[I see a connection with the parsha below; i.e. we are witnessing today that the "children" raised on the Land, are now seeking to connect to God as can be seen and heard in this video ]
The fifth 'language of Redemption'
There are four languages of the redemption promised by Hashem, - for which, the four glasses of wine are drunk at the Seder - but there is a fifth promise as well. Which promise is that?
In Parashat Va’Eira, Hashem tells Moshe to give Bnei Israel the glad tidings of their coming redemption from their enslavement in Egypt.
The words are known as the four languages of redemption:(6:6)
’I have remembered My covenant. Therefore say to the Children of Israel:’I am Hashem, and I shall take you out from under the burdens of Egypt; i shall rescue you from their service; I shall redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. I shall take you to me for a people and I shall be a G-d to you’.
The parsha continues with a fifth expression:(6-9) ’and you shall know that I am Hashem your G-d, who takes you out from under the burdens of Egypt.
‘I shall bring you to the land about which I raised My hand to give to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov; and I shall give it to you as a heritage - I am Hashem.’
The Ohr Hachaim comments on the concluding passuk:’These words of the One Above are difficult - were those who left Egypt the ones who entered the Land?
‘This was not the case, but rather, their children who came there, whilst the whole generation who left Egypt, from the age of twenty and upwards, perished in the desert.
‘The query increases, when we note that Hashem - here - spoke in the language of an oath: לכן.
‘It therefore seems that the Source of Wisdom framed his words with wisdom, as - before saying ‘and I shall bring you to the land’, He said: ’And you will know that I am Hashem, who brings you to the land’ - and, in the absence of this, if you should anger Me, there is no promise whatsoever.
‘Hashem inserted this passuk - of ‘knowing that Hashem..- in the middle of His glad tidings - and not after them - to say, that this promise ‘to bring them to the land’, was conditional on them ‘knowing..’ as only then would ‘I bring them to the land’ - and not otherwise.’
As we noted, this generation that left Egypt sadly did not meet this condition, and it was only their descendants that entered the Land - and who are the subject of our Parasha - Parashat Ki Tavo - as we read:’It will be when you enter the Land that Hashem, your G-d, gives you as an inheritance.
The Parasha describes what they are to do - which Sifrei says is ‘the condition for them entering the promised Land.’
We can note that, in substance, it is an acknowledgement and a thanks, that it is a gift from Hashem - not ours by conquest or by right.
The Kli Yakar stresses this point:’We do not find the expression ‘and you shall inherit and settle it’ - as we do here - except here, and in the parsha of the King.
‘This is because, after settling and possessing the land, Israel ‘will grow fat and rebel against Hashem’, and seek for themselves rule in the manner of all the other nations.
‘For this reason, the objective of the parasha of Bikurim was to subjugate the haughtiness of their hearts, which - after the inheritance and possession likely will lead them to say that by their might and right, the land is theirs - and lead them to forget Hashem.
‘This is why it says: ’it will be when you enter the land that Hashem, your G-d, gives you as an inheritance..’, as, in fact, not as an inheritance do you enter the land, but only by virtue of it being given to you by Hashem, as a gift, on condition that you give Him His share, and keep all His commandments.
‘This, too, is why you are commanded with the Mitzvah of Bikurim - giving the first-fruits to Hashem - to subjugate your heart to Hashem.
‘And this is why the bringer is to say:’I said today to Hashem, your G-d’ - which is in the past tense - even though he had not yet said anything - to declare that: not as an inheritance, but because of the oath ‘that Hashem swore to your forefathers to give us’.
‘I testify that, as for myself, in bringing my bikurim, that it is from Hashem that this land is to me, as a gift and portion.
‘After you have acknowledged that ‘you brought’ the first fruits from ‘your land which Hashem your G-d, gave to you’ - as this land is not called ‘your land’ until after you have brought the bikurim - and, in the merit of the bikurim that you brought, you may take for yourself the produce of the land.
