Unity and Mutual Responsibility: Ki Tavo.21

 Unity and Mutual Responsibility

D’var Torah for Parashat Ki Tavo

August 27, 2021

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

There is an overarching dramatic structure to the Torah—the Five Books of Moses. Starting with the general setting of time (Creation) and place (the Garden of Eden), the story evolves along with all humankind, stopping to focus on a specific individual—Abraham—and then his family. In time, the family grows. It turns into B’nai Yisrael, the twelve tribes of Israel.

Through the Commandments and the setting of special times—Shabbat and the Holy Days—an emergent nation slowly coalesces. Rebellion and factionalism, however, stand in the way of this process. The emphasis thus shifts to the relationship between God and the individual: YOU shall love, YOU shall follow, YOU shall observe. It is the individual that Moses addresses, hoping to ingrain in the soul of each of us that our fate is in our hands. Through our fulfillment of the Commandments, we can make life better for ourselves, our families, and even the stranger we might meet along the way.

However, all this changes in the fifth book of the cycle, Deuteronomy. 

Historically, scholars might be able to point to the possibility that this book was written in the 7th century BCE, at a time when Jerusalem, the capital of the Kingdom of Judea, was trying to ward off an attack by the Assyrian empire. Not much earlier, the Assyrians had destroyed the northern Kingdom of Israel and exiled its population, the fabled Ten Lost Tribes. Seeking meaning and reason for this disaster, the King of Judea, Josiah, turns to God, convinced that the devastation was due to the people’s deviation from God’s commandments. The Temple had become a place for idolatry and other foreign practices, and Josiah orders that it be renovated and rededicated. While cleaning the Temple, the High Priest Hilkiah mysteriously “discovers” a sacred scroll. In the book of Kings II, it is called “the book of the Law.” In 2 Chronicles, however, it is called “the book of the Law of the Lord given by Moses.” Scholars today believe that this is the source of the book that today we call Deuteronomy.

While there are passages in Deuteronomy that are direct quotes from the earlier Scriptures, there are linguistic differences that point to both different authorship and to a more advanced development of the Hebrew language. Additionally, however, the perspective Deuteronomy adopts is quite different from its predecessors. This becomes clear in this week’s portion, Ki Tavo (“When you arrive to the Land,” Deut. 26:1-29:8). It is here that we find the passage that has become the foundation stone of Jewish faith, history and peoplehood. 700 years later, the Rabbis will quote this passage in its entirety in the Passover Haggadah: 

“When you have entered the land which Adonai your God is giving you

as an inheritance and have taken possession of it and settled in it, take

some of the first-fruits of all that you produce from the soil… and put them

in a basket. Then go to the place Adonai your God will choose as a dwelling

for His Name and say to the priest in office at the time, “I declare today to

Adonai your God that I have come to the land which Adonai swore to our 

        ancestors to give us” (Deut. 26:1-3).

The shift is unmistakable. Even though the commandment applies to each one of us, the focus is no longer on the individual. It’s about US, not ME. As in the Haggadah’s story of the Four Children, the emphasis in this passage is on the entire community, from which only the wicked person excludes himself. Each of us has a portion in it, but it is OUR land, the land given to US in an oath sworn by God to OUR ancestors.

The message implied by this shift in perspective is that our strength isn’t only in our own hands. We are strengthened by our unity. Unifying as one nation under God is what will save Judea and Jerusalem from the fate suffered by the Kingdom of Israel.

Inclusiveness and unity, however, come with responsibility. We must sacrifice a certain amount of ourselves for the sake of the larger whole. Unity means we have to be responsible for one another. We must look beyond our own tents and tribes and see ourselves as one people, taking care not only of our own needs but also those of the entire community. 

And it is here that the Torah reaches its breathtakingly dramatic climax. Moses positions the twelve tribes of Israel on the slopes of two mountains, six on one and six on the other, facing each other. In the valley between them, Moses places the Levites, commanding them to to call out blessings and curses—the consequences of following or disobeying God’s laws. As each of these is called out, the entire people responds as one with a resounding “Amen!” One group is witness to the other; each is there to remind the other: you were there; we all heard the words. We are all in this together, you and I, your household as well as mine. Our success and survival depend on us all. The defense of the nation as well as the caretaking of the poor, the sick, the widow and the orphan—these are all OUR responsibility. The section ends with: “Therefore observe the words of this covenant— דברי הברית הזאת—and fulfill them, in order that you shall succeed in all that you do.”

These words, this b’rit, is the covenant that unites us all, bonding us into one people, one nation, for all eternity.

Holiness, the Torah tells us, is not found only in our unique, personal relationship with God. Rather, holiness is also present in the dignity, love and caring with which we must relate to one another. 

From the very beginning of the Torah to its last words, from the murder of Abel by his brother Cain all the way to the admonitions of Deuteronomy, we are told that we are responsible for our brother and sister. To this day, it is this responsibility that still makes us one—one family, one nation, one human race. 

© 2021 by Boaz D. Heilman