Dvar Torah on Parshat Ki Tavo

This week's parsha, Ki Tavo (When you enter into the Land), is one of the last parshas of Deuteronomy, in which Moshe, during the final days of his life, gives the Israelites a last batch of Mitzvot, advice, exhortation, and blessing, before leaving them for good. In Ki Tavo, as in other portions in this group, Moshe makes reference to a specific day, who's identity and character is unclear. Towards the very end of the parsha, we read this: "And Moshe called to all of the children of Israel and said to them: You all have seen all that God did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and all his servants and all his land. The great miracles which your eyes beheld, those signs and great wonders. And God did not give you a heart to understand and eyes to see and ears to hear; until today". What is meant by "until today"? What day, exactly, is Moshe referring to, and what happened on it? Here we are, approaching the end of the Torah, the end Moshe's life and the forty year trek through the desert; what specific day is this on which the Jewish people finally get "a heart to understand and eyes to see and ears to hear"?

The Sforno, in a really pessimistic pshat (reading), suggests that we read the verse like this: after all you saw in Egypt you still, even today, do not get it! "Until today", according to Sforno, should be read as "even today", "including today"; even now, after all this, you still don't get it. According to the Sforno, Moshe goes on to demand that now, after the experience of the desert, on the eve of entering the land of Israel, they better wise up, and understand what God wants of them and do it!

Rashi disagrees, and says that Moshe means that they have finally figured it out, today, at this late date. In spite of the fact that the events of the Exodus failed to instruct them, and the events in the desert did not do the trick either, now, today, as Moshe says farewell to the Jews and prepares to die, they finally do get it. Rashi then supplies the specific event which Moshe is referring to, which explains what happened on "this day", what it was that finally made the difference for the Israelites. According to Rashi, "today" refers to an event mentioned at the beginning of our portion. He explains:"I heard [Rashi does not reveal to us where he heard this] that that day was the day on which Moshe gave a copy of the Torah [which, after the forty years in the desert, was now finally complete, and ready to be handed over to the Jewish people], to the Cohanim [priests], from the tribe of Levi, as it says [a few chapters later in Deuteronomy, in next week's parsha] 'and he gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi.' All of Israel then came before Moshe and said to him: 'Moshe, our master, we also stood at Mount Sinai and received the Torah, and it was given to us, why do you put the members of your tribe in charge of it? They will say to us tomorrow: 'it was not given to you, it was given to us''. And Moshe was pleased by this. And this is what he was referring to when he said (at the beginning of our parsha) 'Today you have become a nation'. On this day I understood that you cleave to and desire God."

As you can see, according to Rashi, there is, unlike in the Sforno's understanding, a specific event which did happen on this day, which Moshe refers to a number of times, at the beginning and end of our parsha, which was an important development in the maturation process of the people. Let's look carefully at that event. Moshe, having finished writing the Torah, prepares to leave it, before he dies, in the hands of the people. He gives a copy (the copy?) to the Levites, the tribe which has emerged as the leaders of the nation - Priests, Levites, Moshe, Aaron, and Miriam all come from this tribe. Precisely how democratically or not he intended the Levites to behave with the Torah we do not know, but it is clear that he intended to give it to them, and them alone. The people reject this arrangement. They remind Moshe that the giving of the Torah took place democratically (we all received it at Mt. Sinai) and that giving it physically to only the Levites invites a non-democratic situation, in which the Levites will claim it for themselves, thereby setting up a hierarchy at the top of which they will sit. This, then, is the trigger, the proof that Moshe was looking for that the Jewish people have finally become God's people.

Remarkably, this event is not so obviously theological or spiritual, as it is political. Now that the Jewish people have rejected the arrangement implied by the giving of the Torah only to the Levites, which would have made them passive participants in their relationship with God and His Torah, Moshe sees that they have matured as a nation, and as a faith community. A real relationship with God is an active, participatory relationship. A passive acceptance of what our religious leaders tell us produces a mediated, attenuated, dependant relationship with God and His word, which is not what Judaism sees as a religious value. The precise act which makes us the Jewish nation, God's nation, is the act of taking personal responsibility for one's behavior and one's relationship with the Jewish tradition; the act of wresting the Torah away from the religious establishment and making it our own.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Shimon Felix