As with last week, no time, no time, we're having our new in-laws and sheva berachot e5c. However, a short thought, seeing as how Ki Tavo is also Elisha's Bar Mitzvah parashah:
Ki Tavo is famous for playing host to the great "blessing and curse" passage which concludes the collection of mitzvot which has spanned three parashiyot. The parashah opens', however, with two mitzvot which are effectively the concluding mitzvot of the great mitzvah collection. The first the the mitzvah of bikkurim, the bringing of the first fruits. The second is bi'ur ma'asrot, the ensuring that all tithes and priestly gifts have been actually given to their recipients, and not merely set aside. Interestingly, both mitzvot contain declarations which are part and parcel of their respective mitzvot.
There's much to say, of course, on both the mitzvot themselves and on the declarations - the first of which forms the text upon which the central passage of the Haggadah, Tze U'Lemad, is based, the second of which is the text from which ,many of the details of the tithing process are learned out.
It struck me, however, that the timing of our wedding, coinciding with this week's parashah, is most meaningful. It is upon bringing the first-fruits into a space of holiness at the temple - and only really then - that the Jew can say, "I proclaim TODAY before Hashem your (the kohen's) G-d that (NOW) I am come into the land which Hashem swore to our fathers to give to us".
I brought my first-born (bechor) son, our first fruits, as did my mechutan with his first-born daughter to the Kohen (Rav Re'em Hakohen, Elisha's Rosh Yeshiva from Yeshivat Otniel) under the chuppah, with all its Temple symbolism, and I can tell you that now, and only now, do I feel like I am truly come into the land. We pray in Shabat Musaf "May You bring us up in joy to the land and plant us within its boundaries". Unbelievable joy, new birth... that you, Hashem!!
The second mitzvah, however, is in some ways even more resonant. It's one thing to separate out the various gifts, it's another to actually give them over fully. Hashem has given us the ultimate blessing in entrusting to us precious souls. It's so hard to part with our "hold" (which we never really have) on them, always wanting/needing to retain a connection on a basis that we (and not enought "they") determine. There's a mitzvah - we proclaim we have given it all over - I have given over my son entirely to the new connection with his wife ("Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh' - Rashi says this means children, but the pshat is heard 'round the world), and it's so joyously difficult, but we must not only do this, but bless Hashem for the opportunity. Perhaps it is only now, really, that I become a father, as I and Shoshana allow the no-longer-a-fledging son to really soar away from the nest.
Thus is must be, until that when the sadness of separation and the joy of temporary reunion merge to form an incomprehensiblely higher oneness - a oneness I felt I tasted just the smidgen of as we sang "Im Eshkachech" under the chuppah, my son and I, my wife, my family, my friends, my people and...hey didn't I hear you singing too?. Hashem, let me never, ever forget.
Just as Balak brings Bil’am to consider his enemy from various vantage point, likewise does Parashat Balak allow us to view ourselves from the vantage point of others. The main story in Balak is of a single piece, and Am Yisrael appear only as foils for the central story – the interaction of Bil’am with Hashem. What is curious is that not only does Am Yisrael not appear as a real character in the story, we don’t even get a mention. Every time Balak or Bil’am refer to Am Yisrael in the non-visionary passages, they employ indirection: “this people”, “my enemies”, but never Yisrael. It almost feels that they are avoiding speaking the name, one which Bil’am, at least, employs so beautifully in his prophetic speeches. Now, recalling that this story of the interaction of other nations with Am Yisrael is being told in the Torah, I think the message is this: Yisrael is our name in the context of our covenantal interactions with Hashem, just as Hashem’s real name is used only in the conte...
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