Parashat Ki Tavo, Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8

We put our eggs in one basket and it is the wrong one.

My grandfather loved to work with his hands. He took great pride in repairing items and improving them. He rarely threw anything away. Every nail, every thread, every rubber band could be just the item he needed some day. This meant that he was extremely organized. Items were kept in individual jars, and these jars were recycled as well. There were baby jars, jam jars, and pickle jars.

I wonder what my grandfather would say were he to go through some of our specialty stores today; the ones that sells storage items for everything imaginable. Not only are there containers of every shape, size, and material, most storage items come in a selection of colours and designs.

Throughout history we have used all sorts of items for storage. We have taken gourds and transformed them into bottles, created flasks out of animal skins, beautiful pots and jars out of clay, and woven an endless variety of baskets.

Though taken for granted, baskets play an important role in a ritual described in parashat Ki Tavo:

When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle in it, you shall take some of every first fruit of the soil, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, put it in a basket (va-tena) and go to the place where the Lord your God will choose to establish His name. You shall go to the priest in charge at that time and say to him, "I acknowledge this day before the Lord your God that I have entered the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to assign us." The priest shall take the basket (ha-tena) from your hand and set it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 26:1-4

What follows is the ritual recitation of the first fruit (bikkurim) offering with the famous words: Arami oved avi, my father was a fugitive Aramean. While much has been written about the meaning of these words, including on this website, this week's focus is only on that lowly item holding the first fruit, the tena (basket).

The common word for basket that is used in the Torah is sal. Tena is only used four times in the Torah, all of them in Ki Tavo. The first two citations from chapter 26 appear above. The last occurrences are in Deuteronomy 28:5: Blessed shall be your basket (tenacha) and your kneading bowl. and 28:17: Cursed shall be your basket (tenacha) and your kneading bowl.

The relationship between the basket and the kneading bowel is that the item in the basket eventually ends up in the kneading bowl. These are functional containers used in the process of creating sustenance. The tena is a collection container which literally held the fruits of a person's labour. As such it is akin to a briefcase that holds files and documents, or the work stored on a computer memory key. The tena is not a gift basket that is delivered to your house – or in this case, God's house – to be admired and displayed. The basket serves to transport and protect the foodstuff being offered to God.

Or so we assume was the case until post-biblical times:

The rich brought their bikkurim in baskets overlaid with silver or gold, whilst the poor used wicker-baskets of peeled willow-branches, and they [the poor] used to give both the baskets and the bikkurim to the priest.

Mishna, Bikkurim 3:8, Soncino translation

A-tisket, a-tasket, a gold or silver basket. The rich, who could afford these gilded baskets, actually got them back. The poor, who brought the ordinary, humble item, went home empty handed. How incredibly unfair! The Talmud explains that it would be wrong of the priests to keep the expensive baskets since they would profit from more than the actual value of the first fruit. As to the unfairness of keeping the baskets of the poor, Rava comments in the Talmud (Bava Kamma 92a) with the Aramaic equivalent of "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer;" not exactly comforting to one who needs this item in order to work. (If you think about it, even Yogi Bear left the picnic basket behind after helping himself to the food.)

There is another lesson we can learn about containers from elsewhere in the Mishna: Do not look at the vessel, but at what it contains. (Avot 4:27) Modest as the tena was, its contents represented the best efforts of those who brought the offering. There was an additional lesson, albeit unintentional, in giving back the gilded vessel. The importance of the offering was the labour that went into creating the produce and the "wrapping" should not detract from that.

Do not look at the vessel, but at what it contains. My grandfather would sort through the items in his little jars on a regular basis. That nail that was added a couple of months ago turned out to be bent. The nut and bolt were caked in paint. What looked really good a while ago turned out not to be so under a more critical glance. There came a time when certain items had to be discarded. They did not serve their intended purpose, though once they had been mistakenly thought of as positive.

Do not look at the vessel, but at what it contains. These words should resonate within us during the month of Elul. At the end of this Shabbat, countless Jews will be heading back to shul (synagogue) for Selichot services. All this is part of our ever-increasing preparation for the High Holy Days. Yet all too often our preparation consists of scheduling haircuts and manicures, deciding which suit to wear for Rosh Hashanah and which shirt and tie for Yom Kippur. We put our eggs in one basket and it is the wrong one. We end up focusing on gilding the basket instead of sorting through the contents.

So let us put down our burdens for one minute and take a deep breath. Let us understand that we ourselves are containers. We are not gold or silver baskets but simple willow. That's okay. God will be looking inside. It is our responsibility to fill the basket with spiritual bikkurim.

From now until Yom Kippur we have the opportunity to make sure that what is contained in this human vessel is of the highest quality. During Elul as we examine and correct the spiritual content of our human tena, think of the symbolism of the willow that forms part of the lulav: "Willow represents the lips and the service of the lips (prayer)." (Sefer ha-Chinukh, #285). If we have taken our spiritual inventory, both the offering and the container will be pleasing.

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Michal Shekel