by Avital Mintz-Morgenthau, delivered at Minyan M'at

Good morning and boker tov!

When I found out that my bat mitzvah parshah was Ki Tavo, I sat down and looked at the parshah with my dad. I learned that the parshah was mostly about the curses that Moshe tells to bnai yisrael and only a little bit about the bikkurim and the ma’aser, which I’ll tell you about in a minute. I thought I could really get into the curses, but my parents thought it was more “appropriate” to speak about the bikkurim; and that’s what I decided to do. But don’t worry you’ll hear about my curses some other time!

The bikurim appear in the first aliyah of my bat-mitzvah parsha Ki Tavo. The bikurim are the first fruits that a farmer brings each year to the beit hamikdash (the temple in Jerusalem) and gives to the kohen. In this section, Moshe is telling the second generation in the desert what will be required from them once they get into Eretz Yisrael. When they plant crops they will put aside some of the first fruits to ripen. Later they will put them in a basket and bring them to the kohen and recite a special prayer which begins
My ancestor was a wandering Aramean who went down to Egypt and became there a great nation. Then the farmer puts the basket in front of the altar and bows down to Hashem.

The Torah’s description left me with many questions. For instance, what kinds of fruits do you have to bring? How many? What do you do when you get to the Temple? To find out the answers to these questions I looked in the Mishnah, Massekhet Bikurim, which describes how Jews really brought the bikurim during the time of the Second Temple. When I was reading the Mishnah, many of my questions were answered. According to the Mishnah, when a farmer sees the first fruits he puts a string around them so later on he will know which ones are the bikurim. The Mishnah explains that you bring the bikurim not from all fruits but from grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates; these are the seven species that the Land of Israel is famous for. As you may have notices, in most mitzvot the Torah specifies exactly how much of something you need to perform the mitzvah. For example, to be obligated to say birkat hamazon, you need to eat a piece of bread that is at least the size of an olive. The weird thing about the bikurim is that are allowed to bring one piece of fruit or a zillion pieces. As we say in the davening each morning from Mishnah Pe’ah: This is a question: What ARE the mitzvoth that have no set amount? And one of the answers is bikurim.

The fruits can be brought to the beit hamikdash between Shavuot and Sukkot. When the fruits ripen farmers from several villages would get together and go up in a procession to Jerusalem. The procession was led by a bull with horns covered in gold. A flute player would be playing in the front until they reached Jerusalem. When they reached the outskirts of the city, they would be greeted by officials from the Temple. Once they entered the city, crafts people would stand up and greet them as they walked through the streets. When they entered the Temple itself, each person would have to carry his own basket even if he was the king.

With the basket still on his shoulder, the farmer would way the passuk from Ki Tavo that begins: "I have acknowledged today before Hashem." Then he would take the basket off his shoulder and hold it by the rim. The kohen would put his hand under the basket and raise it. Then the farmer would say the prayer that begins "My ancestor was a wandering Aramean." He then places the basket by the mizbe’ah for the kohen, bows down to Hashem, and leaves.

Let’s go back and look at what the Torah actually stresses here, which is the prayer the farmer says: "My ancestor was a wandering Aramean." These words are probably familiar to you because you’ve heard them every year at the seder on Pesah. What is so special about this prayer? This prayer retells the story of how benai yisrael went down to Egypt as a small tribe and came out as a mighty nation. They are enslaved by the Egyptians and liberated by Hashem and brought to the Land of Israel. After the farmer tells this story, he then says “And now, behold I have brought the first fruit that you Hashem have given me.” By saying this prayer, the farmer is making a connection between two things: first, an awareness that Hashem is the God of nature, who has made the fruit ripen, and, second, an awareness of God as the God of history, who brought bnei yisrael out of Egypt and gave them Eretz Yisrael. This prayer is special in the Torah also because ordinary people, ones who weren’t kohanim or levi’im, didn’t say prayers often because there were sacrifices, and if they did, it mostly wasn’t a set prayer but one they made up on the spot.

