Ari Levisohn: Welcome to Into the Verse, where we share new and unexpected insights about the parsha, diving deep into the verses to uncover the Torah’s own commentary on itself. 

This is Ari Levisohn and I'm joined today with my colleague Beth Lesch.

Beth Lesch: Hey, Ari. Hey, everyone.

Ari: Beth, I understand you have some exciting stuff to share with us today on Parshat Ki Tavo.

Beth: I do have exciting stuff. I received a dream assignment. Ari came to me last week. He said, “Please take a day, learn some Torah, and then come show up on ITV and share it with the people.” So I did, and I am.

Ari: All right, let's dig in.

Beth: I was refamiliarizing myself with the parsha, which you can sort of divide into three sections. It opens with the bikkurim, which are these laws about when you get to the land and you have fruits and vegetables that grow, and you've got your harvest, you should bring it as an offering before God. Give it to the kohein (priest) at the Temple, and you recite this whole declaration that sounds familiar to us from the Pesach (Passover) Seder. That's Part One. 

Part Two of the parsha is another law about something that we're going to do when we enter the land, which is this whole choreography where you're going to have part of the people go up on one mountain and part of the people go up on the other mountain, and they're going to call out blessings and curses, and this whole complicated thing…and in the midst of all of that, to build an altar to God and to put sacrifices up upon it. 

And then finally, we get the Tochacha (rebuke), the blessings and the curses. We get this whole lengthy description of, “If you're good, here's all the great stuff you get. If you're bad, here's all the bad stuff you get.”

Do We Need to Serve God with Happiness?

There were two questions that really jumped out to me in this reading that I want to focus on with you. The first question — probably the biggest, the itchiest of the two — is as follows: When God says, “If you run afoul of Me, then these are all of the terrible, frightening things I'm going to do. These are all the ways I'm going to punish you,” and it's really graphic and really upsetting and really lengthy – there's this one particular verse in the midst of that Tochacha where God seems to tell us why it is that we are being punished in this way. And that verse is — do you have any idea what I have in mind, Ari?

Ari: I think I actually do. There's this whole super long list of curses, and then, right in the middle of that list, it reminds you why these curses are happening. And I think it says something along the lines of, “You're getting these curses because you didn't serve God out of happiness and fullness of heart.”

Beth: Exactly. Just to be clear people, I did not give him the answer beforehand. That was truly spontaneous. We're looking at Deuteronomy, chapter 28, verse 47: תַּחַת אֲשֶׁר לֹא־עָבַדְתָּ אֶת־יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ בְּשִׂמְחָה וּבְטוּב לֵבָב מֵרֹב כֹּל — Why am I pouring all of these horrible sufferings upon you? Because you didn't serve God with joy and with goodness of heart, מֵרֹב כֹּל — from the abundance of everything.

Ari, what do you make of that? Do you have any reaction?

Ari: I'm so glad we're talking about this, and the reason I knew what you're talking about is because this is such a weird verse. You know, I understand — maybe you didn't keep the commandments, you didn't do the mitzvot; you're a bad person and that's why all these curses are coming upon you. But this seems to imply, it's not that you didn't serve God. Seemingly, you served Him, but you didn't do it out of happiness, and because you didn't do it with the right emotions and your heart, therefore all these terrible curses are coming upon you. How are you supposed to understand that?

Beth: It feels unfair, right? 

Ari: Totally unfair. 

Beth: It feels like a really high bar. First of all, yeah, let's say I did all 613 commandments. I mean, I don't think it's possible for a single person to do all 613, but let's say I did everything that was upon me to do. And I crossed every “T,”  I dotted every “I,” but a few times I did it and I was a little sad, or just like neutral — not overflowing with happiness and goodness of heart from the abundance of all. And for that, these horrible, horrible things are going to befall me?

So it feels harsh. It feels like a high bar, and the underlying logic is just a little bit perplexing. The underlying logic seems to be — the point of all this, the essence, isn't even the doing of the commandments and the obedience. The point of it is that you need to be serving God with joy. You know, there are other times in this chapter where God says, “The reason I'm going to curse you is because you didn't listen to Me.” 

