This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, like the rest of Deuteronomy, continues Moses’s series of speeches to the Israelites before the Israelites enter the Promised Land without Moses. And just like the Torah portions for the last several weeks, this week’s Torah portion contains many, many laws that Moses gives the Israelites to help them create and continue living in a caring, peaceful community once they are settled in the Promised Land.
In the very beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Moses teaches the Israelites the laws about what to do with the very first fruits or products in their harvests. When the Israelites settle the land, a great number of them will become farmers, growing fruits, vegetables, and grain in their fields and raising farm animals both to eat and to work the land.
Every third year, Moses teaches the Israelites, they should set aside a tenth of their entire crop to be given to the priests, widows, orphans, and strangers living with them, so they can have food to eat. And when you do that, Moses tells the Israelites, you should say, “I have cleared out the special portion from the house, and I have given it to the Priest, the stranger, the orphan, and the widow, just as you commanded me to do. I have not sinned or forgotten to do any of your commandments.”
This Torah portion reminds us not only to remember to say “thank you” – to our parents, siblings, friends, and neighbors, when they have done something nice for us or cared for us, but it also reminds us that we need to be kind to those whose lives are not as easy as our own. No matter how much we have or how little we have, no matter how rich or poor we are, there will always be someone who is in need, there will always be someone who has less than us and needs our help.
In Pirke Avot (“The Wisdom of our Fathers”), Rabbi Tarfon teaches: “It is not our job to finish the task, neither are we free to desist from it.” This means, that we should not have to feel like we need to personally do all the work to make the world a better place, because that would be impossible. But at the same time, we cannot allow ourselves to feel upset and defeated, thinking that with so much to fix in the world, so many poor people in need of help and food, that our small amount of help we can give will never make a difference. Any amount of help we can give, any money we can give to tzedakah, any clothing we can give to the poor, any food we can give to the hungry—it makes a difference.
This week’s Torah portion, viewed through the eyes of Rabbi Tarfon and Pirke Avot, teaches us that not only must we be thankful for what we have, but we also must do our very best to help those in need, and we must have faith that our work in this world makes a difference.
There is a story of an old man who was strolling on the beach one day when he walked by a little boy who was reaching down to the sand and one by one, picking up starfish and throwing them abck into the ocean. The old man was curious and asked the boy, “Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?” The boy said, “The sun is up and the tide is going out, and if I don’t throw them then they’ll die!” The old man replied, “But don’t you realize that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it? You can’t possibly make a difference!” The young man listened politely, then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, and said, “Well, I made a difference for that one.”
Discussion Questions:
(1) When was the last time you said thank you? Who did you say it to? Why? How did you say it?
(2) If you get an allowance, could you give a tenth of it (10 cents from every dollar) to charity? How would that make you feel? Would it change your life? Would it change someone else’s life? Ask your parents to help you figure out how much money you could give in a year if you gave 10% (or a tenth) of your allowance to charity.
(3) What is one thing you can do this week to help someone? What is one thing you did last week to help someone?
(4) Have you ever made a difference in someone’s life? When and how?
(5) Does change happen slowly or quickly? What kind of change happens slowly? What kind of change happens quickly? Give examples of each.
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