This piece by Rabbi Kenigsberg on the week's Torah reading was first publlished in Hanassi Highlights, 27 August 2026. Thanks to ChatGPT you can also read it in Hebrew, here.
Perhaps the answer lies in something unusual about the
timing of Bikkurim. Rashi
describes how a farmer would walk into his field, see the first fig beginning
to ripen, tie a reed around it and declare: "Harei zo Bikkurim"—"This
is Bikkurim." At that point,
the farmer has no idea what kind of harvest lies ahead. Perhaps it will be
abundant; perhaps disappointing. There may be too much rain or too little.
Unlike teruma and ma'aser, which are separated once the crop has
been harvested, Bikkurim begins while the outcome is still uncertain. And yet, already then, the farmer stops
to say thank you.
There is another unusual feature of Bikkurim. When the
farmer eventually reaches the Beit HaMikdash, he does not simply say,
"Thank You, Hashem, for the fruit." Instead, he tells a story: "Arami
oved avi..." He speaks about Yaakov Avinu, the descent to Egypt,
slavery, the Exodus and finally arrival in Eretz Yisrael.
Why the history lesson?
Because gratitude requires perspective. If the farmer looks only at this year's harvest, he may see
plenty of reasons to complain. Perhaps his neighbour's crop was larger. Perhaps
the weather could have been better. But when he steps back and considers the
extraordinary journey that brought him to this moment—a Jew standing on his own
land in Eretz Yisrael, holding its produce in his hands—the picture looks very
different.
This is a
particularly important message as we approach Rosh Hashana. Naturally, we enter the Yamim Noraim
thinking about what we hope will be different next year. We have requests,
concerns and things in our lives that remain unresolved. We pray that the
coming year will bring greater health, happiness, security and success. Bikkurim does not tell us to ignore any
of those concerns. It teaches us that we need not wait until everything is
resolved before giving thanks. The
farmer brings his first fruit before he knows how the harvest will end. And
when he brings it, he looks beyond the immediate moment and sees the larger
story of which he is a part.
Perhaps that is something worth taking with us into Rosh
Hashana. Alongside all that we hope and pray for in the year ahead, we can
pause to recognise how far we have already come, and how much we have already
been given. Gratitude does not
mean pretending that everything is perfect. It means recognising the blessings
we have even while the story is still being written.
Shabbat Shalom!