Ari: Right. And just two verses earlier, it says all this is happening, כִּי־לֹא שָׁמַעְתָּ בְּקוֹל יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ לִשְׁמֹר מִצְוֺתָיו וְחֻקֹּתָיו אֲשֶׁר צִוָּךְ — All this is happening because you didn't listen to God and you didn't keep His commandments. 

Beth: Yeah, it's not like this is the only way that God frames it. Here and elsewhere in the Torah, God says, “The reason I'm bringing curses upon you is because you didn't follow My laws. You didn't listen to Me.” But here, this is the one that really kind of sticks out and itches at you, and it makes you wonder — what does God mean by that? What's going on there? 

An Altar of Uncut Stones

The second thing, Ari, that jumped out at me has to do with the second section, this law from Moshe that when we get to the land, amidst this whole choreography of the mountains and the blessings and the curses, we should build an altar to God. Now, building an altar to God, that's commonplace. But what struck me was that Moshe gives a very specific law about how that altar should be built. Do you want to read it for us? I'm looking at Deuteronomy chapter 27, verses five through seven.

Ari: So it says: וּבָנִיתָ שָּׁם מִזְבֵּחַ לַיקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ — You should build there an altar for Hashem, your God, מִזְבַּח אֲבָנִים — it should be a stone altar. לֹא־תָנִיף עֲלֵיהֶם בַּרְזֶל — You shouldn't touch iron to them, i.e., you shouldn't sharpen these stones at all with metal tools. אֲבָנִים שְׁלֵמוֹת תִּבְנֶה אֶת־מִזְבַּח יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ — you should build this altar to God out of complete, uncut stones, וְהַעֲלִיתָ עָלָיו עוֹלֹת לַיקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ — and you sacrifice upon it burnt offerings to Hashem, your God, and you should bring peace offerings. That's where you and God and the priests all get to eat some of it, and you should eat there. וְשָׂמַחְתָּ לִפְנֵי יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ — And you should rejoice before has God.

Beth: What are you thinking about reading these verses? Anything that you're noticing? 

Ari: So obviously, the fact that these have to be complete, uncut stones, that's interesting. It's something that we've been told before about the altars, but it's not clear why Moses is repeating that and really emphasizing that now.

Beth: Right, so earlier, in the aftermath of the Ten Commandments in Exodus, we do hear a version of this law with slightly different language. And the question is, why is it being repeated now, and what's the meaning of it? You know, I understand why God doesn't want us to steal or to murder, but why does God care whether the stones are hewn or not hewn? 

Ari: Right. But then the second thing that jumps out to me is this line of וְשָׂמַחְתָּ לִפְנֵי יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ — you should rejoice before God. We just read before that all these curses are going to happen because you didn't serve God out of happiness. And now here, which is earlier, right before these curses, there's this commandment to rejoice before God when you get into the land and you set up this altar.

Beth: After having read, “You're being cursed because you didn't serve God with joy,” you might sort of scratch your head and say, well, what does it look like to serve God with joy? I know what it looks like to eat a kazayis (olive’s size) of matza. I know what it looks like to bring a tithe, but how do you quantify joy? What does it look like? 

Well, maybe this is a picture of what it looks like. There's an altar that you've built to God, and it's an altar that's made out of stones that are whole, that have never been cut with an iron tool. And upon that altar of stone, you are bringing olot, burnt offerings. And you are bringing what I think seems to be the spotlight: Shelamim, you're bringing peace offerings, and there you are, you’re going to eat them. And that's what it looks like to be joyful before God. Ari, can you remind us, what are shelamim? What is a peace offering? How is it different from the others?

Ari: So the peace offering is the only type of offering where the bringer actually gets to eat a significant portion of the offering. Part of it gets burnt on the altar, that goes to God. Another part of it goes to the priests that help officiate the offering. And then the rest of it goes to the person who brings it, usually to share with friends and family. Some people say that's why we call it the peace offering, because it's peace because everybody gets some. Or maybe shalem as in “complete,” because it's complete because everybody gets some. 

