This week’s Torah portion, Parshat Ki Tavo contains a goodly number of mitzvot. Perhaps the best-known is the commandment to bring the first produce from ones crops to Jerusalem as a sacrifice, a mitzvah known as bikurim. Bikurim are a way of thanking God for providing us with the bounty of the land. And in particular, giving back the first fruits to God shows our appreciation for God’s gifts and our willingness to part with that which is most precious to us.
Bikkurim represent a fundamental principle then, that is essential to what Judaism is all about, namely understanding that our bounty is not only due to our own hard work but to the affordances that God provides. This principle reminds me of eating (I am Jewish after all). When we eat, say an apple or a piece of bread, Jews don’t just eat it. First, we first recite a bracha, a blessing. The bracha reminds us of God’s contribution, and underscores the One Who has created the fruit of the tree. In the case of bread, this is even more important in some ways, because bread is much further removed from the wheat of the field than an apple from its tree. A lot of human work goes into making bread — harvesting, separating wheat from chaff, milling, mixing flour with yeast and other ingredients, allowing it to rise, pounding, kneeding and rolling, forming loaves and baking. The blessing for bread, though, reminds us that God has an important hand in taking the bread from out of the earth (which is of course what hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz means).
This past week, we began a serious batch of bread baking, a process called teaching. At such a time I feel the need to acknowledge that the act of teaching, like the act of baking bread, is a partnership between teachers, parents and God. This is perhaps especially true at an institution which not only teaches math and English, but professes to teach Torah. And by Torah, I don’t just mean the Five Books of Moses or even Jewish text — I mean any ethical teaching that intends to improve the lives of our students. In acknowledging our role as teachers, we must also acknowledge our role as students. And for that reason, every morning at MWJDS we recite a blessing of partnership between us and God, acknowledging the gift of learning:
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Blessed are You God, Ruler of the universe Who has sanctified us with commandments, and commanded us to busy ourselves with the words of Torah.
I pray that we all stay very busy this year, growing in our insights and skills, and reflecting back the many gifts in our lives.