By Rabbi Joshua ( fruitfully known as The Hoffer ) Hoffman z"l
This week's parsha begins with the two mitzvos of bringing one's bikkurim, or first fruits, to the Beis HaMikdash (Temple), and reciting a paragraph in which we thank God for all the goodness he has shown us. The paragraph recited is a recapitulation of the process that the Jewish nation went through from the time the family of Yaakov first went down to Egypt, through the nation's redemption from Egypt and entrance to Eretz Yisroel, and ending with the bringing of the first fruits to the Beis HaMikdash. This paragraph is, actually, the text upon which the Pesach Haggadah is based. As Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitcik,zt'l, explained,rather than merely reciting the sections of the Torah that record the nation's experience in Egypt, we read and expound upon the paragraph which the farmer recites when he brings his first fruit, because this paragraph encapsulates the entire process, and is an expression of gratitude to God for seeing the process to its conclusion. It is,actually apparent from the section of "Dayeinu' in the Haggadah, that the bringing of bikkurim is the culmination of the redemption process, because that section ends by mentioning the building of the Beis HaMikdash, to atone for our sins, as the final item in a list beginning with our exiting Egypt that we have to thank God for. I would, however, like to suggest another way in which the process of bringing bikkurim constitutes the culmination of the redemption from Egypt, based on a teaching of Rav Yitzchak Luria, known as the Ari, and a comment of the Ramban on a verse in this parsha.
According to the Ari, the mitzvah of bikkurim serves as a correction, or tikun, for the sin of the spies. The spies brought back fruit from the land, and told the people that just as the fruits of the land are bigger than those in other lands, so, too, the people there are giants, and unconquerable. The Ari notes that the mishnah in Bikkurim which describes the process of designating the first fruits in one's field mentions as examples the same three fruits that were brought back by the spies: grapes, figs and pomegranates. By bringing the bikkurim to the Beis HaMikdash and thanking God for bringing us to the land and providing us with its fruit, we correct the wrong done by the spies and the nation when they reacted to seeing the fruit of the land by speaking against God and the land. I believe that we can find a hint in the parsha of bikkurim itself to this connection which the Ari demonstrates from the mishnah.
When the farmer brings his bikkurim to the Beis HaMikdash and presents them to the kohein, he says,, he says, " I have declared today to the Lord, your God, that I have come to the land that the Lord swore to our forefathers to give us" ( Devarim, 26:3). The Ramban points out the seemingly strange usage of the word ''hegadati'- I have declared, written here in the past tense, and, in one of his explanations, says that the farmer has made his declaration visually, by bringing his first fruits to the Temple. I believe that it is this visual declaration and its subsequent explanation by the farmer that constitutes a correction for the sin of the spies, as I will demonstrate.
In parshas Devarim, Moshe, in recounting the episode of the spies, tells the people that when the espies returned, they said, " the land is good" ( Devarim, 1:25)). We of course know from parshas Shelach that this is not exactly what the spies told the people. Rashi explains that this statement was made by only two of the spies, Yehoshua and Caleiv. However, this does not seem to be the simple meaning of the verse! I would like to suggest that here, too, the Torah is referring to a visual message. By bringing back the fruits of the land, which appeared to be so wonderful, the spies were visually saying that the land is good. Their subsequent message, however, contradicted what they said visually, and was meant to dissuade the people from wanting to enter the land. I believe that this is exactly what the Talmud in Sanhedrin ( 104a) is telling us when it says that the order of the aleph-beis in the book of Eicha, from chapter two and on, is out of sequence. Each verse in the chapters begin with a letter from the Hebrew alphabet,beginning with the latter aleph, but the letter 'peh' appears before the letter 'ayin.' The Talmud explains that this is because the spies gave precedence to the peh, or the mouth, over the ayin, or the eye. What this means is that the oral report that they gave the people about the land contradicted the visual report they gave through the fruit that they brought back. This incident of the spies is an example of the nefarious nature of evil talk, in that people who engage in it, who have an agenda in mind, will openly contradict through their talk that which is visually obvious.When the farmer brings his first fruit to the Temple and thereby visually declares how good the land and its produce is, and then follows up his visual message by a verbal declaration of God's goodness to the nation and to himself, he is thereby correcting the wrong committed by the spies.We still need to understand, However, how this process of correction also constitutes a culmination of the process of the redemption from Egypt.
In parshas Ki Seitzei, the Torah tells us to remember what God did to Miriam did on the way when we went out from Egypt ( Devarim, 24:9) . Miriam , as the Torah tells us in parshas Beha'aloscha, spoke lashon hora about Moshe, and was punished for it by being afflicted with tzora'as. why, however, does the Torah mention that the incident with Miriam occurred on the way when we were going out of Egypt? Don't we already know this? I believe what the Torah is alluding to here is that redemption from Egypt was actually a redemption of the power of speech. The Zohar in parshas Shemos tells us that speech itself was in exile in Egypt, and it was only through leaving Egypt that the people were able to use that power to articulate their tru, spiritual needs. By misusing the power of speech, we are saying that we do not have control over what we say, and are, in a sense, denying that aspect of the redemption from Egypt. Thus, when the farmer corrects the wrong of the spies, who used the power of speech to deny the visual message of the fruit they brought back from Eretz Yisroel, and, instead, now uses that power of speech to reinforce the visual message of that fruit, he is acknowledging his ability to control what he says, and, in that way, brings that aspect of the redemption from Egypt to its culmination.
