Personal growth requires steps as much as it requires leaps. The Torah recognizes and encourages these transitions, acknowledging that people need to take change in stages.
Parshat Ki Tavo illustrates this theme. The parsha opens with a discussion of bikkurim, the first fruits which the Jews would need to bring to the kohanim (priests).
On one level, this is here simply because it is a law conected to the land of Israel; as such, in advance of entering the land, a crash course in the laws of bikkurim is appropriate.
But if we pay attention to a few linguistic clues, a deeper lesson emerges.
A regular Joe/Jew comes in front of the Priest -- substitute, Rabbi, Rosh Yeshiva, or Big Kahuna.
I don't mean to be flip; the Priest is holy, and the Jew is intimidated.
His words make clear his uncertainty, and extreme humility:
I declare today to Hashem, YOUR God, that I've come to land that Hashem swore to our fathers to give to us. (Deuteronomy 26:3; emphasis mine)
Even while acknowledging that God promised the land to OUR fathers (including himself), the man --and let's remember this is a Good man, fulfilling a mitzvah--this same man somehow feels outside the religious circle.
Hashem is the PRIEST'S God, not his own.
This is evocative of the mistake the Jews' made the first time around, associating God too closely with Moshe, and not believing sufficiently in themselves. And so, when they thought Moshe was gone, they built a golden calf. Without Moshe, they mistakenly thought, how else could we get to God?
But while the Torah, almost reassuringly lets us know that "slips happen", we also get the good news: this is a new generation, and we have learned our lesson. All Jews can and should get close to God (1).
And so within the same bikkurim description, we read what else the Jew who brought bikkurim said, and it is more encouraging:
I have taken away what was holy from the house...I have not violated and have not forgotten any of your commandments....I have listened to the voice of Hashem, MY God (Deuteronomy 26: 13-14; emphasis mine).
In the span of 11 verses, a new acceptance of his own worth has emerged. He has gone from YOUR God to MY God -- and while intellectually he probably knew this all along, he is first able to feel and acknowledge his own connection to God.
It may be the kohein to whom he brings his offerings, and through whom he honors God, but now he can see all that as a technicality. At the end of the day, he recognizes, I matter because God matters to me.
This theme and plot of personal growth has at least one more appearance in our parsha. Moshe tells the nation, "Today you have become a people."
To explain the full significance of this verse, Rashi cites a fascinating Midrash:
"I heard that on the day that Moshe gave the Torah to the sons of Levi [the priests], as it says "And he gave it [the Torah] to the priests, the sons of Levi. And all of Israel came and said to him, "Moshe our teacher, we too stood at Sinai and received the Torah and it was given to us -how can you know give its control over to your fellow tribesmen [the Levites; as Moshe was a Levite]....And Moshe was happy about this and in response said, (Deuteronomy 27: 9, in KaTavo) "Today you have become a people." [Rashi to Ki Tavo, 29: 3]
The Midrash brings our earlier observation into even sharper focus: the Jews are comfortable in their own skin, and happpy in their own sheivet (tribe). They assert their rights and their role: to be God's people. They are prepared to act on behalf of their God; after all, says each man and woman to themselves, this God is MY God.
That is one story which plays out this week. The shift from YOUR God to MY God.
Tonight we begin selichot, the special prayers leading up to Rosh Hashana. There we see a slightly different transition -- from US to ME.
On the very first night of these special selichot we say:
"L'kha Hashem Hatzedakah, v'lanu boshet hapanim -- To you
God can be attributed justice, but for US, there is only embarrasment."
This prayer is at attempt to admit our own lack of worth, akin to saying, "God, we don't have a leg to stand on, all we can do is shame-facedly ask for your mercy during this period of judgment."
This is Night 1. The selichot cycle comprises many days. The specifics vary by year, but there are approximately 14 days from the first night we say selichot until the Ne'ilah prayer which closes the Yom Kippur service.(2)
During Ne'ilah, as individuals we again confess. Again we acknowledge our unworthiness. Again we bring up feelings of shame and inadequacy. But this time the language is different:
"...harei ani l’fanekha kichli malei busha u’khlima - Behold,
I am, in front of you, like a vessel filled with embarrasment (busha)
and despair"
What has changed during these 2 weeks of introspection? We have moved levels, from the easier stage of saying, "We are all sinners" to the far more challenging step of saying, "I am a sinner." (3)
In short, the selichot journey is about going from OUR sins to MY sin; it is a transition that is critical in matters of responsibility, and in laying the groundwork for accountability.
