Parshat Ki Tavo: Meaningful Labor

Work can be an uplifting experience. Work can give pride to those who view the fruit of their labor and marvel at their accomplishments. It can enable men and women to provide sustenance and shelter to themselves and their families, and assist people on their way toward discovering the “good life.” However, work can also be demeaning and humiliating. Work can destroy an individual’s self-worth and self-esteem and can obliterate their very humanity. Instead of leaving from a day’s work, able to provide a home and food for themselves and their children, they find their pockets nearly empty and their backs and hands sore from excruciating labor. Rather than experiencing a life filled with work that uplifts and inspires, the individual finds himself or herself stuck in a monotony of pain, depression and mounting bills.

What is the differentiating factor between those who find their work meaningful and uplifting and those that come home everyday from their occupations empty, broken and dejected? Why do some take pride in their work and others only seek ways to escape from the torture they call their life? This week’s Torah portion, Parshat Ki Tavo, presents a possible explanation and solution to this quandary.

Moses, addressing the Nation of Israel, a nation that at that point in history had only recently been freed from the brutality of two centuries of harsh slavery, details the procedures the Israelites will follow when they come to the Land of Israel. The first law given in this Parsha is the law of bikkurim, of the first fruits. Upon entering and establishing sovereignty over the Land, the Jewish people are enjoined to bring the first fruits of their yearly agricultural labors to the Temple in Jerusalem and offer them up to God. At the moment of the transfer of the fruits from the one who toiled over their production, the farmer to the kohen, the farmer declares:

An Aramean sought to destroy my forefather, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there with a small number of people, and there, he became a great mighty and numerous nation. And the Egyptians treated us cruelly and afflicted us and imposed harsh labor upon us. So we cried out to the Lord, God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil and our oppression. And the Lord brought us out from Egypt with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm, with great awe, and with signs and wonders.

And he brought us to this place, and He gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now, behold, I have brought the first of the fruit of the ground which you, O Lord, have given to me.

The Torah is commanding the one who offers the fruit to make this declaration is creating a clear contrast between the existence suffered in Egypt and the life in the Land of Israel. Furthermore, Rashi highlights the contrast even more by mentioning that the law of bikkurim did not become binding until the land that they toiled on was their property and sovereignty was established on it.

The process of bikkurim, of the offering of the first fruits, establishes an important principle in meaningful work. Labor has the potential to provide a sense of accomplishment and pride to the laborer only when the laborer has, at least, some ownership over the work of their own hands. When work is completely and utterly
appropriated by others, and the worker receives, at the most, pennies for each product they produce, that is a form of slavery. Slavery demeans, dehumanizes and destroys a person, reducing them from an individual to a thing possessed by their masters. The slavery experienced by the Israelites in ancient Egypt was not only meant to produce a product but to destroy the soul of the slave and demoralize them from collective action. Therefore, Moses in the first commandment in this Parsha, enjoins the people to experience a work that has purpose and meaning.

Those that brought the bikkurim declared to the presiding kohen, to all those in attendance, to God and to themselves, that the work that produced those first fruits was their work; they planted the seeds, they tilled the ground, they reaped the fruits and they had the ownership over the product to do with it as they saw fit. By being able to make the choice to bring that fruit to the Temple, the farmer is exercising control over the work of his or her hands that someone who does not own the result of their labor cannot do. This is the differentiating factor between the labor done in ancient Egypt and that done in the Land of Israel. This is also perhaps the differentiating factor between those in our own modern era who experience their occupations as a source of pride and those that go from one torturous day to the next in the jobs they perform.

This Shabbat, with the lessons of bikkurim fresh in our minds, let us commit ourselves to find ways to take ownership over the fruit of our hands. Let us not give up hope in being able to find meaning and self-worth in our occupations. Similarly, if we are (future) managers, executives or owners of businesses, let us commit to try and find ways to share more with those who make our businesses possible; with the laborers who toil everyday, those that make our success a reality. In order so that we may “rejoice with all the good that the Lord, your God, has granted you and your household you, the Levite, and the stranger who is among you. (Deuteronomy 26:11)”