‘This, in essence, is the ‘telling’ that is referred to as:’And I said today.’
The Netivot Shalom brings the saying of the Sifre:’Do the said mitzvah, as in its merit you will enter the land’, and asks:’The commentators note that only after settling the land and its possession - which took fourteen years - Bnei Israel performed this Mitzvah, so what is the meaning of;’in its merit, you will enter the land?’
‘Further, what is so special in mitzvat bikurim, over other mitzvot, that in its merit, they would enter the land? Especially, as it has no specified measure, so that it is satisfied by even a minute offering.
‘The answer is - as our sages have handed down to us - that it is based on two foundations: אמונה faith, and קדושה: sanctity.
‘The Emunah that Hashem alone creates and conducts all that occurs, and that He alone did, does and will do all that occurs - this ensuring that we know that man’s might and deeds and all his machinations, are, in themselves, of no avail.
‘The second foundation: sanctity, means that a Jew subordinates all his stiff-neckedness and desires, to Hashem.
‘Both of these matters are included in the mitzvah of bikurim: Emunah - after all his toil over the year, he merits to see the fruits of his labor ripen on the tree, yet marks it, saying: this is for Hashem.
‘He thereby exhibits his clear faith that he knows and believes that it was not his might and efforts that produced this bounty, but that it was Hashem who gave his hand the power to do so - by bringing this first fruit to Hashem - which is the most precious in his eyes - he is affirming that all is, and comes from, Hashem.
‘As to sanctity, it is the nature of man, on finally seeing the fruits of his toil, grow and mature, for it to be the subject of his desire to savor it - yet he then goes down to his field, and marks this jewel, at the same time declaring that it is to Hashem who gave- assuredly he is thereby ceding to Hashem all his desire and pleasure - and, this he applies to all his physical matters.
‘By performing the mitzvah of bikurim in this manner, he may enter the land, as by elevating these earthly matters to Hashem, he will also so act on entering the land, and respect and maintain the sanctity of the holy land.
‘We can now understand why the declaration of the bringer, only mentions:’my forefather served the Arami, and descended to Egypt’ - and not the other travails which befell our people - as the Arami and Egypt represent the greatest depths of impurity - from which Hashem delivered us , and now - I hereby bring the first fruits of the land which you - Hashem - gave me, showing that I have ascended to the clearest Emunah, that all is what Hashem gave me, and to the necessary level of sanctity, to offer all my desires, to Hashem.
‘This is the underlying meaning of the declaration: באתי אל הארץ: that I attained the objective of entering the land, which is to elevate all my earthly deeds and to give them to Hashem.’
Rav Yitzchak Karo expounds:’Our parsha raises a number of questions: Why did Hashem command the bringer of the bikurim to say:’I said today to Hashem, your G-d, that I came to the land..’ - Hashem and indeed, all who resided in Jerusalem, saw this.
‘What need was there for relating that :’An Arami my father served, and he descended to Egypt’ - what need was there to mention Egypt ? Could it not have simply said: ’And now I brought the first-fruits..?
‘Let us preface the answer to these questions, by saying that Hashem wanted to perfect and refine the character of the people engaging in the mitzvah of bringing bikurim.
‘The refinement is so that we should be good and righteous people - good in two respects: one to be complete in himself and not be a glutton, as many bad things befell gluttons -such as poverty and premature death.
‘The second, to be good with people, and not be haughty, as this leads to not respecting others and many other bad traits.
‘The mitzvah of bikurim - as against this - will bring completeness. First, it will ensure that the bringer is not a glutton, as he gives the very first and choice of his fruit - which he so desires - and he brings it with a blessing also, saying:’This is bikurim’, his heart thereby being submissive, and he will not be a glutton.
‘The second, is that because of the bikurim, he will not be haughty, this by his coming before the Kohen of the day - even if the Kohen the least of people in his character, and the bringer of the bikurim, a high and mighty personage - saying before him:’I have come today..’, this breeding humility.
