This week’s parasha – Ki Tavo – talks of the first fruits \/ Bikurim. Farmers bring the first fruits that blossom – of the 7 species special to Eretz Yisrael \/ the Land of Israel – to the Beit HaMikdash \/ the Holy Temple in Yerushalayim \/ Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

He says a text and he gives the fruits to the Cohen. The rich people who would bring fancy baskets of gold and silver – the Cohen would return the basket. Yet the Cohen would not return the baskets – made of reeds – of the poor people. Why?<\/p>\n

\n
1. The poor people worked hard to make the basket – Hash-m appreciates the hard work of the common man for a Mitzvah.<\/li>\n
2. The poor people – may have put the best fruits on top and the lesser quality fruits on the bottom – thus we didn’t want to embarrass him by taking out the fruits.<\/li>\n
3. The Cohen was sending a message that I’ll take this basket – so that, with the help of G-d – you will return next year with a gold basket.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

   The Mitzvah of first fruits is to show that all that we have we owe our first and foremost gratitude to Hash-m. We also do the redemption of first born boys and first born animals showing our gratitude that all we have is a Gift from G-d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

   This week’s parasha – Ki Tavo – talks of the first fruits \/ Bikurim. Farmers bring the first fruits that blossom – of the 7 species special to Eretz Yisrael \/ the Land of Israel – to the Beit HaMikdash … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,61,29,14,117,12,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-attitude","category-connecting-to-god","category-emunah-faith-in-g-d","category-judaism","category-mitzvah-commandment","category-self-improvement","category-service-of-g-d"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerusalemlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerusalemlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerusalemlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerusalemlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerusalemlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46296"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerusalemlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46300,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerusalemlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46296\/revisions\/46300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerusalemlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerusalemlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerusalemlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}