Rabbi's Derasha

We read the curses in this Parasha just before the New Year because we want the end of the year to be the end of the curses.  That way, the new year can begin with blessings.

Fair enough, but the reading of this Parasha so close to Rosh Hashana is suggestive in other places too.  The Parasha begins with two statements, one a recitation of Jewish history when one brings first fruits to Yerushalayim.  We recognize this statement because we read at least part of it in the Haggada on Pesach.  The other statement is a reckoning of how we handled our tithing over a three-year period in the Sabbatical cycle.  

The commentators say that these first two parashiot are connected because they both involve statements.  The first is a public statement; the second statement is more private.  But both teach basic lessons in preparation for the New Year.

First fruits is a lesson about the significance of beginnings.  Among the noteworthy  lessons in them is a paradox.  We know that the phrase “Rosh Hashana” is an oxymoron.  A “Shana” is a repetitious thing, a cycle which repeats and repeats without pause to end or to begin.  Yet “Rosh” declares a beginning, and not just in a trivial way.  It says that all that comes afterward will stem from this new beginning.

Bikkurim, the first fruits, announce emphatically that we recognize the momentous weight of a beginning.  We make such a big show out of them because we want all to see that beginnings are possible, that new-ness is possible.  This is why, as the Baal HaTurim (d. 14th century) points out, there is no letter Samech in all of the Parasha of Bikkurim.  A Samech is a circle, without beginning and without end.  Bikkurim is a break from the idea of cycles of circles.  [There also is no Samech in the Creation story at the beginning of Bereisheet.  There is no bigger statement of beginnings than that.]  

The Parasha makes a big deal of the bringing of the fruit in baskets.  The basket is called “Tena,” Tet-Nun-Aleph.  A basket could have been a “Sal,” a word which appears other places in the Torah (“Sal HaMatzot”).  But the Torah is avoiding the word Sal because it does not want to use a Samech.  The signal for this is the fact that the word Tena as a whole has a Gematria of 60, which is the same as the letter Samech.  

This is one lesson we like to note at this time of year: the promise of real beginnings.  The second lesson is in the second statement at the beginning of the Parasha, what we call Vidui Ma’aser.  Vidui, which is usually translated as “confession,” catches one’s attention at this time of year because we are about to enter the most intense period of confessions.  This year, we will not start Selichot until next Motzai Shabbat, but among the foci of Selichot is confession.  But “Vidui” does not, strictly speaking, refer to “confession.”  It means to audit, to reckon something, which means to figure out both the pluses AND the minuses.  And in this Vidui we emphasize only the positive -- Lo Avarti MiMitzvotecha, I have not deviated from your commandments.  This is not a Vidui we’ve seen before, but R’ Soloveitchik used to say that it’s the only kind of Vidui that can make the other type meaningful.  

If one cannot perform the Mitzvot, if they are beyond one’s abilities, then the confession we will say through Yom Kippur will be meaningless.  So dry as to be brittle.  Only if we can in fact do the Mitzvot then falling short can be said to be sad, and a reason for regret.  There must be a possibly positive reckoning for there to be something to remark upon when one falls short.  

The list of failures we give during the days of Teshuva actually implies the converse: We can do this.  There’s nothing here we can’t do, nothing truly beyond us.  With the proper will and a solid sense of priorities, this can be done. 

This too is a valuable lesson at this time of year.  We can handle this.  A knowledge of our capacity to do all of this is the beginning of a meaningful self-examination.  As we do our self-audits, we can ask, why are we not doing this?  With these two lessons -- the promise of new beginnings and a sense of what we CAN do -- we’re ready for the New Year.