‘From this, it will follow that the bringer will also ‘be good’ to the One Above, thereby atoning for both the past and the future.
‘The past, for the lack of faith of the spies, who said that Hashem lacked the ability to bring the people into the land, as the inhabitants were mightier than Him.
‘The bringer of the bikurim atones for this, by declaring that Hashem brought them to the land as He promised the Avot - thereby atoning for the past.
‘As to the future, that they would not sin - as they would remember in good times, all the bad that they had suffered, and their poverty - this being alluded to in their declaring:’An Arami our father served’, meaning:I don’t think that the land from which I grew these bikurim, I inherited it from my ancestors, as Yaakov was impoverished and served others - and I am not saying that I inherited it from my ancestors - rather, they descended to Egypt and dwelled there in small numbers, and grew to be numerous and mighty - yet, with all this, they were afflicted and enslaved by the Egyptians - and our fathers did not depart from there by force - but Hashem took us out by His mighty Hand, and brought us to this land; so, here is our offering of our first fruits - so too, in good times, we will not transgress, as we will remember the bad times’ and Hashem’s chessed, ‘and not transgress then.’
A parting gem from Rav Aryeh Leib Heiman, who proffers that, by this parsha, we are thanking Hashem for fulfilling the promise of the fifth language of Hashem’s promise to Bnei Israel - in Parashat Va’Eira - and brilliantly dovetails with the matter raised by the Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh, that we brought at the outset
The Rav opens, by asking: ‘Why, at the Seder, when we started with our disgrace, and finished with praise, did our Sages bring the parsha the bringer of the bikurim says, of ‘An Arami my forefather served’, and not psukim of other matters from Sefer Shemot, which are the source of the description of our suffering?
‘A simple answer is that, due to the limited attention span of children - who, as we are told, are the main actors to whom Seder night is directed - we bring the bikurim declaration, which is an extract of the Egyptian subjugation.
‘Why - in that case - do we need to say - as the bringer of the bikurim does ‘I have declared today to Hashem, your G-d, that I came to the land’ - why is the language הגדת לה' : used?
‘Surely to allude to another place where similar language is used: at the Seder - ‘והגדת לבנך לאמור: ‘ and you related to your son, saying’.
‘Perhaps our Sages meant - by using the same language - to teach that the words of acknowledgement said by the bringer of the bikurim, should be said at the time of והגדת לבנך:’and you shall relate to your son’ - when, you are to relate the story, at the Seder table!
‘We can advance another true reason, why the parsha of bikurim should be said at the Seder table: In Parashat Va’Eira, the four languages of the redemption promised by Hashem, appear - as against which, the four glasses are drunk at the Seder - but there is a fifth promise:’And I will bring you to the land which I promised to give to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, and I will give it to you as an inheritance, I am Hashem.’
‘As against this promise, we pour a fifth glass at the Seder - the ‘glass of Eliyahu’.
Now, when the bringer of the bikurim’ who merited to see this fifth promise fulfilled, when he brings his offering to the Mikdash, there is no greater proof than this, that Hashem has fulfilled His promise!
‘The parsha of the bikurim is the proof of this - which is why the bringer declares:’And He brought us to this place, and gave us this land, the land of milk and honey.’
‘This explains why the bringer, in his declaration, says to the Kohen:’I said today to Hashem, your G-d, that I came to the land..’, which is self-evident.
‘The reason is, that after this parsha is read at the Seder, the word ‘today’, has a clear meaning - the declaration of the bringer of the bikurim was to be made in the period between Shavuot and Sukkot.
‘This means that the bringer of the bikurim to the Mikdash, says before Hashem:’At the last Seder (which took place a few weeks or months earlier), I already ‘said’ part of this parsha - before relating the story of the exodus from Egypt - but not all of it - only the story of the suffering and the redemption from it.
‘’Today’, I complete what I left unsaid - and add and declare that Hashem also fulfilled His promise:’And I brought you to the land’ - the language of the fifth promise.
