Beruchim Habaim, rabotai (my masters). Welcome to another edition of our Thursday night class. We are studying the parasha, parashat Ki Tavo. Tonight, we came to discuss the first mitzvah (commandment) in the parasha. It’s a mitzvah that doesn’t apply today. But I must explain to you that even though a mitzvah doesn’t apply in actuality, every mitzvah is relevant. Otherwise, the Torah would not have written it. Every law is eternal. Certain laws you are able to fulfill through action, and other laws we are able to fulfill by carrying out the lesson behind the law. When you were young, your mother read you a story, and after she finished, she said, “The moral of the story is...” There’s always a moral of the story. There’s always a lesson to the story. Every mitzvah has a moral, an ethical teaching, a lesson.
The mitzvah we came to talk about tonight is the mitzvah of Bikurim (first fruits). What is this mitzvah? Let’s make it simple, then we’ll read the text. It’s not a simple mitzvah, because the Mishnah has a whole section called Mishnayot Bikurim, four chapters dedicated to teaching us how to fulfill this mitzvah. Basically, if a farmer is in Israel, he has a field, and the field produces fruit—specifically, fruit for which Eretz Israel is praised: pomegranate, fig, date, grapes, olives, and so on. He must take the first fruits that ripen. It’s called Bikurim, from the language of bikur. Bikur is the first, the choice ones. Reishit peri ha'adamah (the first of the fruit of the ground), from the choice, first ones of the produce. When it emerges, he must make a sign. The Mishnah says in Bikurim—we’ll read it—that he takes a string. The string is called gemi (a reed string). So he has a sign. He makes a knot, a bow, so he remembers: this is the first fruit.
When Shavuot time comes, he takes a basket. He puts the fruit in the basket. He brings it up to Yerushalayim, and he presents the basket and the fruit to the Kohen (priest). At that time, the pasuk (verse) says that he tells the Kohen, “I showed up. I’m here.” So the sheik comes along and says what he has to say. What does he have to say? He has to say, “Listen, I showed up with my fruit.” What is he telling the Kohen? “I’m not an ingrate. I’m not somebody who doesn’t show gratitude. I’m not a kafuy tov (one who denies the good). I came; I’m here for some reason.” As the sheik holds, that’s part of the ceremony. He has to make a declaration that he’s not a kafuy tov.
Then the Torah says he presents the Kohen with the basket, and at the time he presents the basket, he makes a recitation, in the language of the Torah, and he recites it. Now, before I tell you what he recites, I need to tell you what the Mishnah calls this recitation. I need to tell you what Maimonides calls this recitation. It’s called—what is confession? Confession. What’s confession? So we’re expecting that somewhere in the recitation of Bikurim, he’s going to ask forgiveness for some sort of sin.
Now listen. He tells the Kohen, “I want to tell you a story. I had a grandfather. His father-in-law was the—” and he tried to kill. It’s a good story. I’m not too sure what it has to do with Bikurim. Why does he choose that story to recite now? And not only does he have an option, but the Mishnah says he must recite it. That’s part of the mitzvah. If he’s doing Bikurim, it’s mandatory.
Then the Kohen tells him, “Do you have any other stories you want to tell us?” He says, “You have one more story, if you don’t mind, before the fruits get rotten.” He says, “We went down to Egypt. We lived in Egypt, and the Egyptians were terrible to us. They tortured us and embittered our lives with back-breaking labor.” It’s a good story, too, but I’m not too sure what this has to do with Bikurim. It’s a good story nonetheless.
The question is obvious: Where’s the vidui? It isn’t a vidui. And if it is, it’s the strangest vidui we’ve ever seen. Again, when we think of vidui, we think of the machzor (prayerbook) of Yom Kippurim, the vidui hagadol (great confession) of Rabbi Nissim Gaon. We think of the vidui of the mitzvot lo ta'aseh, negative commandments, or the mitzvot ta'aseh, positive commandments. We don’t think of a vidui of “Arami oved avi, vayered Mitzrayim (Egypt)” (My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt). That’s more history.
Now, some of you might be thinking, “Why is he talking about Bikurim? Doesn’t he know it’s Rosh Hashanah in a few weeks? Is this why we came over here now, to talk about Bikurim, to waste our time on a mitzvah that even the rabbi said doesn’t apply today? Nobody gives Bikurim. So what is he talking about over here? He should talk about timely topics.” So I’m just going to remind you: don’t underestimate the topic. Bikurim is called Reishit, beginning: “Reishit bikurei admatecha tavi beit Adonai Elohecha” (The first of the first fruits of your land you shall bring to the house of Adonai your God). Bring the first of your fruit. What’s the first word in our Torah? Bereshit. And the Midrash says that because of the mitzvah called Reishit, “Bara Elohim et hashamayim ve'et ha'aretz” (God created the heavens and the earth). God created the world in the merit of this mitzvah.