We have described 2 transitions so far, and in each the goal was to "get personal" --to accomplish all that we can in this world, we must recognize that it is our God, and it will be our good or bad deeds that affect the world's future.
I have a suggestion though. I think that if the laws betwen man and God (bein adam l'makom) require us to get from YOUR and OUR to MY and MINE, we have the opposite challenge when it comes to those laws that govern our interpersonal lives.
To grow close to each other, we must recognize our uniqueness, but temper it, honor our potential, but be as willing and as focused on nurturing the talents of others.
To truly be ONE people, we must move from a ME mentality to a WE mentality.
There's a great and well known story about Rabbi Aryeh Levine, who, taking his wife to see the doctor for pain she was suffering, said: "Our leg hurts."
The aspiration is nothing more or less than the difference between sympathy and empathy.
Introspection calls on us to focus IN; Compassion asks us to also focus OUT: it is the yin-yang, point-counterpoint.
God looks to us, yes, but He also wants us to look. To look around. To see the world's problems and make them our problems. To feel and act as part of a larger whole. To act like a c'lal, from the root col, where all parts matter.
At the moment the Torah was given, our rabbis say we were united, k'ish echad, b'leiv echad -- like one person with one heart.
A similar phrase is mentioned about the Egyptians in the Passover narrative. It is said that they pursued the Jews, b'leiv echad, k'ish echad -- with one heart, like one person.
Rav Hutner seizes on the difference and in so doing makes a beautiful and relevant point to our current discussion:
The Egyptians shared a practical and tactical goal: kill the Jews. Because they shared a goal, it was almost as if they were one person, but it was an artificial link.
At Sinai, we forged a deeper link: we were one. When you are truly united, the one "heart", or goal flows naturally as an expression of your unity. What he wants, I want for him.
Are we truly prepared to extend ourselves for loved ones? For strangers?
Just this week, my mother witnessed a car accident. It involved a New York taxi cab and another car, and the taxi driver was in the right. The poor cabbie was being yelled at by the very woman who was at fault. What are the odds, thought my mother, that people would believe the cabbie? Between stereotypes of how cabbies drive, and the fact that the driver's English was so poor, what were the chances that the story would be properly told, and blame properly alloted? And then my mother did something that most of us wouldn't do: she acted. She told the cabbie she had seen the whole thing; she wrote down what she saw and signed it; she reassured him that he had done everything properly; she offered to testify if needed and gave him her name and number. But there is a shorter way to dscribe all the individual actions that my mother did that day: she acted like it was HER problem, not his.
Earlier, we said that the goal bein adam l'makom was to get to a recognition of ME and MY, while the goal bein adam l'chaveiro was to move from self concern to selflessness, and from a narrow looking ME to a broad and broadening concern with WE.
But perhaps what we are doing bein adam l'chaveiro is not moving from ME to WE at all. Perhaps, in the final analysis, it is the ultimate ME expression: recognizing that his suffering is MY suffering, and that, whether I have sinned or not, his sins are MY sins. That, after all, is what being a WE is about: connection and culpability as flip sides of the same shekel.
It is important to understand what God expects of us, and what we can expect of each other.
Parshat Ki Tavo speaks in part of accountability and responsibility. Let's not forget though how all our stories began. Change takes time: whether it is 11 verses, 14 days, shorter or longer gaps of time and space, change is a process.
And while allowing ourselves and others the room to change, let's continue to remember how precious change can be -- and look forward to the day when we can honestly stand up and talk of MY God, MY people, and MY challenges.
On that day, God will be proud to call us HIS.
End Notes:
1) Of course, this itself is a reminder of why we should get close to each other; Judaism isn't a caste society
2) Ne'ilah is named for when the gates of prayer are metaphorically closing and comes from the Hebrew word, l'nol, to lock or close).
3) The contrast and link between the first night of selichot and the ne'ilah prayer was made by Rav Meir Goldvicht, shlita.
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