Beth: Yeah, so it's really this beautiful image that this law is painting for us. What does serving God with שִׂמְחָה look like? Serving God with שִׂמְחָה looks like feasting together with God, with the kohein, and, like you said, hopefully with your friends and family, having just brought an offering atop an altar of whole stones that have never touched iron.

Ari: The stones are described as shleimot, complete, and the offering is the korban shelamim – completed, shalom, peace. They're the same root. So it's like both the offerings and the stones are these complete things.

Beth: Exactly. What's the relationship between the stones being described as shleimot and the shelamim, the peace offerings? And somehow, that all translates to happiness. 

Ari: It reminds me of how the Gemara (Talmud) interprets the commandment to rejoice on the holidays. It says: וְשָׂמַחְתָּ בְּחַגֶּךָ — Rejoice on the holiday (Deuteronomy 16:14). So what does that mean, to rejoice, right? There has to be some tangible way to fulfill that commandment. So the Gemara says, you bring shelamim offerings, you bring these peace offerings, and everybody gets to eat some, and you have these big feasts and celebrations. That's what happiness looks like.

Okay, so Beth, you notice this strange verse, right in the middle of the curses? That seems to imply that all of these curses are happening because you didn't serve God with the right kind of happiness. And then you notice that it actually does talk about happiness earlier in the parsha, and it talks about it in the context of setting up this altar when you come into the land of Israel. And that altar has to be made of stones that are complete, that are shleimot. And also you're sacrificing upon it, the complete peace offering, that shelamim.

And so I guess understanding this happiness, which comes up in both of these cases, seems to be the secret to all of these curses and understanding why all of these bad things are happening. Because the Torah sets up as happiness somehow being at the center. Beth, these are some really intriguing noticings. What do you have to help us make sense of all of this?

An Intriguing Basket

Beth: There's one more thing that I noticed when I was reading through this parsha that I think can offer us a key to unlocking these questions. I noticed some unusual words that show up multiple times in this parsha that don't seem to show up very often elsewhere in the Tanach. And you know, I'm a good student of Rabbi Fohrman's; I know that the Torah conveys meaning to us between the lines through intertextual parallels. If you find a really unusual word that appears, you know, two times and only two times, then you're going to want to try to figure out how the two instances might be in conversation with one another.

Ari: Okay, Beth, I'm at the edge of my seat. What are these words?

Beth: There's one word that shows up in this parsha, it shows up nowhere else in the entire Tanach. And that word is, drum roll please: טֶּנֶא – basket. 

Ari: Okay, so I know the first one, which is at the very beginning of the parsha. When you bring the first fruits, the Torah has this strange detail that you put it in a basket and then you bring it to the priest. But like, who cares what you put it in? Like, why can't I put it in a bag or why can't I put it in a box? 

Beth: Right, and it's a very unusual word for basket. There might be other baskets in the Torah. This is the only time that we encounter a טֶּנֶא –  in Ki Tavo.

So the word טֶּנֶא shows up also in the blessings and the curses. If you scroll down to chapter 28, verse five — you want to read it for us?

Ari: בָּרוּךְ טַנְאֲךָ וּמִשְׁאַרְתֶּךָ — Blessed will be your basket and your kneading tray.

Beth: And then the word shows up again a handful of verses after that, verse 17.

Ari: אָרוּר טַנְאֲךָ וּמִשְׁאַרְתֶּךָ — Cursed be your basket and your kneading tray.

Beth: Exactly. If you do good by God, then you're going to have a טֶּנֶא which is full and blessed, and if you don't do well by God, then you're going to have a טֶּנֶא – a basket – which is cursed. 

Ari: Yeah, so it's like the only time we actually have a טֶּנֶא is right in the beginning of the parsha, when you use this basket to bring the bikkurim, the first fruits to Jerusalem. So if you're coming to Jerusalem with a big, full basket, that would be a really blessed basket that would seem to be symbolic of those blessings that God has given you.

Beth: That's right, that's right. So you take that basket that's full of all of this bounty that God has been so good to shower down upon you, and you bring it to the Temple to share with God, right? 

Ari: And then it says: וְשָׂמַחְתָּ בְכׇל־הַטּוֹב אֲשֶׁר נָתַן־לְךָ יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ וּלְבֵיתֶךָ — And you shall rejoice in all of the good that God has given to you and to your household (Deuteronomy 26:11). 

