Parashat Ki Tavo

Torah Portions

Ki Tavo (“When You Come”) opens by describing the ceremony of the first fruit offering (bikkurim) and the declaration made upon the completion of tithing. It concludes with a detailed description of blessings that follow obedience to God's laws and curses that come with their desecration.

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A Basket of First Fruits

TANAKH

Parashat Ki Tavo begins with instructions for the first fruit offering, including a declaration made when handing the offering to a priest in the Temple. The text of this declaration recalls the events in Egypt and has become a part of the traditional Passover seder liturgy.

The priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down in front of the altar of your God יהוה. You shall then recite as follows before your God יהוה: “My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation.

Deuteronomy 26:4-5

Blessings

TANAKH

The bulk of Parashat Ki Tavo comprises a covenant between God and the people of Israel in the land of Moab. The covenant includes a section of blessings promised if the people follow God's commandments.

All these blessings shall come upon you and take effect, if you will but heed the word of your God יהוה: Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be your issue from the womb, your produce from the soil, and the offspring of your cattle, the calving of your herd and the lambing of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be in your comings and blessed shall you be in your goings.

Deuteronomy 28:2-6

Curses

TANAKH

Besides the promise of blessings, the covenant in Moab includes, at greater length, a litany of threatened curses. The latter portion details the personal, familial, ecological, and societal misfortunes that will befall the people of Israel if they do not follow God’s commandments.

יהוה will afflict you at the knees and thighs with a severe inflammation, from which you shall never recover—from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. יהוה will drive you, and the king you have set over you, to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors, where you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone. You shall be a consternation, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples to which יהוה will drive you.

Deuteronomy 28:35-37

Attention: A Unique Word

MIDRASH

When Moses, the priests, and the Levites introduce the covenantal relationship with God, they address the people of Israel with a verb, ‘hasket,’ which doesn’t appear anywhere else in Tanakh. A passage in Midrash Tanchuma offers possible explanations for the meaning of the word and elaborates on their significances.

(Deut. 27:9:) “Then Moses and the Levitical priests spoke to all Israel, saying, ‘Pay attention and listen.’” What is the meaning of pay attention (hasket) and listen? Be silent (has) and then break down (katet). Moses said to Israel, “Form [yourselves into] individual classes (kitot), and incline your heart to hear the words of Torah.” Another interpretation: He said to them, “Pound (katetu) your hearts and souls to hear the words of Torah.” [(Deut. 26:16:) “With all your heart.”] R…

Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tavo 2:1

Moses’s Own Words

COMMENTARY

The lists of blessings and curses that appear in Parashat Ki Tavo are similar but not identical to passages in Parashat Bechukotai in the book of Leviticus. Rashi, the renowned 11th-century northern French rabbi and commentator, posits a fundamental difference between the two texts.

והיו שמיך אשר על ראשך נחשת AND THY HEAVEN WHICH IS OVER THY HEAD SHALL BE COPPER — These curses (i.e. all the curses contained in this chapter) Moses expressed them as though they came from his own mouth (Megillah 31b) whilst those he spoke on Mount Sinai (Leviticus 26), he expressed them as though from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, as indeed is implied by them (by the expressions used), for so it states there: “And if ye will not hearken unto Me”; “And if ye walk contrary to Me”, whilst here it says: “[And if thou wilt not obey] the voice of the Lord thy God”…

Rashi on Deuteronomy 28:23:1

The Keys on God’s Keychain

MIDRASH

The promises in the Torah portion include God opening heavenly storehouses for the recipients of the blessings. Based on this verse, Devarim Rabbah collects several midrashim about the importance of rainfall.

“The Lord will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to provide the rain of your land at its time, and to bless all your handiwork; you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow” (Deuteronomy 28:12).
“The Lord will open for you His good storehouse” – what is “will open [yiftaḥ]”? Rabbi Yonatan said: There are three keys [mafteḥot] in the hand of the Holy One blessed be He, and no creature has control over them, neither an angel nor a seraph, and these are: the key of the revival of the dead, the key of barrenness, and the key of rain…

Devarim Rabbah 7:6

A Heart to Know; Ears to Hear

COMMENTARY

When reminding the people of Israel of the miracles that God has performed for them, Moses questions their receptivity and response. Contemporary scholar Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg discusses the relational significance of Moses’s critique.

AMAZING INSENTIENCE
One particularly poignant moment of this kind comes toward the end when he reproaches the people, “God has not given you a heart to know, or eyes to see, or ears to hear, until this day” (Deut. 29:3). For forty years, he has led the people through the wilderness. But it is only now that he can articulate their tragic flaw: their lack of sentience. Only now, retrospectively, can Moses speak, not only of obedience and disobedience, faith and skepticism, but also of the heart, the eyes…

Moses; A Human Life, 5 "Moses wrote his own book" 104-106

Produce Parade

MISHNAH

Parashat Ki Tavo opens with the commandment of the first-fruit offering. The third chapter of tractate Bikkurim in the Mishnah details the step-by-step process of bringing the first fruits to the Temple, including a description of the celebratory procession to Jerusalem.

Those who lived near [Jerusalem] would bring fresh figs and grapes, while those who lived far away would bring dried figs and raisins. An ox would go in front of them, his horns bedecked with gold and with an olive-crown on its head. The flute would play before them until they would draw close to Jerusalem. When they drew close to Jerusalem they would send messengers in advance, and they would adorn their bikkurim. The governors and chiefs and treasurers [of the Temple] would go out to greet them, and according to the rank of the entrants they would go forth…

Mishnah Bikkurim 3:3-4

At the End of the Year

TALMUD

In the traditional yearly Torah-reading cycle, Ki Tavo always falls two weeks before Rosh Hashanah, the new year. The Talmud in tractate Megillah explains the intention behind this timing.

It is taught in a baraita: Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar said: Ezra enacted for the Jewish people that they should read the portion of the curses that are recorded in Leviticus before Shavuot and the portion of the curses that are recorded in Deuteronomy before Rosh HaShana. The Gemara asks: What is the reason for this? Abaye said, and some say that it was Reish Lakish who said: In order that the year may conclude together with its curses, and the new year may begin without the ominous reading of the curses.

Megillah 31b:10

Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal

TANAKH

In Deuteronomy 27, Moses tells the people of Israel that after they cross over the Jordan River, they are to inscribe the covenantal words of the Torah on plastered stones and proclaim aloud the blessings and the curses from two particular mountains. The book of Joshua describes the people carrying out Moses’s instructions.

And there, on the stones, he inscribed a copy of the Teaching that Moses had written for the Israelites. All Israel—stranger and citizen alike—with their elders, officials, and magistrates, stood on either side of the Ark, facing the levitical priests who carried the Ark of GOD’s Covenant. Half of them faced Mount Gerizim and half of them faced Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of GOD had commanded them of old, in order to bless the people of Israel. After that, he read all the words of the Teaching, the blessing and the curse…

Joshua 8:32-35

Bringing Bikkurim to Jerusalem, 1730. "You shall take some of every first fruit of the soil, which you harvest from the land that your God is giving you, put it in a basket", Deuteronomy, 26:2.