Torah Table Talk A New PaRDeS

Bikkurim and Passover Reciting our Personal History

Parshat Ki Tavo, Deuteronomy 26:1 29:8
Your dedication can appear here! Support Torah Table Talk. The Bikkurim or First Fruit Ceremony which appears at the beginning of this weeks parashah is unique in the Torah. It is one of the only passages in the Torah where we are told that that there were explicit words that had to be recited as part of the ritual performance. On the festival of Shavuot or Hag HaKatzir (the Reaping Festival), the people of Israel were instructed to bring their first fruits up to Jerusalem in an elaborate ceremony. This ceremony is described in great detail in the Mishnah, the first codification of the Oral Law. Upon placing a basket of fruit before the priest, the supplicant would make a declaration in which he summarized Israelite history: the people of Israel came from humble beginnings; they went down to Egypt, few in number and were oppressed by the Egyptians; God took them out of Egypt with signs and wonders and brought them to the fertile land in which they now live. With the passage of time the passage which was recited on Shavuot found its way into the Passover Seder. This passage is the central core of the Haggadah. We are left with a mystery: why did the sages adopt this particular passage as the central telling for Passover when there are other passages that could have been chosen? And how is it that the Bikkurim declaration which was central to the celebration of Shavuot became part of Passover?
Deuteronomy 26:4-5 The priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God. You shall then recite as follows before the Lord your God: My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation.

PaRDeS
1. Pshat Understanding the plain sense meaning of the text
Arami Oved Avi: My father Abraham was an Aramean, wandering and exiled from the land of Aram, as it is written, Go forth from your native land, (Gen. 12:1) and, When God made me wander from my fathers house (Gen. 20:13); I have wandered like lost sheep (Ps. 110:176) and My people were lost sheep; their shepherd led them astray. (Jer. 50:6) In other words our fathers came from a strange land to this country and the Holy One gave it to us, and now I have brought the first fruit of the ground You have given me. For it is not my doing but I enjoy it through Your kindness. (Rashbams Commentary, Rabbi Shlomo ben Meir) My father was a fugitive Aramean: The precise meaning of the phrase is uncertain. My father could refer to Jacob, who went down to Egypt, or it could be collective, referring to Jacobs entire family that went down with himIt could even refer to all the ancestors, Abraham and Isaac as well as Jacob and his sons. Aramean probably refers to the fact that the ancestors of Israel came from the region known as Aram alongside the River The word rendered fugitive usually means perish or stray .Whichever of these interpretations is correct, it is clear that the Recitation means to contrast the homeless, landless beginnings of the Israelites with their present possession of a fertile land.the clause is probably very ancient, for it is unlikely that the Israelite tradition would have chosen to describe Israels ancestors as Arameans once the Arameans of Damascus became aggressive toward Israel in the ninth century B.C.E. (Jeffrey Tigay, The JPS Torah Commentary, Deuteronomy) My Commentary: While the Bikkurim declaration contains a succinct retelling of Israelite history, it is not without its problems. Who is the father of whom we speak in this passage? And why is he referred to as an Aramean? The Rashbam, one of the grandsons of Rashi and respected for his pursuit of the Pshat, the literal meaning of the text argues that this is a reference to Abraham who came from Aram before settling in the land of Canaan. But according to the Torah, Abraham was not an Aramean; he was born in Ur Kasdim at the other end of the Fertile Crescent. In the Torah, Abraham is never referred to as an Aramean; he is called a Hebrew. Professor Tigay acknowledges that the meaning of this expression is unclear and offers several different possibilities for who the wandering Aramean may be. Before moving on to the text of the Haggadah, we should acknowledge that there is only one person in the Torah who is referred to as an Aramean it is Laban, the uncle and father-in-law of Jacob.

Finally, we cannot be certain what the word oved means here either. We find a variety of different translations for this word: wandering, fugitive, stray, perish. The only translation that doesnt seem to fit is the one we find in the Haggadah: tried to kill! Within its original context, the passage would appear to be speaking about our earliest ancestors who were a nomadic tribe that wandered from place to place and finally settled for a time in the land of Egypt.

