The article below is from Rabbi Riskin’s book Devarim: Moses Bequeaths Legacy, History and Covenant, part of his Torah Lights series of commentaries on the weekly parsha, published by Maggid
Efrat, Israel – “When you come to the land which the Lord your God gives to you as an inheritance and you inherit it…. You shall take from the first of all the fruits of the earth which you shall bring from your land…. And you shall respond and you shall say before the Lord your God: ‘My father was a wandering Aramean.’” (Deuteronomy 26:1–2, 5)
The Mishna in Bikkurim magnificently describes the drama of the bringing of these first fruits, the massive march to Jerusalem of farmers from all over Israel with the choicest fruit and grain of their labors in their hands, the decorated marketplaces of our Holy City crowned by the magnificent fruits, and the speech-song of each individual farmer as he stood in front of the Temple altar with the offering he handed to the priest. What an impressive demonstration of fealty to the Master of the Universe, who is hereby recognized as the Provider of all produce and the Sustainer of all sustenance.
However, the drama of the first fruits seems to be emphasizing a far different truth than that of God, the Ultimate Benefactor. The speech-song which accompanies the first fruits – an element which is unique to this particular commandment, and is not even a factor in the giving of tithes but which is a necessary condition with regard to the first fruits – makes no reference to the Lord of the rains and the winds and the sun and the nutrient-filled soil which produced these luscious fruits and sustaining grains of the seven species. The clear emphasis is the arrival of the Israelites to the Land of Israel – after having been enslaved and afflicted by the Egyptians, and after the Almighty heard their prayers and took them from Egypt to Israel with great miracles and wonders.
This quintessential early history of Israel goes one step further. It is recited by the individual in the first person: “My father was a wandering Aramean…. The Egyptians… afflicted us…. And He [God] gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Deut. 26:4–11).
The text makes the individual feel that the Land of Israel is his personal land. It is chiefly because of the brevity and total individual identification with Israel’s historical past that these verses are co-opted by the author of the Haggada for the Passover Seder. And if the drama of the Passover meal is tailor-made to express the truth that “in every generation, it is incumbent upon every individual to see himself as if he came out of Egypt,” so is the drama of the first fruits tailor-made to express a parallel truth that “in every generation it is incumbent upon every individual to see himself as if he arrived in Israel.” Indeed, just as the Passover Seder is “speech plus food,” so is the Bikkurim “speech plus fruits”; and just as the Passover Haggada comes from the verse “And you shall tell your child, (vehigadeta),” so does the speech-song of the first fruits open with the words, “I told (higadeti) this day to the Lord your God that I came to the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give to us” (26:3).
From this perspective I can understand why the first fruits are only to be brought from the seven species which are unique and bring praise to the Land of Israel (Deut. 8), and why only an individual who owns a portion of the Land of Israel and on whose portion the fruits actually grew is obligated to perform the command of the first fruits (Mishna, Bikkurim 1:1–3). This is totally unlike the tithes, for example, which must be given by biblical command only from wine, grain, and oil (universal staples), and by rabbinical command on all fruits and vegetables; the first fruits are not so much about God’s agricultural bounty as they are about God’s gift of the Land of Israel to the nation of Israel. Indeed, in the eleven verses of the first fruits speech-song, the noun “land (eretz),” appears no fewer than five times, and the verb “gift (matan)” (by God), no fewer than seven times.
To further cement the inextricable relationship between the first fruits and the Land of Israel, Rabbi Elchanan Samet (in his masterful biblical commentary) cites a comment by Rabbi Menachem Ziemba (Chiddushim, siman 50) in the name of the Holy Ari, that the commandment to bring the first fruits is a repair, a tikkun, for the Sin of the Scouts. Perhaps that is why the Mishna links the command of the first fruits specifically to the fig, grape, and pomegranate (“If an individual goes into his field and sees a fig, a grape-cluster and/or a pomegranate which has/have ripened, he must tie them with a cord and state that these are to be first fruits” – Bikkurim 3:1), precisely the three fruits which the scouts took back with them (Num. 13:23). And the Bible relates to the scouts on their reconnaissance mission with the very same language that God commands the Israelite concerning the first fruits: Moses tells the scouts, “And you shall take from the fruits of the land” (13:20), “We came to the land…and it is even flowing with milk and honey, and this is its fruit” (13:27), and – in remarkably parallel fashion – God commands the Israelites, “And you shall take from the first of all the fruits of the land” (Deut. 26:2), “Because I have come to the land” (26:3), “And He gave to us this land flowing with milk and honey” (26:9). In effect, God is saying that we must bring precisely those first fruits from that very special land which the scouts rejected, or at least lacked the faith to conquer and settle. Fulfilling the command of the first fruits is in effect a gesture of “repentance” for the Sin of the Scouts.
Rabbi Elchanan Samet goes still one step further. The Mishna teaches that the first fruits are to be brought from Shavuot until Sukkot, each area in Israel in accordance with the ripening of their respective seven species (Bikkurim 1:10). (Shavuot marks the first ripening of wheat-bread, and so it concludes Passover, when the barley ripened. Bread, the staff of life, is the basic “first fruit.” Throughout the summer the individual farmers and householders would come with the other special and indigenous fruits.) And we are only commanded to do so when there is a Holy Temple, requiring from us additional offerings as well as song and overnight sleep in Jerusalem (Mishna, Bikkurim 2:4).
Each one of the Pilgrim Festivals does have an aspect of its celebrations that touches on the remembrance of our entry into the Land of Israel: Passover, with its fifth expression of redemption (Ex. 6:8) and its fifth cup, Sukkot with its mention of the four species (Lev. 23:39), and Shavuot, which is actually called the Festival of the First Fruits because of the newly ripened wheat and offering of two challa loaves. But it is the bringing of the other first fruits all summer and its concomitant speech-song which exclusively resonates with this experience. Wheat is a universal grain, whereas the other first fruits are unique to the Land of Israel and so emphasize the truest reason for the sanctity of this land: its provision of nutrition and sustenance specifically for the children of Israel (see Deuteronomy, Ekev, commentary 6).
In effect, therefore, the first fruits are a fourth Pilgrim Festival, the Pilgrim Festival which celebrates our entry into the Land of Israel. It was just this accomplishment which was lacking in Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot – and what better way to celebrate the entry into the land than by bringing its unique fruits and reliving our entry after the Exodus!
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin
Chancellor Ohr Torah Stone
Chief Rabbi – Efrat Israel