‘Today’, therefore - ‘I told Hashem, your G-d, that I came to the land which you promised to your Avot to give to you.’
‘Thereby, all of the promises of Hashem, to Bnei Israel have been fulfilled!’.
לרפואת נועם עליזה בת זהבה רבקה ונחום אלימלך רפאל בן זהבה רבקה, בתוך שאר חולי עמנו
לרפואת הרב אברהם בן גיטל
The Torah reading for the first day of Rosh Hashanah begins with several particularly fitting words.
“V’Hashem pakad et Sarah" - “And the Lord remembered Sarah" (Bereishit 21:1).
After decades of waiting, Sarah finally gives birth to a son. She is 90 years old, Avraham is 100, and everything about it seems impossible.
Yet Yitzchak is born.
His birth is far more than the answer to the prayers of an elderly couple. Through Yitzchak, the covenant with Avraham will continue, the Jewish people will emerge, and the promise of Eretz Yisrael will be carried forward.
The opening verse twice emphasizes that G-d fulfilled His word. He remembered Sarah “as He had said" and acted “as He had spoken" (Bereishit 21:1).
These words deserve attention. The Torah could simply have told us that Sarah gave birth. Instead, it explicitly connects Yitzchak’s arrival to what G-d had promised. The years of waiting had not made His word any less certain.
The Jewish people know a thing or two about waiting.
For 1900 years, Jews prayed for a return to Zion. Generation after generation said, “Next year in Jerusalem," long after Jewish sovereignty had disappeared and its restoration seemed unimaginable.
Then, against extraordinary odds, the Jewish people returned to their ancient homeland.
Sarah waited decades. The Jewish people waited centuries. For us, reading about Yitzchak’s birth in a generation that has witnessed the return to Zion, the comparison is especially meaningful.
A few verses later, Hagar and Yishmael are sent away from Avraham’s home. Their water runs out in the wilderness, and Hagar fears that her son will die.
An angel tells her not to fear, “for G-d has heard the voice of the boy ba’asher hu sham" - “where he is" (Bereishit 21:17).
Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1040-1105), citing the Midrash in Bereishit Rabbah (53:14), describes the angels protesting that Yishmael’s descendants would one day cause suffering to the Jewish people. Nevertheless, G-d judged him according to his conduct at that moment.
We, too, stand before G-d ba’asher hu sham - where we are now.
None of us arrives to Rosh Hashanah without mistakes, regrets or missed opportunities. Our past matters, but so does our willingness to repent and change.
In the Mishneh Torah, the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, 1138-1204), writes in Hilchot Teshuvah 3:4 that a person should see himself and the entire world as evenly balanced between merit and guilt. One mitzvah can tip the scale toward merit and salvation.
The Rambam includes the entire world in that calculation. We are accustomed to thinking about our deeds in terms of our own judgment. He asks us to recognize that their significance extends beyond ourselves, a responsibility we can see in what we pass on to our children.
When we learn Torah with a child, we help ensure that Jewish knowledge survives us. When our children hear us pray for Jerusalem and learn why it matters, they inherit more than familiar words. They begin to understand where they belong.
That education also takes place outside the synagogue. A child who sees us helping a struggling family in Israel learns that fellow Jews are our responsibility, even when they live far away.
The Jewish people of tomorrow are growing up in the homes and classrooms of today.
Near the end of the reading, Avraham enters into a covenant with Avimelech, king of the Philistines, in Be’er Sheva, plants an eshel there, and “calls there in the name of the Lord, G-d of the universe" (Bereishit 21:33).
Rashi explains that Avraham fed travelers there and taught them to acknowledge G-d. He was putting down roots in Eretz Yisrael through a life of faith and hospitality.
Avraham had been promised that his descendants would become a great nation. There in Be’er Sheva, he had Yitzchak to raise and a household whose example would influence others. Preparing for the Jewish future meant attending to those responsibilities.
