Parshat Ki Tavo - Being our 'Best'

Ki Tavo Dvar 2011/5771

Rabbi Neil A. Tow©

To do our best is a goal.  It’s a hope, a striving, a desire to fulfill our potential.

When we have a ‘best’ moment it inspires us and gives us strength.  It is an ideal moment of sharing when we give something to the world that is nourishing, energizing, and that motivates others to stretch themselves and achieve greater heights.

When we give our best effort, even when that best effort does not reach the level we hoped, it is important for us to recognize the people who helped us, who taught us, who trained us, who devoted their spirit to us so that we could succeed. 

The same idea infuses the ritual of bikkurim/first fruits that the Torah describes in the opening verses of parshat Ki Tavo.

When the Israelites enter into the Land, they will bring their first fruits to the Temple, and present them there to the kohen/the priest.  Then they will recite the familiar story of our national origins that we read in the Haggadah at our Passover Seders, “My ancestor was a wandering Aramean…We went down to Egypt…God freed us with a mighty hand…brought us to a land flowing with milk and honey, and so now I bring the first fruits of the soil which You, O God, have given me.”

That “You, God, have given me?”  Didn’t my family and I plant and tend the soil?  Didn’t we work the land, survive through the change of seasons and harvest the crop by bending our own backs, scratching up our hands, and flexing our muscles? 

A commentary called ‘Akedah’ looks closely at the commandment to bring the first fruits and notices that the verse reads, “You will take from the first fruits of the earth that you will bring me’artze’cha/from your land.”

And he makes the following observation:  The reason for the commandment of bikurim/first fruits is to remove from our thinking that ‘artzecha’ means the land belongs to us.  He argues that we might get stuck on this point and not notice that the same verse ends with, ‘…that Ado-nai, Your God, gives to you…”  By bringing the first fruits, we demonstrate that we know the land and its produce are not ours and that the blessings that come from them are infused with the Presence of God who brought us here from Egypt and gave us the opportunity to farm this land.

The same is true as we reflect on all that our coaches, teachers, and mentors have given us to enable us to do our best. Lest we ever begin to think that we are only a product of our own skill, our own initiative, our own inventiveness.  How can we recognize all those people who influenced us and guided us to the moment when we are sharing our best with the world?  Can we even remember who they all are?  It is likely that many of these influences were not even intentional.  They happened through chance encounters, things we heard or read from people we do not know personally and may never meet.

If we can raise the consciousness that we are a patchwork stitched from the influence and inspiration of others, then we will keep our humility and sense of self—and in all that we do, we will always be doing our best.