Ki Tavo
Benjamin Rubin, August 24, 2002, 16 Elul, 5762
13 Values for my Covenant
Part of what makes a Bat Mitzvah special is that its about handing down the tradition from one generation to the next, so this Dvar Torah is dedicated to my father, Alex Rubin, on the occasion of his reaching the age of 80 years, who passed down to me his tradition, and to my daughter Maya Shira Rubin, who has reached the age of Bat Mitzvah, and to whom I hope to pass on my tradition.
Carrying on a tradition, and passing it on, is a difficult personal challenge. What values to convey?
When I first confronted the challenge of writing a Dvar Torah, a commentary on this weekšs Torah portion, Ki Tavo, my heart was dismayed. Deuteronomy is harsh; it doesn't have the complex family stories of the Patriarchs, it doesn't have the dream imagery of Jacob's ladder.
Ki Tavo contains Moses third farewell address to the People before they enter into the land of Israel. The parsha consists of three sections: First, as soon as the people settle the land of Israel, and the land produces its first fruits, they are commanded to take a tithe and give it to the Levi, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow. In making this sacrifice of the fruits of the land, they must recite a specific Hebrew prayer of thanksgiving, which is essentially an acknowledgement of the God of history. Some of you will recognize it as the text of the Passover Hagada, that begins: "A wandering Aramean was my father, and he went down to Egypt" Second, Moses commands the people on entering the land to write the laws of the covenant onto large plastered stone monuments. Then the twelve tribes are set up on opposing mountainsides, six tribes apiece, and they formally take on a covenant, which is summarized in a series of specific rules. Finally, the people are advised, in detail, of the rewards for compliance with the covenant, and in horrifying detail, of the punishment for non-compliance.
Personally, I found the phraseology, in which the values are expressed in the form of "Cursed be he who dishonors his father or mother" off-putting. But I was encouraged by a line from a Bob Dylan song, in which he says: "The Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the law of the jungle, and the sea, were his only teachers". Thus encouraged, I continued to study the text to try and see what underlying meaning I could find for myself. And as I studied this ancient text, which has been handed down from generation to generation for at least 2,700 years, I came to see that Ki Tavo, which is Deuteronomyšs restatement of the covenant, actually contained a lot of the positive values that I relate to in my own life. Just as you can see the world in a grain of sand, this Parsha touches on many of the key components of Jewish tradition. Above all, I was struck by the centrality of words and language; the central concept of the deal, or covenant; and the central image of holding up the Torah so that the congregation can see the words, written in black ink against the white parchment what is referred to in a beautiful kabalistic metaphor as "the black fire atop the white fire".
But this "black fire atop the white fire" this long string of text requires interpretation, and interpretation is at the heart of the Jewish tradition. In studying Ki Tavo, I have derived thirteen values and principles that arise out of the text and that are part of my Jewish tradition.
1. thanksgiving "saying thanks does not come naturally to us. One of the first social conventions we teach our children is to reciprocate an act of kindness with a word of thanks. Our achievements are never fully accounted for by our own efforts" alone. (Ismar Schorsh)
2. peoplehood - lehiyot le'am we have become a people, and - I am part of a people. Peoplehood requires you to know the history of your people, and be a part of the history of your people. In Ki Tavo, peoplehood and history are crystallized in two archetypal events/concepts: - Yetziat Mitzraim, the Exodus from Egypt; and coming into the land of Israel.
3. sacrifice it's a value to give something of your own for the sake of something larger than yourself.
4. simcha - v'samachta b'chal ha'tov asher natan lecha- it is a positive commandment, and a value, to rejoice in all the good which has been given to you - and a Bat Mitzvah is a simcha.
5. social justice it is a value to give food to the Levi, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow that they shall eat and be satisfied.
6. intention/ kavana in North American-speak, have a good attitude do that which you must do "b'chal levav'cha, u'bchal nafshecha" - with all your heart and soul. Rashi says the word "shmor" "keep" is not an imperative, as in "do this", but refers to continuous action, which implies a state of mind.
7. The central importance of words and language "the black fire on the white fire" it was necessary to plaster the monuments to make it easier to read you shall write upon the stones all the words of the law VERY PLAINLY bešer heytev. Rashi says "be'er heytev" means we should write the Torah in seventy languages. And in due course, the Torah has indeed been translated into at least seventy languages. In this sense, the Jewish wordstream, the Jewish narrative, is not ethnicly narrow, but is multi-lingual and universal. At the same time, the Hebrew language is fundamental. You must say the bracha - the blessing only in Hebrew; it canšt be translated. You must teach your children to read the words in Hebrew. Words and language are utterly important: The covenant, the commandments, the whole Torah is nothing but a series of words from which we draw meaning.
8. the importance of ceremony and ritual in conveying the values. It is not enough to write down the principles of the covenant on the white pillar with dark letters; instead the Levis, with their innate theatrical flair, have six of the tribes stand on Mount Gerizim, and the other six stand opposite on Mount Ebal. The words of the covenant are recited, and the entire people say: Amen. Ceremony and ritual add theatre and drama to the word-stream.
9. monotheism. This is too great a subject to be discussed here at length, but b'kitzur: I find in monotheism, a philosophical/ethical system which posits as a first principle God - an invisible, abstract, single source of Truth and Justice - a foundation for the human striving for truth and justice.
10. Proper social conduct. The balance of the covenant text in Ki Tavo consists of a set of specific rules: the tone "Cursed be he who disobeys" is off-putting, but the underlying principles are the starting point for a good society: - do not dishonor your parents. - do not cheat your neighbor - do not give bad counsel - be just to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow - incest is forbidden - no sex with animals - no lashon ha-ra donšt say bad things about other people - taking of bribes or corruption is not allowed
11. bad things happen - As most of us are aware, the Jewish people are going through a time of tribulation in our history. Leaving aside for a moment the question of why, one can never accuse Ki Tavo of being Pollyanna-ish. You read Ki Tavo, and you are reminded that bad things happen: "you shall grope at noonday as a blind man gropes in the dark"; You will not have prosperity; you will lose your sons and daughters. "your enemies will besiege you in your gates." You will be confronted by an enemy "goi ez panim" a nation of fierce countenance "who shall not regard the person of the old, nor show pity to the young.".
12. your behaviour has consequences. According to Ki Tavo, if we act right, we are rewarded; if we act wrong, we are punished. Now, I have trouble with that simplistic notion of cosmic justice; and when bad things happened to me, I doubted whether it was a punishment, Divine or otherwise, for my behaviour. But the alternative to such a conceptual system of justice can be worse; randomness, nihilism, power politics: if there is no such concept of justice, there is no consequence for wrong behaviour; so a system of reward and punishment implies: onešs actions have consequences. Which is the value I want to convey.
13. taking on the covenant (verse 26). Ki Tavošs final covenantal "deal point" is: "yakim et divrai haTorah" "hold up the words of the Torah". "Yakim" is to uphold, like holding up the Torah, so that the congregation can see "the black fire on the white fire".
Our family recently went on a canoe trip to Killarney wilderness park in Northern Ontario, and one clear night we looked up at the beautiful starry sky white dots of fire against the black fire of the sky. We spent a long time looking at the stars, even though as modern city folk, it was not familiar, and we could only with certainty identify one constellation. But we derived value just from standing in relation to the stars. In studying Ki Tavo, I learnt that for me to have a relationship to the Torah, for me to keep the deal, I can actually stand quite a distance from it; I donšt have to see every word; I have to stand close enough to see "the black fire atop the white fire". The text requires interpretation. The task of deriving meaning and values from "the black fire atop the white fire", and passing it on to the next generation, is my interpretive task.