Beth: So the word וְשָׂמַחְתָּ for sure catches our eye because that was that keyword that we saw by the building of the altar, the offering of the shelamim. And also, near the end of the parsha, the idea that we didn't serve God with joy, and that's why we're being punished. And there's another word in this, in this verse, that I think should catch our eye.

Ari: בְכׇל־הַטּוֹב, right? 

Beth: Exactly, two words.

Ari: Is that the same language that it uses in the curses? 

Beth: Exactly. Because you didn’t serve God with joy and with טוּב לֵבָב מֵרֹב כֹּל. So, these same words: כֹּל ,שָׂמַחְתָּ, and טוּב. What I think we're getting is a second picture of what it looks like to serve God properly. 

Ari: So Beth, if I understand you correctly, you're suggesting that this verse in the middle of the curses was saying, all these curses are happening because you didn't serve God properly and you didn't serve Him out of happiness. So the question would be then, well, what does it actually look like to serve God out of happiness? What were you supposed to be doing that you weren't doing?

So we have one example of offering these whole sacrifices on this whole altar, and we have this other example of serving God by bringing the first fruits. Both of these come along with this rejoicing that seems to be the type of service that is missing and leads to the curses.

Beth: Yeah, that's exactly what I'm noticing.

The First Fruits Declaration

What I want to do is, we're going to read the text of what it is that we're meant to declare when we give bikkurim. I think there are going to be some words that pop out in that text that we say, “Hey, I think I've heard those before.” And hopefully, at the end, we'll be able to put the whole picture together. 

Ari: So when you bring these first fruits, it's not just enough that you bring them and you bow before God, but there's also this text that you're supposed to recite along with it.

Beth: That's right. Do you want to read it for us?

Ari: Sure. So this is familiar to some of us from the Passover Seder where we've kind of borrowed these verses, because they're a very quick account of the Exodus. So it's useful when we're trying to tell over the story at the Seder. 

Beth: So Ari, I want you to stop if you notice any words that you think maybe show up later in the parsha. And if you don't stop, then I'm going to stop you.

Ari: So this is chapter 26, verse five: אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי — So you can either understand this as, “My father was a wandering Aramean,” or “an Aramean tried to destroy my father.” Either way, it seems to be a reference to Jacob and his experiences with Lavan, or maybe it refers to Avraham. But it refers to the forefathers before Egypt, because the next thing is: וַיֵּרֶד מִצְרַיְמָה — And they went down to Egypt, וַיָּגׇר שָׁם בִּמְתֵי מְעָט — and they dwelled there, small in number.

Beth: Oh wait, I'm going to stop you. By my count, there are at least two unusual phrases that show up in this line that we find later on in the parsha. The first is בִּמְתֵי מְעָט — that my father, who went down there when he first went down to Egypt, he had meager numbers. It was just 70 of them. That was all. And then, of course, they became a great and populous nation. 

Ari: So this phrase of בִּמְתֵי מְעָט, “few in number,” you're saying this only comes up in two places in the Torah and it's twice in this parsha. Okay, so the second one is in chapter 28, verse 62. This is towards the end of the curses and it says: וְנִשְׁאַרְתֶּם בִּמְתֵי מְעָט — And you will remain few in number. There's that בִּמְתֵי מְעָט, right. תַּחַת אֲשֶׁר הֱיִיתֶם כְּכוֹכְבֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם לָרֹב — Instead of being numerous like the stars like you previously were.

Beth: Exactly. So the idea here is, “Your forefathers used to be few in number. Beware: I could make you few in number again. The thing that I'm blessing you with, I could take it away and you could revert to what you were before.”

I’m also noticing this language of אֹבֵד, this language of — I think the most straightforward way to read it is of being lost, of wandering. You're right that there is a midrashic read that it's referring to Lavan trying to oppress Yaakov. But, “My father was lost, he was wandering around.” It seemed like he was vulnerable. That language also, while not quite as unusual as בִּמְתֵי מְעָט, I think it's also fairly unusual language in the Torah that we also find later on in the chapter.

Ari: Oh, interesting. Point me to it.