Nearly four thousand years later, Jewish parents are once again raising children in Be’er Sheva. The Jewish future is being shaped in their homes, and in ours.
On Rosh Hashanah, that is something worth remembering too
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/433047
https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/israel-news/2597560/despite-war-more-than-65000-spend-rosh-hashanah-in-uman-nearly-1750-treated-by-hatzalah.html
Dear Friends,
I keep thinking about Eli’s chasunah. He is my grandson, and watching the wedding was something I wish for all of you. Even the trip was great. El Al now announces their times for Minchah and Maariv, and tells their passengers to head to the back gally for minyan 1, then 2, then 3.
It was especially moving because a wedding has a strange way of compressing time. You can look at a person standing under the chuppah and, in the same instant, see the child he was, the young man he became, and the person he is about to become. There was Eli, surrounded by the people who have known him at different stages of his life, about to create something that had never existed before.
It made me think about Rosh Hashanah, the day Hashem made the first human. "– it is not good for man to be alone.” The words are jarring. Hashem had created light and said it was good, the heavens and earth and said they were good, the plants and animals and said they were good, and now there is one thing that is specifically described as not good. Chazal take that "not good" much further than simply saying that a person gets lonely. Bereishit Rabbah says that someone without a wife is without tovah, ezer, simchah, berachah, kapparah, and, according to the later opinions in the Midrash, even shalom and chayim. And then comes perhaps the most striking statement: "שניהם כאחד קרויים אדם" – the two together are called Adam.
Hashem first created Adam as an individual and then tells us that remaining in that condition is lo tov. There is a dimension of humanity that can only emerge when another person becomes part of one's life at that depth. In other words, marriage doesn't just give a person someone to love. It gives him someone for whom he becomes responsible, someone who sees him, someone who needs him, someone who can change him, and eventually a home that exists because the two of them decided to build it.
And then the Torah gives us the phrase "עזר כנגדו". Help opposite him. It is a wonderfully strange expression. If the point were simply companionship, why kenegdo? Rashi, following Chazal, says: "זכה — עזר; לא זכה — כנגדו". If he is worthy, she is a help; if not, don't think the second half should be reduced to the familiar joke that a wife is there to tell her husband when he is wrong. The idea is much more serious. The person closest to you becomes kenegdo because another human being can occupy a position that you cannot occupy by yourself.
There is a wonderful irony here. We spend much of our lives trying to find people who understand us, and then we get married and discover that we have found somebody who understands us too well. That is both the challenge and the gift. The people we meet socially can usually see the version of ourselves that we are prepared to show. The person living with us sees the unedited version. That can be uncomfortable. But it is also one of the greatest opportunities a human being can have. If the relationship has trust, the person who knows where you fall short can also be the person who helps you stand taller.
The Gemara in Yevamot makes ezer almost comically concrete. Rabbi Yosi asks how a woman helps a man: if he brings wheat, does he eat wheat? If he brings flax, does he wear flax? His wife takes what he brings and turns raw material into something usable. The Gemara ends with the beautiful description that she "מאירה עיניו ומעמידתו על רגליו" – she enlightens his eyes and establishes him on his feet.
That may be one of the reasons that marriage can change a person so dramatically. Before marriage, many of us can live largely according to our own internal economy. If we are tired, we rest. If we want something, we pursue it. If we are annoyed, we can walk away. Marriage introduces another person's reality into every one of those calculations. Suddenly the question isn't only, "What do I want?" It becomes, "What does this do to us?" That small change in pronoun is enormous.
And the really remarkable thing is that you don't necessarily notice yourself changing. Nobody wakes up one morning and announces, "Today I have become more patient." It happens because there is a person in the kitchen who needs something. Eventually, the person who entered marriage with a certain set of habits becomes somebody different. Not because marriage magically fixes people, but because living closely with another human being makes it impossible to remain entirely self-contained. They have to learn how to become one household without ceasing to be two people.
