Ki Tavo 5786

At the start of this week’s parsha, a farmer brings his first fruits to the Temple in gratitude. Yet instead of simply celebrating his success, he begins by remembering his ancestors’ homelessness, slavery, and suffering. The Torah teaches that what we have is not simply something we are owed.

Rambam explains that the first-fruits ceremony creates humility and protects us from thinking, “My own power created this wealth.” Modern psychology calls our tendency to take blessings for granted hedonic adaptation: we quickly become used to what we have. That is why gratitude must be practised. We need to remember what we once lacked precisely when we have the most.

The farmer is also told to rejoice with the Levite and the stranger. True gratitude looks beyond ourselves and makes us sensitive to those who have less. When the farmer places his basket before the altar, he transforms possession into a gift, success into grace, and abundance into gratitude.

The ideas are shaped and based on the work of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, and influenced by Maimonides, Nachmanides, Don Isaac Abarbanel, Samson Raphael Hirsch, David Zvi Hoffmann, Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, and Uri Amos Cherki.