi Sacks on Parshat Ki Tavo ARTSCROLL 1068 The setting: Jerusalem Temple Mount. There, they terrifying power and signs HERTZ 859 some twenty centuries would each place their basket and wonders. He brought us ago. The occasion: of fruit on their shoulder – the into this place and gave us HAFTORAH bringing first fruits to the Mishnah says that even King this land, a land flowing ARTSCROLL 1201 Temple. Here is the Agrippa would do so – and with milk and honey. And scene as the Mishnah carry it to the Temple now I am bringing the first HERTZ 874 describes it: Throughout forecourt. There the Levites fruit of the soil that you, O Israel, villagers would would sing (Psalm 30:2), “I will Lord, have given gather in the nearest of praise you, God, for you have me.” (Deut. 26:5-10) Times 24 regional centers. raised me up and not let my This passage is familiar to There, overnight, they enemies rejoice over me.” us because we expound Candle Lighting 6:37 pm would sleep in the open The scene, as groups part of it, the first four air. The next morning, converged on the Temple from verses, in the Haggadah on Mincha 6:40 pm the leader would summon all parts of Israel, must have Seder night. But this was no the people with words been vivid and unforgettable. mere ritual. As Yosef Hayim Hashkama 8:00 am from the book of However, the most important Yerushalmi explained in his Jeremiah (31:5): “Arise Parsha Shiur 8:30 am part of the ceremony lay in Zakhor: Jewish History and and let us go up to Zion, what happened next. With the Memory, it constituted one to the House of the Lord Main 9:00 am baskets still on their shoulders of the most revolutionary of our God.” Those who the arrivals would say, “I all Judaism’s contributions Beit Midrash 9:15 am lived near Jerusalem declare today to the Lord your to world civilization. What would bring fresh figs God that I have come to the was original was not the Gemara Shiur 5:30 pm and grapes. Those who land that the Lord swore to our celebration of first fruits. lived far away would ancestors to give us.” Each Many cultures have such Mincha 6:30 pm bring dried figs and would then hold their basket ceremonies. What was raisins. An ox would walk by the rim, the Cohen would unique about the ritual in Shabbat Ends 7:44 pm ahead of them, its horns place his hand under it and our parsha, and the biblical plated with gold and its Pre-Selichot 10:00 pm ceremoniously wave it, and the world-view from which it head decorated with an Kumzits bringer of the fruit would say derives, is that our olive wreath. Someone the following passage, whose ancestors saw God in Selichot 10:45 pm would play a flute. When text is set out in our parsha: history rather than nature. they came close to “My ancestor was a wandering Normally what people would Sunday Sept. 22 7:30/8:30 am Jerusalem, they would Aramean. He went down into celebrate by bringing first- send a messenger ahead Egypt and lived there as a fruits would be nature itself: Monday - Friday 6:35/7:45 am to announce their arrival stranger, few in number, and the seasons, the soil, the and they would start to Slichot 7:20 am there became a great nation, rain, the fertility of the adorn their first-fruits. Mincha 6:30 pm strong and numerous. The ground and what Dylan Governors and officials of Egyptians mistreated us and Thomas called “the force the city would come out Latest Times for made us suffer, subjecting us that through the green fuse Shema/Shemoneh Esrei to greet them and the to harsh labor. We cried out to drives the flower.” The artisans would stop their the Lord, God of our ancestors. biblical first-fruits ceremony work and call out, “Our Sept. 21 9:44/10:45 am The Lord heard our voice and is quite different. It is not brothers from such-and- saw our suffering, our toil and about nature but about the Sept. 28 9:46/10:46 am such a place: come in our oppression. The Lord shape of history, the birth peace!” The flute would brought us out of Egypt with a of Israel as a nation, and Next Shabbat continue playing until the mighty hand and an the redemptive power of Nitzavim procession reached the outstretched arm, with God who liberated our Candle Lighting 6:26 pm Kiddush is provided by Mincha 6:30 pm Great Neck Synagogue 26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck, NY 11023 (516) 487-6100 Shabbat Announcements Ki Tavo 5779 ancestors from slavery. This is what was new about this But groups conflict. Therefore, the Enlightenment sought a worldview: world without identities, in which we are all just human beings. But people can’t live without identities, and identity [1] Jews were, as Yerushalmi points out, the first to see is never universal. It is always and essentially particular. God in history. What makes us the unique person we are is what makes us [2] They were the first to see history itself as an extended different from people in general. Therefore, no intellectual narrative with an overarching theme. That vision was discipline that aims at universality will ever fully grasp the sustained for the whole of the biblical era, as the events of meaning and significance of identity. This was the a thousand years were interpreted by the prophets and Enlightenment’s blind spot. Identity came roaring back in recorded by the biblical historians. the nineteenth century, based on one of three factors: nation, race or class. In the twentieth century, nationalism [3] The theme of biblical history is redemption. It begins led to two World Wars. Racism led to the Holocaust. with suffering, has an extended middle section about the Marxist class warfare led eventually to Stalin, the Gulag interactive drama between God and the people, and ends and the KGB. with homecoming and blessing. Since the 1960s, the West has been embarked on a second [4] The narrative is to be internalized: this is the transition attempt to escape from identity, in favor not of the - from history to memory, and this is what the first fruits universal but the individual, in the belief that identity is declaration was about. Those who stood in the Temple something each of us freely creates for him- or herself. But saying those words were declaring: this is my story. In identity is never created this way. It is always about bringing these fruits from this land, I and my family are membership in a group. Identity, like language, is part of it. essentially social. Just as happened after the [5] Most importantly: the story was the basis of identity. Enlightenment, identity has come roaring back to the West, Indeed, that is the difference between history and memory. this time in the form of identity politics (based on gender, History is an answer to the question, “What happened?” ethnicity or sexual orientation). This will, if allowed to Memory is an answer to the question, “Who am I?” In flourish, lead to yet more historical disasters. It is a major Alzheimer’s Disease, when you lose your memory, you lose threat to the future of liberal democracy. What was your identity. The same is true of a nation as a whole. happening in Jerusalem when people brought their first- When we tell the story of our people’s past, we renew our fruits was of immense consequence. It meant that that identity. We have a context in which we can understand they regularly told the story of who they were and why. No who we are in the present and what we must do to hand on nation has ever given greater significance to retelling its our identity to the future. collective story than Judaism, which is why Jewish identity is the strongest the world has ever known, the only one to It is difficult to grasp how significant this was and is. have survived for twenty centuries with none of the normal Western modernity has been marked by two quite different bases of identity: political power, shared territory or a attempts to escape from identity. The first, in the shared language of everyday speech. eighteenth century, was the European Enlightenment. This focused on two universalisms: science and philosophy. Clearly, not all identities are the same. Characteristic of Science aims at discovering laws that are universally true. Jewish identities and others inspired by the Hebrew Bible Philosophy aims at disclosing universal structures of are what Dan McAdams calls “the redemptive self.” People thought. Identity is about groups, about Us and Them. with this kind of identity, he says, “shape their lives into a narrative about how a gifted hero encounters the suffering Great Neck Yoetzet Halacha Lisa Septimus of others as a child, develops strong moral convictions as Welcomes your questions about mikvah, an adolescent, and moves steadily upward and onward in observance of taharat mishpacha (halacha relating to married life) and women’s health, as it connects the adult years, confident that negative experiences will to Jewish law. Reach out to her at: ultimately be redeemed.” More than other kinds of life Phone: 516.415.1111 story, the redemptive self embodies the “belief that bad Email: [email protected].