So therefore, it’s not a small thing. I guarantee you, if we were to ask you to list the 613 mitzvot in order of priority, Bikurim would not make it into the top 3. Nor, I think, would most people put it in the top 10, nor would it make the short list of the top 100. Bikurim would be maybe in the 5’s. But here the Torah is telling you, “Bishvil, bishvil”—because of this mitzvah—the whole world was created. So obviously this is a very, very vital mitzvah. It seems that the world is based on it. Creation hinges on it. So we came tonight to explain the secret that lies behind this mitzvah.
There was a great mekubal (Kabbalist). They called him Rav Shem Nicholas Borg, a mekubal. He read a Mishnah in Masechet Bikurim, the third chapter, and after he read the Mishnah, he asked a question about it. After he asked the question, he gave an answer. The answer is mind-boggling. He doesn’t explain his answer; he just says it as if it’s pashut, obvious, and everybody will figure it out.
The Mishnah says like this: “Keitzad mafrishin haBikurim” (How does one separate the first fruits)? Simple question: How do you do it? A person goes down to his field and sees a fig, a fig that has ripened. He takes the gemi string and ties it around it. This is Bikurim. It sounds like a very straightforward Mishnah. But the rabbi’s question is: Why did Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi choose te'enah, fig, as an example? Why did he choose a fig? Why didn’t he choose a date? Why didn’t he choose a pomegranate? Or why even commit yourself to a fruit? “Harei she-yored adam letoch sadehu, o matza peri she-bikrah.” Whatever the fruit is, why does the Mishnah use te'enah as its example of Bikurim? When it’s trying to explain the case, why does it use te'enah?
You know what he answers? He answers that this mitzvah of Bikurim has the ability to make one of the greatest rectifications, or tikkunim, of the greatest sin ever committed in history: the sin of Adam HaRishon eating from the tree. And according to the Gemara in Berachot, there’s a debate about what exactly that tree was. Everybody agrees it wasn’t an apple. But the consensus opinion was that the tree Adam HaRishon ate from was a fig tree. And they prove it from the fact that after he ate, he realized he wasn’t wearing any clothes. God covered him up, it says, with fig leaves. Where did the fig leaf come from? From the fig tree he had just eaten from. So it must have been a fig tree. That’s the consensus of the Gemara there.
So Rav Shem Nicholas Borg says, “Ah, you know why the Mishnah chose a fig? Because if somebody fulfills the mitzvah of Bikurim, he has the ability to fix the sin of Adam HaRishon, which was also done with a fig. And that’s why the Mishnah chose that example, because it wanted you to draw a line. They wanted you to connect the dots between the mitzvah in parashat Ki Tavo and the book of Bereshit, parashat Bereshit, page one of the Bible.”
So you know, this fixes that. That’s it. He doesn’t explain. He doesn’t tell us what the mechanics are. How does taking Bikurim fix the sin of Adam HaRishon? So in order to understand this, we must understand what Bikurim represents. Again, we don’t do this mitzvah, so we have to go right to the moral of the story. What’s the moral of the story of Bikurim? The moral is that one of the foundations of Judaism is that a person has to be makir tov, recognize the good. You have to be someone who gives gratitude, someone who is able to recognize and appreciate the ability to reciprocate when somebody does you a kindness. That’s called hakarat tov, gratitude: to be thankful, to be gracious. This is fundamental in Judaism.
Jews are called Yehudim. The root word of Yehudi is the word todah, thank you. That’s a very basic principle at the essence of a Jewish soul. The first words a Jew says when he wakes up in the morning are “Modeh ani.” Nothing happened yet, and he’s already saying thank you. And if, God forbid, a person is an ingrate, they call him a kafuy tov. That means his insides are decrepit. It doesn’t matter if he eats chalav Yisrael (Jewish-supervised milk) and keeps kemach yashan (old grain flour), and has all the other—you know, all the other whatever—the stringencies that are in vogue, the chumrat du jour. He still isn’t called religious. The Sefer HaChinuch says that somebody who is an ingrate is a naval, a low life.
Of course, hakarat tov is to HaKadosh Baruch Hu for all that He gives us every second. We say on Shabbat and in the tefillot (prayers) that if we needed to thank HaKadosh Baruch Hu and praise Him, we wouldn’t be able to praise Him for one millionth of a millionth. We wouldn’t be able to praise Him even for the smallest chasadim, kindnesses, that He does for us. I don’t even know how to calculate that anymore. It’s such a calculation. We wouldn’t be able to thank Him for an infinitesimal amount of what He does for us.