In the time of the Second Temple, according to the Mishnah, when people would come to give bikurim people who could say the prayer in Hebrew would say it on their own, and people who couldn’t would be prompted by the kohen. But after a while people who couldn’t say the prayer in Hebrew wouldn’t come at all because they were embarrassed. So they made a rule that EVERYONE, even people who knew Hebrew, would be prompted by the kohen so that no one would be reluctant to come.

Bringing bikurim is one of the mitzvoth hateluyot ba’aretz, the commandments that can be performed only if you are living in Eretz Yisrael at the time of the Temple. After the Temple was destroyed, this mitzvah could not be performed. HaZal, the rabbis of the time of the Mishnah, wanted to find a way for people to thank Hashem for fruits and food and not just once a year but every day. So they came up with the idea of the berakhah, which is a verbal formula that acknowledges the connection between Hashem as creator of the world and the piece of fruit that we are about to eat. It is interesting to note that when the Halutsim, the early pioneers, came to Eretz Yisrael and founded the kibbutzim they brought back the idea of the bikurim by celebrating the first fruits on the season on Shavuot.

Even though we are not farmers and we don’t have the beit hamikdash, it doesn’t mean we cant give gratitude to Hashem for our first things. The moments in our lives when we experience a breakthrough are a lot like the bikurim, the first fruits. I myself have had many breakthroughs in my life. First of all, I was born. I was like a bud that became a flower. When I was in my mother’s stomach, I had the potential to be a person, but the problem was I was still in my mother’s stomach. Then I was born kind of like a fruit, sweet and juicy. During the next 12 years of my life, there have been many times when I was aware that I was doing something I couldn’t do before. You know that there is always something special about your first such as: talking, which I like doing a lot, your first month at camp, the first day of school, being able to break through to that first back flip in gymnastics, and last but not least, this bat-mitzvah speech, and actually becoming a bat mitzvah.

And now for the thank-you’s. Thanks to Toby Silverstein for teaching me the trop and the layening; Nathan Schleifer for practicing with me and keeping me on the right track; Harry Trattner for valuable last-minute pointers.

Barbara Heller, our good friend from Israel, helped with the party favors, which come from kibbutz, the flowers and last-minute errands. Marlene Stulbach helped us put together the invitations. My mother’s close friend Bill McKenna was there for us as he always is. Debbie Freidman, our good friend and downstairs neighbor, was kind to agree to play for us later on.

First and foremost, I want to thank my mother. Ima, thank you so much for carrying the worries of the bat mitzvah on your back from the smallest details to the biggest issues. Abba, thank you for working with me on my devar torah, for remaining calm, and keeping me focused. Thanks to my sister Amira for tolerating all my screeching layening practice and for not sparing me her criticism, and for helping out with the paper goods, the place cards, the party favors and much more. Gina Piers, our longtime friend, came out of retirement to help with our dresses. Jenny DaSilva, who took care of Amira and me for so many years, came back to help me with my hair.

Grandma, I am so happy you could make it. I know it’s hard for you to travel at the age of 90. I hope I will be as active as you are at that age. I always have a good time with you in Worcester, playing cards and eating pecan pie at your house. We are all sorry that Sabba is no longer with us, but I still have warm memories of sitting on his lap and his chasing me with his cane.

My mother’s parents died 23 years ago, long before I was born and even before my parents got married. But I feel as if I know them pretty well from my mother’s stories, from her friends, and from all the photographs and books.

To my Uncle Matthew and Aunt Linda, on my mother’s side, it means a lot to me that you could come all the way from Chicago. To my Uncle Lenny and Aunt Debbie, on my father’s side, thank you for coming, and I always have a good time hanging out with you.

My life would not be the same without SAR, my school community. At SAR I’ve learned a love of Torah, Eretz Yisrael, and Hebrew. I feel very grateful to my teachers and principals, Rabbi Cohen, Rabbi Goldsmith, Rabbi Harztock, and Mrs. Rosner. The other community in my life is the Minyan M’at, which has been there for me every Shabbat of my life since I was born. I was fortunate to grow up in a community with many models of women taking active roles in Jewish life.

Finally, thank you to friends who came from afar to celebrate with us: Ella from Efrat in Israel, Armin from Zurich, Gaby from San Francisco, Willa from Seattle and all our friends and relatives from New England.

Bye!

copyright reserved by the author