Ki Tavo

Clive Lawton 

Having helped to found Limmud, Clive is now its senior consultant. He also works in leadership, organisation and community development across the UK and around the world. 

The lion's share of this week's sidra is taken up with terrible warnings - the Tochacha - an extended passage describing in chillingly recognisable detail all that will befall the Jews if we do not keep the covenant.

The section is so compelling that we often overlook the blessings promised that precede it. But even if we notice the combination of blessings and curses, dependent on our collective behaviour - the Jews are indivisibly a people - the whole thing distracts us from a lovely ceremony outlined at the very beginning of the sidra.

We are told that when someone's produce first appears, they must take up the first fruits, make their way to the Temple with the fruits in a basket and present them to the priests. Nothing special about that, you might say. After all, didn't we all know that you're supposed to sacrifice or offer some of your produce and didn't we also know there was something or other special about first fruits?

But the surprising thing is the ritual that is required to accompany this offering. As you climb the steps to the entrance to the Temple, basket in hand, you will be muttering to yourself, rehearsing the set formula you must say when the priest comes to take your basket from you. He appears, and in a nervous mutter or a ringing voice, you start...

'A wandering Aramean was my father...' and on and on you go telling the story of the origins of the Jewish people. Of course, the priest will have heard it all before but he will wait patiently for you to finish because it's something you have to say, even though you told exactly the same story last year. You're not telling him. You're telling yourself. We hear this story each year still, at the Pesach seder, the exact text commanded in the Torah, the explicit requirement on every Jewish household to tell the story.

Families do this all the time. Parents tell their children about how grandpa fought in the war, or how their great-grandmother came from Russia, what they were like when they were young, how they felt at their wedding or on the day the child in question was born. Just as often we'll tell children stories about themselves when they were younger, about the quaint or remarkable things they said or did.

We love to tell and hear our stories and they cross the generations. Sometimes we don't listen properly until it's too late and there no-one left to tell that story. But notice that the telling of this story - with the first fruits - is commanded between two people who already know it. This is not parent to child but householder to priest. The telling is not to inform, but to confirm connection and identification.

So what story will we tell our children? Certainly ‘A wandering Aramean was my father...' but what else? What stories must we tell ourselves and each other to confirm our place and purpose. Can we be sure that our stories are not just anecdotes but building blocks in the creating of the future?

First fruits is the time. When you feel pleased with yourself about some achievement, you need to remind yourself that you didn't do it on your own. Tell the story that reminds you where you come from and that there is more yet to do.