Beth: Yeah, to see that, I want you to look again at chapter 28, verse 20, and then it appears as well as in 22. 

Ari: Okay: יְשַׁלַּח יְקוָה  בְּךָ אֶת־הַמְּאֵרָה אֶת־הַמְּהוּמָה וְאֶת־הַמִּגְעֶרֶת — I think these are all diseases.

Beth: Yeah.

Ari: בְּכׇל־מִשְׁלַח יָדְךָ אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשֶׂה — He is going to put all these curses on everything you put your hand out which you try to do, עַד הִשָּׁמֶדְךָ — until you were destroyed, וְעַד־אֲבׇדְךָ מַהֵר — and until you are quickly lost.

Beth: Exactly. So again, we're getting these, it seems, mirror images. We're talking about how our forefathers used to be few in number, used to be lost. Of course, God swooped in and blessed our people and made them not lost and not few in number, but watch out because God could make you lost once again. 

Ari: It would be like a reverting back to the days when you were few in number and you were lost.

Beth: Exactly. This pattern continues. As you continue to read the declaration of the bikkurim, there are all of these things that God did for us, but if you don't watch out, then God could revert and things could be the way that they were. So the declaration of bikkurim continues telling the history of, “and then our people went down to Egypt and there was slavery. And we cried out to God and God freed us, and ultimately God brought us to this place. And now that we're in this place, aren't we incredibly fortunate that we have fruits that have grown from the land that we can bring before God?”

We find more language that follows these same patterns. In verse eight, this idea that God freed us from Egypt בְאֹתוֹת וּבְמֹפְתִים, that God freed us with signs and wonders, is mirrored in the curses in verse 46. God basically says, “If you run afoul of Me, I am going to do such terrible things to you that you are going to become a sign. In Egypt, I did signs in order to show Egypt that I am strong and that I care about the people of Israel. And if you run afoul of Me, you're going to become a sign of the fact that I am still strong, but I'm no longer on your side because you've not done what you're meant to do.”

And we see these same two words: You're going to become לְאוֹת וּלְמוֹפֵת – you’re going to become a sign and a wonder, so to speak, or a sign and a portent.

Ari: Wow Beth, I never noticed those parallels. All of these curses — it's an undoing of the bikkurim speech that we started this part off by talking about.

Beth: That's right. 

Ari: Cool!

Beth: By the way, this same sort of mirror image dynamic, you see also with the altar imagery. Moshe tells us to build an altar of stone, that we shouldn't bring iron up upon it. And then later on in the curses we're told, if you run afoul of God, you're going to be exiled and you're going to end up serving worthless gods — gods of wood and stone. And the word בַּרְזֶל, this word that means iron, also a fairly unusual word. If you run afoul of God, God is going to make your earth like iron. It's going to be incredibly difficult to work. It's going to be unyielding.

It's like, okay, here's what it looks like to serve God with joy somehow epitomized by the bikkurim and by the altar. And if you don't do that, then the opposite of all these things is what's going to befall you — the reversal.

Gifts for the Sake of Relationship 

What do we do with all of this? What do we make of it? The Torah seems to be nudging me to look at these earlier instances of שִׂמְחָה and learn from them why it is so problematic to not serve God with שִׂמְחָה.

And how do I put it all together? Why is it that God is going to bring these curses upon us if we fail to serve God with שִׂמְחָה, from goodness of heart, from an abundance of everything? And I'll tell you what came to mind.

What came to mind was a conversation that I had with my son just a few days prior. And it was a conversation about what we, in our house, call “Shabbos party.” Shabbos party was the one time a week when we brought salty junk for my children, like kosher Doritos and Cheetos and all these things, and everyone gets to have a bag. That was our Shabbos party. Where am I going with this? You'll see. 