The principle of Bikurim is that after the farmer plants a tree, works the field, fertilizes it, plows the ground, tends to it, reaps it, and picks it, the nature of a farmer is to say, “Look what I did. Look at my accomplishment.” Just like a businessman says, “Look at the business I have over here. Look what I built. Look at this empire.” Just like most people, their success gets to their head, and they start to give themselves the credit.
The law of Bikurim reminds you that even though this fruit is very dear to you, the fruit that grows on a tree is much dearer than the fruit that you buy in the fruit store. There, the pleasure starts when you eat it. With the fruit that you planted, the pleasure starts the moment you put the shovel in the ground. You’re dreaming about the first fruits. The nature of a person, when he sees those first grapes come out, is to want to get up in the morning, grab them off the tree, and eat them. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, “Control your nature. Take those fruits, put them in a basket, and bring them to the Beit HaMikdash.” That’s the Torah’s way of saying thank you. That’s hakarat tov.
So you’re right. The principle of Bikurim doesn’t apply today. We don’t have Bikurim. But the lesson behind Bikurim is the foundation of the Torah, and that’s why the Torah says Bereshit. This is the reason why I created the world.
And Rabbeinu Ari writes: Why did Hashem create the world? You never thought about it. Why does He have to create the world? Does He need the world for something? He doesn’t need anything. So he says He created the world because HaKadosh Baruch Hu is “Kel rachum vechanun” (a merciful and gracious God). God is a merciful God. And a merciful God who’s a ba'al chesed (master of kindness) wants to give. Wants to give. A giving nature. The problem is, you need people to give to. So He created people in order that He can give to them. And then he writes that all He wants from us is to recognize that He’s giving it to us, that we’re receiving it from HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and that we should thank Him for it. That’s the formula for why God created the world.
So when the pasuk says He created the world for that principle—to do chesed, kindness—and when we receive the chesed, we recognize that it came from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. We don’t say it’s mine and I did it. We don’t plagiarize the world that doesn’t belong to us, or take credit for something that’s beyond our control. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, “Whatever you have in life, whether it’s your health, your wealth, your family, whatever it may be, give it back, return it to HaKadosh Baruch Hu.”
So the principle of Bikurim teaches that. Now, there was a rabbi who lived about 500 years ago. He’s called Al-Sheikh, Rabbi Moshe Al-Sheikh. He lived in Sfat. He used to give a shiur (lesson) on the parashat hashavua (weekly Torah portion). All the rabbis of Sfat would go to the shiur, including Rabbeinu Ari. He has a beautiful piece on Bikurim. I’m going to read it to you. I have a picture of the piece. I brought it on the computer.
He’s bothered because the Mishnah in Bikurim says—and they didn’t tell this to you yet—that this mitzvah is done with great fanfare and great pageantry. What happens? The pilgrims would bring the Bikurim after Shavuot. That’s when the fruits usually ripen, between Shavuot and Sukkot. So there’s a certain season called the Bikurim season. Pilgrims would come to Jerusalem at certain times of the year. On the day they came, they would fill the streets of Jerusalem with flowers and ornaments and banners and streamers. They would hire bands, people with flutes and all sorts of instruments, lining the streets and playing music. And they would have what we would basically call a parade. The pilgrims would walk with their baskets, and the store owners would come out of their shops, close their stores, clap, and read and say things to them. The rabbis would come out of the yeshivas, and the judges would come out of Beit Din (court). Amazing thing. And all of this was to pay honor to the pilgrims bringing the Bikurim. It’s the Bikurim Day Parade.
You heard of the parades that you have in Manhattan, havdil (by way of distinction)? If a baseball team wins the World Series, everybody goes to Manhattan and goes berserk for a couple of hours. Somebody wins the Super Bowl in football or the Stanley Cup in hockey, so they all converge on a certain city and have a parade. This is hevel havalim (vanity of vanities), that’s what Kohelet meant. But this is a different type of parade. This is the Bikurim Parade.
So Al-Sheikh comes along and wants to understand: What’s the big hoopla? Listen, I understand a Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) dedication. A Sefer Torah dedication, I understand. Sefer Torah, the holiest book. So you block off the streets, you have the flares, you have flags, you have music, you’re dancing in the street, you have the chuppah (canopy). Sefer Torah dedication. But here, what are you giving kavod, honor, to? The guy with the basket. He has a few measly figs. Since when do you give kavod to figs? Since when do we close our businesses to give kavod to a cluster of grapes? The guy throws a few pomegranates in the basket. What is it? What is it? The guy is carrying some fruit in a basket.
