I saw a very touching story about a young American rabbinical student in Boston who fulfilled a dream and became an Israeli citizen. Nefesh B’Nefesh reported his story:

"5 months ago, I was praying Shacharit (morning prayers) at Rabbinical school and just stopped and took off my Teffilin and said, 'I can't do this. I can't pray to G-d and not be in Israel. We have the Jewish state and I'm not a part of it.' We say every morning, 'Please G-d give us a sign and bring us back to our Homeland. And I just stood there and said, 'What am I doing? I can't do this anymore.' I just feel we have an obligation to meet G-d halfway. Prayer without action is meaningless. We are the luckiest Jews. When the plane landed I was crying so hard the guy next to me asked if I needed medical attention." Eric Silberman made Aliyah just now in our office. We wish him and all 62 new Olim today much Hatzlacha. We are inspired by you every day.

A couple of hours later, Mr. Silberman shook hands with one of Israel’s leading politicians (see here.). He deserved the notoriety. He demonstrated his love for the land.

Whether one loves “Israel,” the “State of Israel,” the “Land of Israel,” or all of the above, this week’s parsha makes fidelity to the land a pretty prominent theme. We immediately encounter the celebration of the Land’s yield of her special seven species,

The opening verses of this week’s Torah portion present the laws of the bikurim, the First Fruits. The Torah describes in detail both the bringing of the fruit in a basket and a verbal liturgy that accompanies the presentation of the basket to the kohen in Jerusalem.

The Torah concludes the passage with:

"ושמחת בכל הטוב אשר נתן לך ה' אלקיך ולביתך אתה והלוי אשר בקרבך" (דברים כ"ו:י"א)

“You shall rejoice with all the goodness that HASHEM, your God, has given to you and to your household – you and the Levite and the covert who is in your midst” (Devarim 26:11)

Rashi, citing a Mishnah (Bikurim 1:6) and Gemara (Psachim 36b), learns from the first word in the verse, “you shall rejoice,” that we only read the liturgical component of the first fruits when they are brought between Shavuos (the harvest time) and Sukkos (the end of the season.) Sukkos is named zman simchaseinu, the time of our joy. After Sukkos, the first fruits are brought without the recitation.

Rashi’s citation of these halachic passages begs the question if the bringing of the bikurim is one mitzvah or two distinct ones: bringing the firstlings to Jerusalem and reciting the statement.

The aforementioned Mishnah, citing Rabbi Yehudah, notes that one “reads and brings” from Shavuos to Sukkos; from Sukkos to Chanukah one brings but does not read. Rabbi Yehudah ben Beseira states one may still read after Sukkos. Maimonides suggests that Rabbi Yehudah ben Beseira reasons that the rejoicing mentioned in the verse does not specifically refer to the reading. Others suggest that many fruits bud after Sukkos and it is still considered a time of joy.

Clearly, if it were one mitzvah, one could assume that bringing the bikurim without reading the statement would accomplish nothing. Yet the Chinuch, following Maimonides’ listing of the 613 commandments, presents only one mitzvah, namely, reciting the liturgy when presenting the bikurim. The title of the mitzvah is “kriah al habikurim,” “the recitation over the first fruits.”

The Chinuch (Mitzvah number 606) focuses immediately on the recitation.

We were commanded that when we brought our first fruits to the Holy Temple, we are to read the liturgy established in the Torah.

He goes on to state that the mitzvah of bringing the first fruits was first mentioned much earlier in the Chumash. So clearly the main part of the bringing of the first fruits was the recitation.  

Why the recitation? The Chinuch writes:

"על כן בהיטיב אליו השם ברוך הוא ובברכו אותו ואת אדמתו לעשות פירות, וזכה להביאם לבית אלהינו, ראוי לו לעורר לבבו בדברי פיהו ולחשוב כי הכל הגיע אליו מאת אדון העולם, ויספר חסדיו יתברך עלינו ועל כל עם ישראל דרך כלל..."

“Therefore, when the Almighty provides bounty, and offers blessings on man and his agricultural land; and man merited to bring his fruits to the House of the Lord, it is only appropriate to inspire his heart through the words of his mouth, and to contemplate that all came from the Master of the Universe. It behooves him to list God’s kindnesses towards us and upon all of Israel…”

The Chinuch continues to explain the gratitude we owe the Almighty over saving our forefather Yaakov and redeeming us from Egypt.

The mitzvah of bikurim is an anomaly as it appears to be an action linked to a statement. As shown above, the statement may even be the primary component. We often recite a brachah prior to an action, but the blessing itself is not inherently a component of the mitzvah. The blessing represents a means to help us focus on the proper performance of the mitzvah. In halachic parlance, the brachah is not m’akev, which means if one neglects to recite the blessing, they have still fulfilled their obligation if they performed the action.

To what do we attribute this uniqueness?

I think the answer can be found in the realm of the mystical. The famed Arizal claimed that the bringing of the first fruits serves to atone for the debilitating sin of the scouts, the chet hameraglim.

Centuries later, the sainted and martyred Rabbi Menachem Zemba hy’d, a well-respected talmudical prodigy who was gunned down by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto, offered some additional scriptural support to the Arizal’s theory. First fruits are brought from the seven species the Torah identifies with the Land of Israel: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. Yet, he noted with interest, the Mishnah in Bikkurim (3:1) asks how we separate the bikkurim, and answers that:

 “A man goes into field and sees a fig that has ripened, a cluster of grapes that has ripened and a pomegranate that has ripened. He ties them with a band and declares these to be Bikkurim…”

Why does the Mishnah only mention these three fruits of the Holy Land? Why not mention all seven or speak in hypotheticals? There must be significance to mentioning these three?

He answers that these three were mentioned to tie them to the Sin of the Scouts, the very thesis of the Arizal. The Torah declares how the scouts also selected fruit of Israel:

"ויבאו עד נחל אשכל ויכרתו משם זמורה ואשכול ענבים אחד וישאהו במוט בשנים, ומן הרמנים ומן התאנים. למקום ההוא קרא נחל אשכול על אדות האשכול אשר כרתו משם בני ישראל" (במדבר י"ג:כ"ג-כ"ד)

“They arrived at the river of Eshkol and cut from there a vine with one cluster of grapes, and bore it on a double pole, and of the pomegranates and of the figs. They named the place the river of Eshkol because of the cluster that the Children of Israel cut from there” (Bamidbar 13:23-24).   

The scouts used their mouths - their human gift of speech - to malign and disparage God’s Promised Land. The Jews would begin atoning for this communal malevolence by demonstrating great value in the produce of the Holy Land, sanctifying the first fruits as a gift of gratitude to God and using that very same gift of speech to put the Promised Land in historical context. This explains why the mitzvah of bikkurim possesses an integral connection both to speech and action.

As we can almost smell the regal aroma of Rosh Hashanah, it behooves all of us to focus on our gratitude to God for all that he has given us. A young rabbinical school student understood it and was able to make a life-changing commitment to the Land. It’s not enough to know all that Hashem does for us; we must vocalize it as well. Only then can we truly appreciate the gifts in our lives, the gift of life and the need to pray for continued success and bounty as we all go forward.