How did Shabbos party start? It started spontaneously and with sweetness. One lazy Shabbos afternoon, I think, it was just me and my older son who were awake and we were lounging outside on the lawn. We were getting ready to make aliyah (immigration to Israel), so we had like a big Hebrew vocabulary book spread in front of us and we were teaching ourselves different words and quizzing ourselves. And I was having such a lovely time, and I said, “Hold on a second, I'll be back.” And I went and I got a big bowl of, I think it was, popcorn that I had popped before Shabbos, and I brought out that bowl for us. And his eyes lit up because he was – not that popcorn is so terrible, but he was the oldest and we were health freaks and we were keeping him on a tight leash. And here was Ima offering up a bowl of popcorn for the two of us to share. It was such a treat, and it made the moment sweeter. It did. Little things like that can really elevate a moment and elevate a bond. 

Somehow, that turned into Shabbos party. Which is, every single week when I submit my grocery order, I have to make sure, do we have enough salty snacks? Do we have one for each child? Are they the right size? Because last week, we got 40-gram ones. If this week they're 20 grams, does that mean you get to have two of them? What if they're 30 grams? What if someone opens it and tries it and doesn't like it? Do they get to have a new one? Are they just stuck with the choice that they got? When do they get the Shabbos party? Does Ima get to decide? Do they nag Ima all morning long until they get it?

Ari: Sounds like a nightmare in the end.

Beth: Yes, it was an absolute nightmare. It went from something that was a source of peace and love and closeness to something that was just creating conflict. And after a couple of weeks of conflict, my husband and I just looked at each other and we were like, “Shabbos party has to go.” It is no longer serving its function. And of course, my kids were distraught, and then they got over it.

But I was explaining to my older son why we decided to do away with it. And he was saying, “But we're supposed to get it!” And I said, “You're not supposed to get anything. It was a gift, and it was a gift that I was giving you because I wanted to show you that I loved you and I wanted to make our relationship stronger. And when it stopped serving that purpose, it no longer had any place. And now I want to look for new ways to make our relationship better.” 

That, to me, is the story of the bikkurim, of the tochacha, and even the altar. 

Ari: Beth, this metaphor feels really powerful and really intriguing. 

Beth: Yeah, so once I had hold of that analogue in my mind, all of a sudden the bikkurim and the tochacha made a whole lot more sense. Because what is the story of the bikkurim? You are taking this bounty and putting it in your basket, and it's like the popcorn that Ima brought out on the special Shabbos. It is the abundance of wonderful foods, and you're not just scarfing it down. You're going through this whole very intentional ritual whose purpose is to remind you of where it comes from, remind you that it's a gift, and to let it lead you to a stronger connection with God.

You're like, “This popcorn is a symbol of how God came and found Avraham my forefather and cared for him and loved him, and nurtured our people and took care of us in all of these ways, and now brought me here. And now I live in this land, and there's just popcorn coming out of the ground, and I'm able to nourish myself and my family. Thank you, God. I've brought it to You.” And this is a gesture of all of that. That’s bikkurim.

Of course, that's what it looks like to serve God with a sense of joy and goodness of heart and מֵרֹב כֹּל; a sense that what you have is everything, a sense that you're not lacking. If my son had started to kind of, you know, “Oh, Ima, it's nice that you brought out popcorn, but I don't really like popcorn. Didn't they have any Cheetos?” All of a sudden it's like, that's not what this is about. I don't want you to feel lacking. I want this to feel like everything. I want this to delight you. 

Ari: And in order to do that, you need to remember where you came from and how it started. You need to tell the story of how, once upon a time, we only ever ate healthy food, but then Ima, in her abundant kindness and love, bestowed upon us Shabbos party.

Beth: Exactly. And then, when it stopped creating peace in our relationship, Ima took it away. Because it was always meant to be a gift that was meant to serve a purpose. And maybe that's what the tochacha is. The tochacha isn't, “I'm coming to hurt you.” Tochacha maybe is, “I'm taking away this gift that is no longer serving its purpose.” God chose the people and made the people great, but if it's not going to lead to its purpose, which is this relationship of peace between God and man, then maybe God is just going to undo it.

Ari: You know, it reminds me of this midrash. It's actually about when Amalek attacked us soon after leaving Egypt. It compares it to a child that's riding on his father's shoulders, and he's been riding on his father's shoulders for a little while. And then they pass the father's friend, and the child waves to the father's friend and says, “Hey, have you seen my father?” And the father goes, “‘Have you seen my father?’ Like, whose shoulders do you think you've been on this whole time?” So of course he puts the child down, and then I think a dog comes and attacks the child. Then the child realizes that his father has been protecting him, has been carrying him this whole time.