That’s not my question. That’s the Al-Sheikh’s question. That’s what he says. The guy has to leave his city and walk by foot with a cluster of grapes, a small amount, not a lot. He puts it in the basket, puts it on his shoulder, and everybody comes to greet him with flutes, a choir, and songs. Every city is like the Olympics, havdil. In every city they pass through, all the townsmen come out to greet the people bringing the Bikurim: the judges, the rabbis. When they get to the gates of Jerusalem, all of a sudden the choir rises up and they say, “Welcome to Jerusalem!” And he says it in a language: “What’s all this noise? How much is the fig worth?” He says, “Less than a—” It’s about a nickel. So he says, “On an item that is valued at two and a half cents...”
Ach, hinei yadu'a (it is known). Now we’re coming to hear hashkafah, perspective—the real hashkafah of the Torah. There’s a key, there’s a very important point. This is fundamental: “Hinei yadu'a ki olam chesed yibaneh” (It is known that the world is built on kindness). The world was created to do chesed. “Omnam zeh chasdo yitbarach chafetz leheitiv” (His blessed kindness desires benefit). Like the Arizal said, God wants to do good to His creatures. He doesn’t want us to think that the world He created belongs to us. He just wants to give us all day long. And He has one thing: just say thank you. Just say—just give God the credit. Just say God is Adon HaKol, Master of all. God is constantly doing good to us. That’s it. Give Him praise every time you pick up something to eat. You create it. That’s all. The guys in Israel—he has a palatial estate. He has acreage in his backyard, a farm. He’s sitting under the grapevine. He’s sitting under his fig tree. He has a beautiful home. What ends up happening? It gets to his head, and he ends up saying, “Look at this setup. Look at this setup. I built a house. I have the field in the back. I’m producing grapes.”
That’s why God commanded us: Take the first fruits, put them in the basket, and bring them to God, to the Beit HaMikdash. And what are you supposed to say at the Beit HaMikdash? “It’s not mine. It’s all Yours.” And to teach the person, to instruct them: “ki mimenu yitbarach hakol” (for from Him all is blessed). And he says, “ve'az Hu yitbarach noten et hakol be'emunah bematanah” (and then He, blessed be He, gives everything in faith as a gift), al yedehi yoto bilti kafuy tova. That’s the whole inyan, matter, of Bikurim: that you shouldn’t be an ingrate. And guess what? For that, you make a parade, because we make a parade for things that are important, not for winning a sporting event, not for a bunch of Irishmen to take some bagpipes, put on dresses, and play music on 50th Avenue for no reason. Our parades are ethical parades.
So the Torah says, to impress upon Am Yisrael: Have you ever heard of the Thanksgiving Day Parade? This is it. This is the Thanksgiving Day Parade. Not Macy’s. This is the original. Not with the floats and all the other things they do over there, with elephants walking in the street. This over here is the first Thanksgiving Day Parade. But with the real Thanksgiving, not with the turkeys. This is to teach Am Yisrael: You see these people? These people understand that the creation belongs to God, and they came from far away. They came from the north of Israel in order to bring their fruits to the Beit HaMikdash. Everybody closes their store. Everybody gives them kavod. Bring the music. What song should we sing? All the songs of gratitude, all the songs of hakarat hatov. That’s what Al-Sheikh says. This is worthy of making a noise. We’re not giving kavod to the figs. We’re giving kavod to the ones who brought the figs. We’re not giving kavod to the fruit. Fruit don’t deserve such a party. But those people who have the brains to know that you have to be makir tov, and who come along and say, “That’s not us. It’s all the Kadosh Baruch Hu”—that’s a lesson. And when the child asks his father, “Daddy, what is this parade all about?” “This is the hakarat tov parade.” Wow, that puts an indelible imprint on the child’s brain. No religion has a hakarat tov parade like Amir is saying. Not even close, not even remotely close.
Oh, so now he gets to the Beit HaMikdash. Now we can begin. That’s the underpinning. Now we begin the story. He gets there to the Beit HaMikdash. He’s with his family. So he says, “I’m going to tell a story.” We have to tell a story now. Coincidence? What story do you want to tell? “Yeah, well, since this is the top parade, I want to tell a story of the other extreme. You don’t appreciate a midah, trait, a good trait, unless you can contrast it, where you see the bad side of it. The flip side. You have to see how ugly the flip side is to appreciate the positive side.”
So the fellow says, “I’ve got to look for the greatest ingrate in history, the guy who’s the biggest kafuy tov ever.” So he opens up the Guinness Book of World Records and looks: Who’s the biggest ingrate in history? They tell him, “Lavan HaArami.” He says, “Good. I’m telling the story of Lavan HaArami.”
Lavan was a poor man. Remember what I’m telling you: He was poor. How do I know he was poor? Where did Yaakov Avinu meet his wife Rachel? At the well. What was she doing at the well? She was fetching water. What kind of father lets his daughter do a man’s job? The explanation is that he didn’t have any money. When you don’t have any money, you have to send your daughters to do a job that somebody should have been hired to do. He was poor.
