A series of inspirational messages on the weekly Torah portion by members of the UJC Rabbinic Cabinet

UJC Rabbinic Cabinet Chair: Rabbi Bennett F. Miller, D.Min.
Vice Chair: Rabbi Ronald Schwarzberg
President: Rabbi Harold J. Berman
Vice President, Jewish Renaissance and Renewal: Dr. Eric Levine
Mekor Chaim Editor: Lisa Kleinman
Coordinator: Rafi Cohen

Parashat Ki Tavo
By Rabbi Laurence A. Kotok

Why has the simple act of saying thank you dropped out of our everyday vocabulary?  Our Torah portion Ki Tavo helps us understand our Jewish values about giving thanks.  The powerful words of D’varim ch. 26 tell us of our responsibility to be thankful, to take of our gifts and offer them in thanksgiving.  We are to be ever mindful of where we have come from and grateful for the fulfillment that comes with moving into the land. 

“V’lakachta me’reishit kol pri ha’adamah asher tavee me’artzekha asher Adonai Elohekha noten lakh.” (Devarim 26:2)

Verses 1-4 explain that the first thing to be done when the people of Israel entered the land God gave them was to take from the land “the Lord your God is giving you, put it in a basket and go to the place where the Lord your God will choose to establish God’s name.”

Doing so, as the text indicates, acknowledges a link between that which God swore to our ancestors and the promise being fulfilled.  Memory and thanks seem to be linked.  It is through our acknowledgement of our journey that our ability to give thanks is enhanced and focused. So what has happened to us?
 
Not only has a statement of thanks become rare – it appears to have disappeared from our thoughts.  We have become far too entitled in our expectations of others to even consider saying thank you.  We have come to merely expect all that others do on our behalf.

Not being able to give thanks for anything – for the simple acts of kindness we expect and demand from others --to giving thanks for life itself - effects our total being and reduces our humanity.

We need to relearn the path to giving thanks. The torah teaches us to value what we do and what others do for us as part of our daily lives. This awareness is the message of Ki Tavo today. For it helps us gauge how far we have moved from the Jewish values that should sustain and inform us.

The contemporary message of Ki Tavo can help us make a different choice – a Jewish choice. This one is simple to make a different choice– to take a different path.  Just remember to say thank you – remember to write the note that seems never to get written. Change the world around you by being kind.  Like our ancestors, be thankful for all that we have been blessed with; show your thanks through your words and your deeds. As Hillel taught us in Pirke Avot…”If not now, when?”

Rabbi Laurence A. Kotok, an Executive Committee member of the UJC Rabbinic Cabinet, is Senior Rabbi of Temple Brith Kodesh in Rochester, NY.