2. Remez Allusions: Finding meanings hidden in the text

Come learn what Laban the Aramean sought to do to our father Jacob! Pharaoh only made a decree against the male children while Laban sought to destroy all of them, as it is written: An Aramean sought to destroy my father; He went down to Egypt and dwelled there few in number and there he became a great, strong and populous nation. He went down to Egypt: compelled by a divine decree. And he sojourned there: indicating that our father Jacob did not go down to settle in Egypt but merely to sojourn there temporarily. As it is said, And they said to Pharaoh, To sojourn in Egypt we have come because there is no pasture for the flocks which your servants have, for the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. Now allow your servants to dwell in the land of Egypt. (Genesis 47:4) With small numbers: As it says: With seventy people, your ancestors went down to Egypt and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the heaven. (Deut. 10:22) And there he became a nation: This teaches that Israel was distinguishable there. Great: As it says: And the children of Israel were fruitful, increased greatly, multiplied and became very, very mighty; so the land was filled with them. (Exodus 1:7) And populous: As it says, I made you numerous as the plants of the field; you continued to grow and mature and you came to possess great attractions: your breasts were undeveloped and your hair was beginning to grow; you were poorly clad and naked. Now when I passed by and saw you covered in blood, I said: by your blood live, yea, by your blood you shall live. (Ezekiel 14: 7, 6) (Passover Haggadah) My Commentary: As we see below in Din, we are instructed to expound on the passage which begins Arami oved avi (Deuteronomy 26:5) to the end of this passage. The Hebrew word for expound is doresh. It suggests not just the reading of the biblical words but offering a phrase by phrase explanation for the passage. The word doresh comes from the same root as Midrash, the unique approach to biblical exegesis championed by the rabbis. And that is what we find in the Haggadah: a phrase by phrase exegesis for Deuteronomy 26:5-8. The Bikkurim declaration, however, includes one more verse which does not appear in the Haggadah: He brought us to this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Interestingly, the Mishnah says that we expound this passage to the end, which would mean through verse 9. After the destruction of the Temple, it was no longer considered appropriate to recite and expound on the final part of this passage since the people had been exiled from their land. This also left a exposition of four verses, very much in the spirit of the Haggadah which has many different fours: four cups of wine, four questions, and four children. The fifth verse, like the fifth cup of wine, which we do not drink, is the number of redemption. The Haggadah stops short and leaves us in anticipation of its fulfillment. One final question: how exactly did we get from Arami oved avi to Laban who tried to kill our forefather, Jacob? We have already seen that the only Aramean in the Torah is Laban. Yet Laban never tried overtly to kill our forefather. Some have suggested that the reference to Laban the Aramean is an oblique reference to the Maccabean revolt against the Syrian Greeks who came from the same part of the world as the Arameans but this argument has been contested. I believe that the reference to Laban the Aramean is more likely a hidden reference to the Romans (Aramean and Roman are very similar).

3. Din Law: Applying the text to life

While the basket was yet on his shoulder, a man would recite the passage (My father was a wandering Aramean) At one time all that could recite the prescribed words recited them and all that could not recite them repeated the words after the priest. When they refrained from bringing their first fruit, it was ordained that both they that could recite them and they that could not should repeat the words after the priest. (Mishnah Bikkurim 3:7) They pour a second cup of wine for him. And here the son questions his father. And if the son has insufficient understanding, his father teaches him to ask: Why is this night different from all other nights? On all other nights, we eat leavened and unleavened bread; but on this night, we eat only unleavened bread. On all other nights, we eat all kinds of vegetables, but on this night, we eat only bitter herbs. On all [other] nights, we eat meat roasted, stewed or boiled, but on this night, we eat only roasted meat. On all other nights, we dip once, but on this night, we dip

twice. And according to the son's intelligence, his father instructs him. He begins with shame and concludes with glory, and expounds from My father was a wandering Aramean until he completes the whole passage. (Mishnah Pesahim 10:4)

My Commentary: We have here two passages from the Mishnah: one from Bikkurim which deals with the first fruit
declaration and a second passage which speaks about expounding on Deuteronomy 26 as part of the Seder. There are many theories about how this biblical passage migrated from Shavuot to Passover. Some argue that this passage was chosen because of its familiarity to the people; yet we see from Mishnah Bikkurim that already in the second temple period people had to be prompted because they could no longer recite it by heart. Other scholars argued that this was part of an anti-Christian polemic: since Christians expounded on Exodus, 12, on Easter, we Jews chose a different passage as the basis of the Passover celebration. It seems unlikely that Jews would purposefully avoid a passage that is part of their own Bible. Still others argued that this passage was the basis of the statement above to begin in disgrace and end in glory. Rabbi Joshua Culp offers a simpler and more obvious explanation for the choice of passages for the Haggadah. Deuteronomy 26 is short and simple, making it an easy passage to recite and expound at the Seder. Furthermore, it is written in the first person singular (My father), fulfilling the Mishnaic dictum, to see ourselves as if we went forth from Egypt. Both the Bikkurim ceremony and the Passover Seder were a means of allowing the individual to personally connect with his or her own history.

4. Sod The Meaning and Mystery of Faith Deuteronomy, chapter 26 is at the very heart of the Passover Haggadah. It is through this passage that we offer a narrative of the Exodus and our history. Sadly, many people either skip or rush through the Midrashic passage in the Haggadah that begins My father was a wandering Aramean (or Laban tried to kill my forefather, depending on how you translate it). This passage is meant to teach us gratitude and to make us humble in the face of our simple beginnings. Our history did not begin with great conquests or kingdoms: we started out with a precarious beginning, uncertainty and a perilous existence. In the context of the Bikkurim, it is meant to make us appreciate the gift of the land. As part of Passover, the narrative is meant to make us understand what it means to be an outsider. We know what it means to be a small nation living in the midst of a mighty power. As part of Passover, the Bikkurim declaration ought to create ethical and social sensitivity toward the needs of other peoples. We also learn from this passage about the power of narrative. How does one tell ones own story? The story we tell will influence our behavior and our treatment of others, whether we are telling the story of our humble beginnings in Egypt or telling the story of the founding of the state of Israel in our own day.

Questions to Ponder
1. Should there be a new Bikkurim ceremony today, now that we have returned to the land of Israel and can appreciate the richness and fertility of the land again? 2. Who do you think the wandering Aramean is? What do you think it meant in the context of the Bikkurim ceremony? The Laban connection was only added later on; what do you think the Mishnah had in mind when it suggested we expound on this passage? 3. Many people skip the passage containing Deuteronomy chapter 26 when they recite the Haggadah. What do you do when you recite this passage? How do you find meaning in this passage? 4. If you were writing a brief modern narrative about the founding of the state of Israel, what would it contain? To what extent would God be part of this narrative?
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All it takes to study Torah is an open heart, a curious mind and a desire to grow a Jewish soul.
Copyright 2011 Rabbi Mark B Greenspan