This week, my brother married his childhood friend of many decades. Despite, and perhaps even because of, their long journey and the tumultuous times we are living in, the wedding was the most joyous, love-filled, and electric atmosphere I have experienced in a long time. Every simcha these days occupies that ambivalent space between joy and sadness, gratitude and anxiety. But for us personally, it was made more complex because our eldest daughter, who has a particularly close relationship with her uncle, was denied permission to attend due to it being a pivotal time in her officers' training course. We were all enormously disappointed, but at the same time enormously proud and grateful that her absence was for a positive reason.
This week marks exactly one year to the day (in the Hebrew Calander) that she was drafted into the Israeli Defense Forces. At the time I wrote an article about how her drafting was, for me, a ‘bikkurim’ moment, similar to the one we read about in this week’s parsha.
The parsha begins with "כי תבוא" – when you enter the land. Instead of instructions on how to form a governing body, an army, or a system of rule we read instead, about the instruction to the farmer to take his first fruits to the Temple and present them to the priest, whilst recounting the story of his people in the following declaration:
"My ancestor was a wandering Aramean. He went down into Egypt and lived there as a stranger, just a handful of souls, and there he became a great nation – large, mighty, and great. The Egyptians dealt cruelly with us and oppressed us, subjecting us to harsh labor. We cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors. The Lord heard our voice, and He saw our oppression, our toil, and our enslavement. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with terrifying power, with signs and wonders. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now I am bringing the first fruits of the land that You, O Lord, have given me." (Devarim 26:5-10)
The first thing we are instructed to do when we enter the land is not to devise battle tactics or fiscal or legal policies. Instead, we are instructed to tell a story. But not just any story – one that gives context to the moment, a story that explains how we got here, why we are here, and what this moment means for me as an individual in the collective landscape of my
ation. Why? Because that is key to our survival.
One of my favorite songs from the hit musical Hamilton is "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story". Alexander Hamilton was one of the founding fathers of America. He revolutionized the fiscal system and succeeded under extreme adversity however, he was much less well known than the others until he became the subject of the Broadway musical created by Lin-Manuel Miranda. At the end of the musical, Hamilton’s wife sings the words:
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?
Every other founding father’s story gets told.
Every other founding father gets to grow old.
And when you're gone, who remembers your name?
Who keeps your flame?
Who tells your story?
Because history is told by the victors, some stories will be told, and others will not. This is part of the arc of human history. And yet storytelling is perhaps the oldest form of identity formation. Humans tell stories to create a sense of belonging. Yuval Noah Harari describes this in his book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Though he believes that many of the stories we tell are based on myths rather than objective truth, he emphasizes the utility of stories as a mechanism through which homo sapiens create meaning and find their place in the cosmic drama. Stories are our earliest form of imaginative reasoning, and they are also the way in which we nurture curiosity and knowledge in the young.
Carmine Gallo, a public-speaking coach and author of the bestselling book Talk Like TED, argues that what makes a successful speech is one in which we tell a story. Storytelling helps the speaker connect with the audience and transforms data and facts into heart and emotion. When we hear a story, we become involved in it, we begin to identify with the characters, we see ourselves in the narrative.
The Torah is a book of law, but it is also fundamentally a book of narrative. To ensure the survival of the Jewish people, we need more than law, more than data and facts – we need a story. Stories create identity, nurture community, and foster connection and commitment.
Today’s post-identity culture has abandoned grand narratives. The philosopher Jean-François Lyotard understood postmodernism to be the rejection of a meta-narrative, a universal narrative that defined the human story. But because of the deep human need to understand our place and see ourselves as part of something larger than the present moment, this type of thinking has led to a sense of bewilderment and disequilibrium for many in the West.
God understood what Yuval Noah Harari, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Carmine Gallo have discovered in the last two decades – that stories create identity, and identity creates community, and community creates responsibility. Without responsibility, there can be no society. When we tell a story, we become a part of it. We place ourselves in the picture, and we naturally become reluctant to leave the stage. No wonder the Rabbis chose the narrative of the Bikkurim as the central text for the Haggadah on Pesach. Pesach is all about living the story and creating memory. This narrative does exactly that.
Entering the land holds the risk of hubris – it would be easy to claim that these fruits belong only to me, the result of my labor, my strength, and my effort:
"ואמרת בלבבך כחי ועצם ידי עשה לי את החיל הזה" – "You might say to yourself, 'My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.'" (Devarim 8:17).
By declaring our story, we move from hubris to humility, from self-interest to communal responsibility. We place ourselves on the stage, but we are deeply aware of the other actors, of our role, and of the moment at which we enter the scene. We know that without the entire cast and the progression of scenes in the production, our moment on the stage will be meaningless.
Immediately following the Bikkurim ceremony, the Torah instructs us as follows:
"וְשָׂמַחְתָּ בְכָל-הַטּוֹב, אֲשֶׁר נָתַן-לְךָ ה' אֱלֹקיךָ--וּלְבֵיתֶךָ: אַתָּה, וְהַלֵּוִי, וְהַגֵּר, אֲשֶׁר בְּקִרְבֶּךָ."
"And you shall rejoice in all the good which the Lord your God has given to you and your household – you, the Levite, and the stranger in your midst." (Devarim 26:11)
It is on Sukkot, the most joyous of all the festivals, that we bring the Bikkurim, because joy is born when we extend beyond the self.
What the Bikkurim ceremony teaches us is something we, as a nation, are learning daily from our soldiers, their families, and the tens of thousands of individuals who have given of themselves unconditionally over the last 11 months:
- That joy is not about what we take but what we give.
- That being part of something bigger than yourself means sacrificing in the short term to enjoy the fruits of our labor in the long term.
- That learning our story and telling it helps put our lives into a larger frame, endowing it with meaning.
- That being God-conscious engenders a life of higher purpose and deeper commitment, which gives us the resilience to face even the toughest challenges.
These are lessons I have personally learnt from my daughter’s generation this past year. The determination, love, and commitment these youth have shown to their people and their country has astounded me.
In the article I wrote last year, I spoke about the privilege she has in serving her country after thousands of years in exile, and the feelings of a mother bringing her ‘firstborn fruit of labor’ and surrendering control of her to the army. I thought it was she who needed to be taught some important lessons from me. Just a year on, I can say with humility that today it is I who learns from her. It is this generation that has sacrificed more than anyone in this brutal war and through their quiet commitment and resilience have taught us, once again, how important it is to tell our story and recognize the role we play as individuals on the stage of human history.
Just as the farmer in this week’s parsha does not take his fruit – the labor of his hands – straight to his home to enjoy but instead takes it to the Temple, placing it before the High Priest, and tells the story of his people, and subsequently shares his produce with those who have less than him, so too, this younger generation has taught us the importance of transcending the parochialism of our own needs and narrative and sharing in a bigger and grander story.
Let’s pray that very soon the joy is greater than the grief, the pride is deeper than the loss and the story of triumph overrides the narrative of tragedy.
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