And that is a much greater achievement than simply agreeing with one another.
There is a reason the Gemara says "זכה – עזר; לא זכה – כנגדו." The ideal marriage isn't one in which nobody ever challenges anybody. It is one in which the challenge itself can become part of the help. A spouse may be the person who says, "You're capable of more." Or, "You are looking at this the wrong way." Or, "You are being unfair." Or sometimes simply, "You are exhausted and don't realize it." If there is enough love, kenegdo does not have to mean opposition in the destructive sense. It can mean that two people are willing to hold different angles on the same life until together they can see more than either one could have seen alone.
The story of Rabbi Akiva and Rachel is familiar to all of us, so I don't want to retell it. What I find more interesting about it is the question of what Rachel was actually doing when she believed in Akiva. She wasn't marrying the Rabbi Akiva we know. She was making a commitment to a possibility. She saw a person whose present circumstances did not yet reveal his future. That is an extraordinary thing to do for another human being: to look at someone and see potential as well as actuality.
This is true in a completely different way with parents and children. A parent spends years pouring things into a child without knowing exactly what will remain. You teach, repeat, remind, worry, pay, drive, listen, explain, lose patience, apologize, try again, and then one day the child is standing under a chuppah. What is so extraordinary about parenting is that the child eventually takes all of those things and turns them into something that belongs to him. You can give a child a foundation, but you cannot live his life for him.
There is also a painful paradox in successful parenting: the job is to make yourself less necessary. When a child is little, being needed is constant. Then the child begins to do things alone. The way it says in Tehillim – children are like arrows, meant to fly in their own direction.
I think that is a beautiful way to understand what happens at a wedding. We sometimes talk about the old family and the new family as though one ends and the other begins. In reality, the family gets larger. Eli doesn't stop being our Eli. His parents don't stop being his parents. His siblings don't stop being his siblings. But a new relationship has been added that changes the shape of all the existing relationships.
Much of what a child learns about life is never taught to him. He simply watches.
A child watches what happens after his parents disagree. He watches whether an apology is possible. He watches whether people can laugh at themselves. He watches whether Torah belongs only in a sefer or whether it changes the way people behave. He watches whether a person can be exhausted and still be kind. He watches what his parents do for people who cannot do anything for them in return.
Perhaps that is why the phrase "בית נאמן בישראל" is used.
That brings me back to Rosh Hashanah.
So there is something very fitting about entering Rosh Hashanah just after witnessing a wedding. On Rosh Hashanah we return to the beginning of the human story; at a wedding we watch another beginning. We watch another human being take his place in the chain.
And then we hear the shofar.
The shofar doesn't care about any of that.
It is a sound before explanation.
And the Gemara gives us another remarkable connection. We say Malchuyot, Zichronot and Shofarot: we proclaim Hashem as King, we ask that we be remembered for good, and the remembrance is brought through the shofar. Rabbi Abahu then explains why we use a ram's horn: ""כדי שאזכור לכם עקידת יצחק בן אברהם so that the Akedah of Yitzchak will be remembered. His dedication and mesiras nefesh is what drives Jewish people to build a bayit ne’eman.
At Eli's chasunah, I looked backward and forward at the same time.
And perhaps that is why the shofar's wordlessness is so powerful. It doesn't explain the past. It doesn't predict the future. It simply calls us into the present and asks us to remember who we are.
We were created not to remain alone.
We were created to build.
To be ezer and kenegdo.
To be someone's child and eventually someone's parent.
To enter a home and, with Hashem's help, leave it better than we found it.
To take whatever raw material we have been given – our personalities, our families, our strengths, our weaknesses, our opportunities – and somehow turn it into a life.
No words. No explanations. Just the sound of a new beginning.
May Hashem give all of us a year in which we hear that call clearly – and may we be worthy of answering it with the lives we build, the people we love, and the homes we create.
כתיבה וחתימה טובה לכולנו.
With much love,
Tziporah
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