But that just feels so much like what you're describing here. If you don't realize that all of this blessing is coming from God, well, then God's going to take away that blessing. You're going to see what happens when God's not taking care of you.

Beth: Right. I'm glad you're sharing that midrash. It's making my head spin a little bit, because you sort of have to ask, what is that father doing in putting the son down? Meaning, I understand the father being frustrated that the son had no idea that he was the one who was carrying him on his shoulders. What is he hoping to accomplish by putting the son down? Is he taking it too personally? Is he just being petty? He doesn't actually want to see his son get harmed. How do I make sense of that?

I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I'll tell you where my mind goes. When I brought out that bowl of popcorn for my son, I wasn't trying to give him a gift of popcorn. I was trying to give him a much more valuable gift. I was trying to give him the knowledge of being loved. That, in the long run, is a much bigger gift than popcorn. But when the popcorn stopped sending that message to him, I had to try to find new ways to give him that gift. And sometimes that's going to require what looks like deprivation and what looks like harm.

Ari: Right. 

Wholeness and Peace

Beth: I think it's easy to make the connection between the sense of abundance and appreciation a person feels in that moment of bringing bikkurim to God, and the idea that if you don't show appreciation to God, if you don't feel that you have a sense of abundance, that God takes the blessings away. I think that's an easy connection to make. 

I don't think it's a coincidence that the word שָׂמַחְתָּ, or שִׂמְחָה, shows up in the bikkurim, shows up in that line in the tochacha, and also shows up by the altar. Why would it be that the stones of the altar need to be whole and that somehow, upon that, we are bringing our offerings to God? I think that there's a way to understand this law, which has to do with violence and peace. Iron is an instrument of war; you shouldn't be bringing that into the altar. Violence like that has no place in your service of God. That's an interesting perspective, and I think it explains part of what's going on with this law.

Ari: But it does seem like it's more, because it doesn't just say, “Don't touch iron to them,” but it says that the stones should actually be complete — like, even if you could bang two stones against each other to cut them, even that's not good.

Beth: Exactly, exactly. And I'm not going to say that the violence read is wrong, but I want to offer another layer; a layer that I think, in particular, this iteration of the law is bringing that the earlier iteration in Exodus wasn't emphasizing, which is that there is a way in which wholeness does lead to peace in one's relationship with God.

In other words, look at that verse. The word shalem shows up twice in the discussion of the altar: The stones need to be whole, and upon them you're going to offer the shelamim; the shelamim, again, being this offering that you share and feast upon with God and with everyone else. If you are coming at things from the perspective of מֵרֹב כֹּל, that sense that I have everything I need because it's all just an abundant gift, then it leads to a sense of peace between you and God. 

Ari: You could look at these stones and say, oh, they're just unhewn, right? That’s how we described them before, they're unhewn stones, but that's not how the Torah describes them here. It doesn't call them unhewn. It calls them complete, as if they're perfect. They have everything they need. Don't touch it.

Beth: And the way they are is how they came from God. You didn't need to get in there and improve them or process them in any way, but what God gave you is everything and is enough.

Ari: Right. If the altar represents your life that you're putting before God, then if you can see your life as complete as enough, like God has given you everything, then you will have a complete and whole relationship with God.

Beth: That's right. And I think that doesn't just apply to the altar, but it applies to our service of God in general. If you can work on putting yourself in that place of somehow seeing what you have as being whole, then you find that you're able to attain peace in your relationship with God. I'll tell you Ari, I don't have a rule book for how to do that, but the idea I find to be provocative and inspiring.

Ari: Beth, I think that's really beautiful. We've uncovered some really awesome stuff here. Thanks for coming on and enlightening us.

Beth: It was my pleasure. Thanks, Ari.

Credits

This episode was recorded by me, Beth Lesch, together with Ari Levisohn. 

Editing was done by Sarah Penso. 

Our audio editor is Hillary Guttman. 

Our production manager is Adina Blaustein, and our senior editor is Ari Levisohn. 

Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next week.