38 | SEPTEMBER 19 • 2024 

T

he setting: Jerusalem some 
20 centuries ago. The occa-
sion: bringing first fruits to 
the Temple. Here is the scene as the 
Mishnah describes it: “Throughout 
Israel, villagers would 
gather in the nearest 
of 24 regional centers. 
There, overnight, they 
would sleep in the 
open air. The next 
morning, the leader 
would summon the 
people with words 
from the book of Jeremiah (31:5): 
‘Arise and let us go up to Zion, to 
the House of the Lord our God.’”
Those who lived near Jerusalem 
would bring fresh figs and grapes. 
Those who lived far away would 
bring dried figs and raisins. An ox 
would walk ahead of them, its horns 
plated with gold and its head deco-
rated with an olive wreath. Someone 
would play a flute. When they came 
close to Jerusalem, they would send 
a messenger ahead to announce 
their arrival and they would start to 
adorn their first-fruits. Governors 
and officials of the city would come 
out to greet them and the artisans 
would stop their work and call out, 

“Our brothers from such-and-such a 
place: come in peace!”
The flute would continue playing 
until the procession reached the 
Temple Mount. There, they would 
each place their basket of fruit on 
their shoulder — the Mishnah says 
that even King Agrippa would do 
so — and carry it to the Temple 
forecourt. There the Levites would 
sing (Psalm 30:2), “I will praise you, 
God, for you have raised me up and 
not let my enemies rejoice over me.”
The scene, as groups converged on 
the Temple from all parts of Israel, 
must have been vivid and unforget-
table. However, the most important 
part of the ceremony lay in what 
happened next. With the baskets 
still on their shoulders, the arriv-
als would say, “I declare today to 
the Lord your God that I have come 
to the land that the Lord swore to 
our ancestors to give us.” 
Each would then hold their basket 
by the rim, the Cohen would place 
his hand under it and ceremoniously 
wave it, and the bringer of the fruit 
would say the following passage, 
whose text is set out in our parshah:
“My ancestor was a wandering 
Aramean. He went down into Egypt 

and lived there as a stranger, few in 
number, and there became a great 
nation, strong and numerous. The 
Egyptians mistreated us and made 
us suffer, subjecting us to harsh 
labor. We cried out to the Lord, God 
of our ancestors. The Lord heard 
our voice and saw our suffering, our 
toil and our oppression. The Lord 
brought us out of Egypt with a 
mighty hand and an outstretched 
arm, with terrifying power and 
signs and wonders. He brought 
us into this place and gave us this 
land, a land flowing with milk and 
honey. And now I am bringing 
the first fruit of the soil that you, 
O Lord, have given me.” Deut. 26:5-
10
This passage is familiar to us 
because we expound part of it, the 
first four verses, in the Haggadah on 
Seder night. But this was no mere 
ritual. As Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi 
explained in his Zakhor: Jewish 
History and Memory, it constituted 
one of the most revolutionary of all 
Judaism’s contributions to world civ-
ilization.
What was original was not the 
celebration of first fruits. Many cul-
tures have such ceremonies. What 

was unique about the ritual in our 
parshah and the biblical world-view 
from which it derives, is that our 
ancestors saw God in history rather 
than nature. 

SEEING GOD IN HISTORY
Normally, what people would cele-
brate by bringing first-fruits would 
be nature itself: the seasons, the soil, 
the rain, the fertility of the ground 
and what Dylan Thomas called “the 
force that through the green fuse 
drives the flower.” The biblical first-
fruits ceremony is quite different. 
It is not about nature but about the 
shape of history, the birth of Israel as 
a nation and the redemptive power 
of God who liberated our ancestors 
from slavery.
This is what was new about this 
worldview: 
1. Jews were, as Yerushalmi points 
out, the first to see God in history.
2. They were the first to see his-
tory itself as an extended narrative 
with an overarching theme. That 
vision was sustained for the whole 
of the biblical era, as the events of a 
thousand years were interpreted by 
the prophets and recorded by the 
biblical historians.
3. The theme of biblical history 
is redemption. It begins with suffer-
ing, has an extended middle section 
about the interactive drama between 
God and the people, and ends with 
homecoming and blessing.
4. The narrative is to be internal-
ized: This is the transition from his-
tory to memory, and this is what the 
first-fruits declaration was about. 
Those who stood in the Temple say-
ing those words were declaring, this 
is my story. In bringing these fruits 
from this land, I and my family are 
part of it.
5. Most importantly, the story 
was the basis of identity. Indeed, that 
is the difference between history 
and memory. History is an answer 
to the question, “What happened?” 
Memory is an answer to the ques-
tion, “Who am I?” In Alzheimer’s 
disease, when you lose your memo-
ry, you lose your identity. The same 
is true of a nation as a whole.

God of History 

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