Yaakov Avinu ends up coming to Lavan’s house, marries his daughters, takes care of her, and brings Lavan the most beautiful grandchildren you could ever get in the history of the world: the Shvatim (tribes). Lavan himself tells Yaakov, at a certain point, he admits it. He says, “Listen, I was down and out. I was destitute. I was a poor man. But ever since you came to my house, you brought me beracha, blessing. You’re a good luck charm. All my blessing is beracha.”
So you’d expect that now, when Yaakov tells his father, “I’ve been here for 20 years. I want to go home now,” he’d say, “Listen, you have a right to go home. I want to present you with a gold watch. I want to present you with a pension plan. I want to present you with a who-knows-what, a set of books, a Shas (Talmud). 20 years, and he’s admitting all my blessing is from you. Thank you. A bouquet of flowers, something. A seudah (meal), barbecue, something.”
What happens? Not only doesn’t he give him a watch, not only doesn’t he give him a thank-you card: “Arami oved avi.” When Yaakov left, Lavan chased him with the intention to kill him, his wife, and his grandchildren. That’s the—that’s the Arif Adarchi. That’s the goodbye he gets. Could you get a worse low life than Lavan HaArami?
So we tell that story because it’s appropriate in the scheme of the Bikurim. This is an appropriate story, so you can see, wow, look what a person who doesn’t makir tov can get to.
So the Kohen says, “Do you have any other stories you want to tell?” He says, “I have one more story, if you don’t mind.” We look for the second-biggest ingrate in the history of the world, and who’s that? Paro, of course. The pasuk says there was a new king who came into Egypt. He doesn’t know Yosef. That’s impossible. It is impossible that the king—but all the government officials did not hear of Yosef. That’s like saying there’s a congressman or a United States senator who never heard of George Washington. That’s impossible.
Yosef is an icon. Yosef saved Egypt from economic meltdown. Everybody knew who Yosef was. I have no doubt there must have been a statue of Yosef in Cairo, in Tahrir Square. There must have been streets named after him: Rechov Tzafnat Paneach, Rechov Yosef HaTzadik. It had to be in the history books. They taught about Yosef. Who doesn’t know Yosef? Everybody knows Yosef. Yes, the king: “But, oh, Yosef?” She knew about Yosef. Impossible!
So the explanation was: He knew Yosef. The Chachamim said he made himself as if he didn’t know Yosef. He made himself so. Instead of showing gratitude for what Yosef did for the country—meaning Paro wouldn’t have been alive if it wasn’t for Yosef. He wouldn’t have been able to be king of Egypt if it wasn’t for Yosef. There would be no Egypt. So what does he do to show gratitude? He takes Yosef’s grandchildren and slaughters them, takes a bloodbath with their blood, and then takes the Jewish children, Yosef’s grandchildren, and uses them as human bricks in the buildings. And then he tells them—another ingrate.
So with this story, the pilgrim says, “I came here today because I’m not—I came here today because I’m not—and you said that I’m not good because I learned the lesson of history: When a person is not gracious, look at the level he can sink to. He can come along and have such a low nature that he can actually damage and want to hurt the one he owes his life to.” So therefore, this is a very appropriate statement.
Oh, there’s a famous Al-Sheikh. I can read it to you, but I thought the outside. You remember the story of Yosef and Eshet Potiphar, the wife of Potiphar? Where is that story? That’s a great story, somewhere over here in Bereshit. No matter where it is, it’s an amazing story. He goes into the house, and the wife of Potiphar—the wife of Potiphar—is seducing him every single day. So finally the pasuk says she grabs him and says, “You have to be with me.” So listen to what he answers. He says, “How can I do this great injustice?”
Al-Sheikh says: What was Yosef’s reason, which he explained to Eshet Potiphar, for why he couldn’t do it? You know what I would have said? “Because we’re very religious. I’m shomer negiah, shomer negiah. I don’t touch girl. Shomer negiah, shomer negiah, shomer negiah. Did you go to the mikveh (ritual bath)? We’re very religious. It’s Shovavim now. We don’t do these averot (transgressions). Shovavim—we can make up all sorts of stories about why we don’t want to go with the goya (non-Jewish woman). Who knows what the Zohar says, or the averot.” But Al-Sheikh says that’s not what Yosef says. Yosef HaTzadik tells Eshet Potiphar, “How could I do this to my boss’s wife? The guy gave me a job. The guy employed me. I was down and out. He hired me. The guy signs my paycheck. You’re asking me to be an ingrate.” Which means, according to Al-Sheikh, that’s the highest claim, more than all the other religious claims we know of. “How can I do such a thing?”
