Remembering to Appreciate Others

Ki Tavo

Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8

Précis: The parasha continues, from the reading last week, numerous concerns regarding the formation of a civil and moral community (including tithes of first fruits and tithes to support the Levites). The People are promised that if they follow God’s instructions, they will be transformed into a “holy people.” They are further instructed that they have a choice in their own destiny: there are blessings and curses (the “Admonition”), and they must to choose between the two - and take the consequences. The parasha ends with Moses reminding the People about all that God had done for them in bringing them from Egypt, providing sustenance, defeating their foes, and giving them the Land.

Deuteronomy 29:1-5 “Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: You have seen all that Adonai did before your very eyes in the land of Egypt…the wondrous feats that you saw with your own eyes, those prodigious signs and marvels. Yet until this day Adonai has not given you a mind to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear. I led you through the wilderness forty years; the clothes on your back did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet….”

The verse tells us about a generation which has had personal knowledge and experience of God’s daily blessings and miracles. However, they had also failed to grasp either the bounty which had been provided to them or the source of that bounty. They appear like ungrateful children, feeling entitled to the largess of their parents.

The text suggests that the reason for their lack of appreciation was that “until this day” God had not provided them with a means of understanding His miracles - that God had not endowed them with the kind of self-awareness needed to appreciate His gifts or to learn from the past. The text goes on, however, to let us know that we now have the kind of awareness necessary to appreciate all that is good in the universe – and of its Source.

Our inability to draw lessons from the past, particularly to appreciate the support, encouragement, and gifts given us by others, is a weakness most human beings share. We are too often quick to claim credit for our achievements without acknowledging that any success we have attained rests on others’ shoulders.

We all (and this may be doubly true for Jewish communal professionals) are fairly quick to note when others fail to mention our contributions to their good outcomes. We need to make sure that we acknowledge and appreciate the contributions which others have made on our behalf. Expressing those thanks in the days leading to Rosh Hashana is particularly appropriate.