{Originally posted to Rabbi Weinberg’s website, The Foundation Stone}
Each mile on the drive upstate, away from New York, was a step away from the hustle and bustle of the city and our daily responsibilities. The rolling landscape of farmland and pastures was calming. Riverdale, compared to the city, is a different world, but cannot compare to the pastoral scenes of our drive. The childhood dream of living the simple life returned full force. I then heard that other voice, “with your back!” “Where will you find a synagogue?” I turned to my wife and wondered aloud, “How can these farms, which demand so much stressful work, project such peace?”
I cannot approach Shavuot without reconnecting to my childhood dream of becoming a farmer. Studying Mishnayot Bikkurim, the Laws of Bringing First Fruits to the Temple in Jerusalem, with all the scenes of tens of thousands of people marching together to Jerusalem with personally decorated baskets filled with the fruit of their labor, being met by huge crowds outside Jerusalem’s walls, strangers opening their homes to people from all over the Holy Land, and then, going to the Temple to present my basket, dance with the Kohen, and rejoicing over my place in Jewish history (Deuteronomy, 26:1-11), triggered those dreams of Farmer Simcha.
We associate Shavuot with Revelation, but the Torah verses focus on farming: “And the Festival of the Harvest of the first fruits of your labor that you sow in the field (Exodus 23:16).” “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not remove completely the corners of your field as you reap and you shall not gather the gleanings of your harvest; for the poor and the proselyte shall you leave them; I am God, your Lord (Leviticus 23:22).” “You must count seven weeks for yourself. Begin counting the seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain. You must keep the Feast of Shavuot to God, your Lord, with a tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you must give to God, your Lord, in proportion to how much God, your Lord, has blessed you. You shall rejoice before God, your Lord, -you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow who are among you-in the place where God, your Lord, has chosen to place His name (Deuteronomy 16:9-11).”
There are parts of me that are comfortable with not being a farmer: My back, the hard work, and, I always wonder how someone who grows impatient in the airport security line could remain calm in a crowd of thousands waiting to present their First Fruits to the Kohen. There is another uncomfortable issue: My basket. I, of course, would have my wife decorate it, but, it will not be adorned with gold, silver, diamonds, and I can picture many in the crowd comparing their baskets to mine. With my luck, I would be directly behind a billionaire with an 18 Karat gold basket, and listening to the Kohen ooh and ahhh until he glances at my much smaller basket adorned with Las Delicias delicacies. The “yummy, how delicious,” will not quite help the Temple treasury as much as the Cohen’s tummy.
How did people manage the inevitable comparisons of fruit, baskets, and offerings? “You shall rejoice before God, your Lord,” was the theme, combined with, “in proportion to how much God, your Lord, has blessed you.” We approached the Temple rejoicing in our blessings. There were no comparisons. There was no envy. In Rashi’s famous words, “As one person, with one heart.” We rejoiced in each others’ blessings.