And they asked Al-Sheikh, “How do you know it? How do you know that was his claim?” He says, “Don’t rely on me. It says it in the pasuk.” What does it say in the pasuk? “Ein gadol babayit.” There’s nobody who has a bigger position in this house. “Your husband has not withheld anything from me.” He’s given me the keys to all the vaults. He’s given me all the combinations. The only thing he withheld from me is “ki im otach ba'asher at ishto.” The only thing that’s off limits to me in this house, as he told me, is the wife. Everything else I’m in control of. “Ve'eich e'eseh ha-ra'ah ha-gedolah hazot.” How can I do this travesty? After all Potiphar did for me, now I’m going to do this to his wife? But then listen to what he says: “Ve'chatati le'Elohim.” Then he mentions, and by the way, it’s also a sin against God. He throws that in at the end.
Al-Sheikh says Yosef says, “What do you think happens? You remember when Paro says, ‘I don’t know who Yosef is’? It starts with human beings, but it never ends with human beings. You know where it ends? ‘I don’t know who God is.’” You remember when Moshe Rabbeinu went into Paro and said, “God, Yud-Keh-Vav-Keh, sent me”? What does Paro say? That’s already—he upped the ante. It’s one thing to say, “I don’t recognize Yosef,” but to be so brazen as to say—that’s blasphemy. That’s a different level. And the Gemara says that’s how it works. It doesn’t start with—it starts with not showing gratitude to human beings who are in front of you. It starts with not saying thank you to your spouse. It’s not saying thank you to your boss. It’s not saying thank you to somebody who does you a kindness. That’s where it begins. And then, if it’s unchecked, it spirals, and all of a sudden you find yourself saying, “Who’s God? What does God do for me?” And that’s what Yosef says to Eshet Potiphar: “It’s going to start with you. If I go and make this aveirah, I become an ingrate. But that’s a sin between me and your husband. But you know what’s going to end up happening eventually? Elohim.” Eventually that becomes a sin between me and God.
Oh. So according to this, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, “The first commandment: I am God who took you out of Egypt.” The mefarshim (commentators) explain that Hashem says that alone is the reason why you have to keep My mitzvot. You owe Me. If nothing else I did for you, I took you out of Egypt. If I hadn’t taken you out of Egypt, you would have been slaves forever. And therefore HaKadosh Baruch Hu says your responsibility to Me is to reciprocate. I did the first thing: I took you out of Egypt.
And therefore, all this is because you owe Me. Now that you have the foundation of Bikurim, it’s all the passage says: “Gedolim ma'asei Adonai.” This is the mantra of every Jew: He has to look at the creation and always say, “Gedolim ma'asei Adonai.” Everything is ma'aseh Hashem (the work of God). It’s not me. It’s not my brains. It’s not my prowess. It’s not anything. “Gedolim ma'asei Hashem. Sh'tabashem ola ad.” Everything belongs to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. “LaShem ha'aretz umelo'ah.” And when a person plants his fruit, even though he did a lot of work, who brought the rain? Who brought the sun? Guess what? Who gave you the seeds to plant? And where did you get the dirt from? It’s all from Hashem.
And therefore, I saw it brought down by the darshanim (preachers). Friedman brings it down in his ma'amar (discourse). He said, why does the Mishnah call the string they wrap around the fruit gemi? He says gemi is rashei teivot, initial letters: “Gedolim ma'asei Adonai.” He wraps the gemi around the fruit. That’s his way of saying, “Eventually I’m going to come back. I’m coming back to these fruits, and I’m going to put them in a basket, and I’m going to go to the Thanksgiving Day Parade in Jerusalem, and I’m going to give them to the Kohen, and I’m going to tell stories about the ingrates, and I’m going to tell the Kohen, ‘I’m not like those guys. Here I showed up.’”
But we didn’t answer the question of what this has to do with Adam HaRishon. That’s the problem. Well, there’s no time to answer it, but we’ll stop over here. I’m just joking. I won’t answer it. For this, you need to... I need to explain this properly.
A person goes to a doctor. A good doctor could tell you what you have. A great doctor could tell you why you have it. A good doctor can give you a prognosis. You have a cold. Another doctor says, “You have a cold. I’ll tell you why you have a cold, because you did A, B, C.” Now I always want to know the root, because once I know the root, I can stop it from happening again. And it’s always like that. Whenever you analyze something, you always have to look for the root of the problem. When you get to the root of it, then you know the essence; then you know how to fix it.
A person working in his field sees some dead grass on top of the ground, so he cuts the dead grass. But he didn’t get to the root. The weed is underneath the ground. He has to pull the weed out. I’m telling you this because if I asked you a question—Adam HaRishon ate from the tree. That’s a fact. According to what we said in the Gemara, it was a fig tree. That’s the sin. You don’t have to be the Gaon from Vilna to figure that out. The sin was that he ate from the tree. You know where you need to be the Gaon? What’s the root of the sin? What caused it? Was he hungry? Hungry? There were a lot of other trees. What’s the root of it? What’s the essence that brought him to it? The Torah doesn’t really say. It says he saw the tree, Hava ate, he ate. So there’s an amazing interpretation here.
If anybody ever went to a psychologist—and the person has issues—if he goes to a psychologist, obviously, and sits down, the psychologist says, “Tell me a little about yourself,” and the psychiatrist has a yellow piece of paper in front of them and a pen. I saw this with my own eyes. The kid’s sitting there. “Yeah, I live in the house. I have two brothers and one sister.” And she’s sitting there, just making some notes. “And what else do you do? You go to school?” “Yeah, I go to school, and there are 10 kids in my class, and I go on the bus on the way home.” “And then what do you do when you go home?” “When I go home, I usually have milk and cookies.” He starts writing. What is he writing? He’s talking. “I have juice.” The psychologist hears things that we don’t hear. The psychologist is trained so that when people talk, they’re able to figure out from their talking what’s behind their words, what it means, and what their problems are. So you don’t have to ask them what the problem is. You just let people talk, and somehow all the issues are going to come out. A person cannot hide who he is. It’s going to come out in his words. So you let the kid talk, and eventually the psychologist knows everything, even though he can’t say anything.
I’m giving you that as a mashal, parable. God comes to Adam and Elishon. God tells Adam and Elishon, “Adam, what happened? Why did you eat from the tree?” A pointed question. What does Adam HaRishon say? “Ha'isha asher natata imadi.” It’s my wife’s fault. Her fault. He blames his wife. What does Rashi say on that pasuk after he blames his wife? Adam at that point was an ingrate. Hashem says, “I gave you the wife, ezer kenegdo. I gave her so you wouldn’t be alone. I did it to help you. It’s not good for man to be alone. I gave you beracha, and then you come along and tell Me, when I ask you why you ate from the tree, instead of saying, ‘I’m guilty,’ you come along and say, ‘Look what You gave me over here.’”
Now guess what? But that’s not the sin of Adam HaRishon. The fact that he’s a kafuy tov, that’s got to do with him and Hava. That’s a shalom bayit (peace in the home) issue. I want to know why he ate from the tree. But the psychologist knows that when he came along and said it was Hava’s fault, that’s the root of the problem: There was a problem of kefiyut tovah, ingratitude. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, “What do you think? You have a switch? If the switch of hakarat hatov is off, it’s off. Hashem says, ‘I told you, you can eat from all the fruit. I put you in Gan Eden. I gave you paradise. You basically own the whole world. Everything is at your disposal. The malachim (angels) are serving you. All I told you is one thing: Don’t eat from the tree.’”
If a parent goes and buys his child a gift, the gift costs a million dollars. There’s only one of them in the world. The mother traveled seven seas to find it, brings it home, and gives it to the child. Birthday present. The child obviously has hakarat tov. The mother says, “I’m just asking you one thing: Don’t play it during dinner. During dinner time, don’t bring it to the table.” The first night, dinner is served. The kid comes down and brings it to the table. What’s the root of the problem? You’re an ingrate. I traveled the seven seas. I spent the million dollars. I asked you for one thing, and you couldn’t do it. You’re an ingrate. “Adam, I told you, Gan Eden. I told you everything is yours. I told you one thing. The payment for all this is just don’t eat from there.” It’s a dog. And how do we know it was a problem of kefiyut tovah? Because when I asked you, “Why did you eat?” You know what you said? “Wife.” Yeah, there you go again. I’ve been—same aveirah, same sin, repeat, take two.
Now we start to understand a little better. Now some of you ask a question: “I don’t understand it. Adam shouldn’t eat from the tree, and we get punished. What do you want from us?” I have no problem. He ate. You should get punished. I’m not a problem for me. What do we have to do with his sin? It’s a good question. You know what the Arizal says? What you have to do with the sin is because you were there. All the neshamot (souls) of Am Yisrael were in Adam HaRishon. So if you’re such a big shot, why didn’t you tell Adam HaRishon not to eat? You were there. Adam HaRishon asked you, “Should we eat?” And you know what you said? “Yeah, let’s eat. Bon Appetit.” We didn’t stop him. We were all there, and we all ate. But they took a vote. Who wants to eat? We all raised our hands. “We’re in, we’re in, we eat.” 600,000 neshamot, so we’re guilty.
So you know what Rav Shem says? We’re all guilty of being kafuy tov on the day we ate from the tree. And what was the tree? The fig tree. So he says, you know what the tikkun of chet Adam HaRishon (Adam HaRishon’s sin) is? We need to make a tikkun to show God that we’re not ungrateful. And you know what the tikkun of chet Adam HaRishon is? The mitzvah of Bikurim. We go to the same fig tree, and we go and say, “Oh, the first time around we messed up, and now we bring the figs to the Kohen.” And you know what that recitation is called? It’s called the vidui. It’s a confession. What are we confessing? We’re confessing the sin of Adam and Eshaan. We’re coming along and saying, “We’re coming to rectify, rectify an old avon, sin.” That’s vidui Bikurim.
And that’s why, by the way, Al-Sheikh says about the pasuk, “I came to tell you, Mr. Kohen, that I’m not a kafuy tov.” Why does he say it in the negative? Why doesn’t he say it in the positive, “I came here to say that I’m a makir tov”? What does he say in the negative? Because he’s coming to rectify a sin. He says, “I’m already a kafuy tov from when I ate from the tree. I already have a label. Now I’m coming along to say I’m not a kafuy tov. I came to fix it.”
What does this have to do with Rosh Hashanah? If you make the proper analysis, when we start making viduyim, everybody takes the siddur (prayerbook) out: “Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu” (We have been guilty, we have betrayed, we have robbed). They go through the whole alef-bet (Hebrew alphabet) like a laundry list, like a supermarket order, and they’re just reading, “Chatati, aviti, pashati” (I have sinned, I have acted perversely, I have rebelled). They’re excited every time a new letter comes along, a new sin, and they just bang away the sins. The problem is, you have to go to the root of the problem. Why chatati? Why aviti? Why pashati? What’s the root? Just to bang and bang and bang and bang? You’ve got to get to the root of the problem.
What’s the shortest of all sins? We have the hakarat hatov. Hashem gives us and gives us and gives us and gives us, so He gives us some rules: Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t do that. And what happens? We just keep on taking, and as we’re taking, we’re rebelling. Where’s the hakarat hatov? Simple derech eretz, basic decency, simple derech eretz. God gives us everything in life at all moments, from the time we wake up until the time we retire, and even when we’re sleeping. So He gives us some rules, and He says the rules are to your benefit. That means even the rules He gives us benefit us, and we get rewards for keeping the rules, and we still don’t keep the rules. The fault of every aveirah is hakarat hatov, or it’s kefiyut tovah.
And that’s why the tzaddikim (righteous people) write: We always read this parasha right before Rosh Hashanah because we want you to learn the lesson of Bikurim, because that’s the root of all sins. The vidui we make in the machzor of Yom Kippur is vidui Bikurim. It’s the same vidui. You know, it’s easy to point to Lavan and Paro. You have to point to yourselves: Am I doing the same thing? Am I just taking chasadim gedolim, great kindnesses, from HaKadosh Baruch Hu, but I don’t return and I don’t give back? That’s the main root of sin, and that’s the tikkun of Adam HaRishon. And that’s why the Mishnah says that when you go down to your field and pick a fig, it’s because it wanted to remind you of the fig of Adam HaRishon. Yes, it applies to pomegranates, it applies to dates, but it chose the fig so you’d connect the dots to parashat Bereshit. And this is the mussar, ethical lesson, that we say here tonight.
So I think it’s very appropriate. I pray that be'ezrat Hashem, with God’s help, we’ll be able to make the proper viduyim. The word modeh means to confess, and the word modeh means to show gratitude. It’s the same word: “umodeh ve'ozhev yerucham” (one who confesses and forsakes will find mercy), “Modeh ani lefanecha” (I give thanks before You). How could it be? The explanation is that the root of confession, the root of the avonot, is modeh, is because we’re not as gracious as we should be.
David HaMelech says it’s good to confess your sins to God, and it’s good to show gratitude to God. And the way we show gratitude to God is that everything is to the Creator, everything is “Baruch Hashem, todah laKel.” What am I—from the breath that we, from the air that we breathe, to the food that we eat, to the money that we make, to the health that we enjoy, all these things. And that’s why God created the world. “I created the world for this concept, to learn the lesson of, learn the lesson of.” That’s why I created the world. That’s the Thanksgiving Day Parade.
And the Zohar HaChadash says that’s what Rosh Hashanah is. That’s why the Zohar says if you take the word Bereshit, Bereshit is the letters alef beTishrei, the first day of Tishrei. That’s the whole mussar. If you can figure out Reishit, then you’ve already solved alef beTishrei. You’ve figured out all of Rosh Hashanah. Yehi ratzon, we should be zocheh to internalize these great messages, and then it will be fulfilled for us, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu will inscribe us in all the great books.