The Last Traveler

Sometimes the Torah asks an entire nation to wait for one person who is still trying to get home.

The Wait Is Worth It

The first mitzvah in this week’s Torah portion is the mitzvah of bikkurim, the first fruits.

This mitzvah was meant to express a Jew’s deep gratitude for all the good and abundance that G-d gives him. As an expression of thanks, a person would bring the first fruits of his crop to the Holy Temple and thank G-d.

However, there were a few qualifications.

First of all, the mitzvah of bikkurim applied only to the special fruits for which the Land of Israel is praised — the Seven Species: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates.

Second of all is a detail included in the beginning of the parshah. The Torah says, “You shall inherit the land and settle in it.” Rashi explains, based on these words, that the Jewish people did not become obligated in the mitzvah of bikkurim until they had conquered the Land of Israel and divided it among the tribes. That process — conquering the land and dividing it under Yehoshua — took fourteen years.

At first glance, this is hard to understand.

You could have said that as soon as a person received his portion of land, settled there, planted trees, and began seeing fruit, he should immediately be obligated to bring bikkurim. Even if other people had not yet received their land, he already had his field. He already had his fruit. He already had plenty to be thankful for.

But the Torah says no.

As long as the entire land had not yet been conquered and divided among all the Jewish people, nobody was obligated to bring bikkurim.

Why?

The whole point of bikkurim is gratitude. A Jew brings his first fruits to show that he is not ungrateful, that he recognizes all the kindness G-d has given him.

So if this person already received his portion in the Land of Israel, he is already living on his property, he planted trees, and he is enjoying the fruit — why shouldn’t he bring bikkurim and thank G-d?

After all, fourteen years passed before the land was fully divided. During that whole time, he may have been enjoying his fruit without bringing bikkurim.

The explanation is that bikkurim is not only about saying thank you for personal success. It represents gratitude for complete goodness, for a complete joy.

That is why Rashi says on the verse, “You shall rejoice with all the good,” that the special declaration recited when bringing bikkurim was said only during a time of joy.

And as long as there was even one Jew who had not yet received his portion of land, the joy was not complete — even for the Jew who already had his land and was enjoying his fruit. The fact that another Jew was still missing the joy of settling in his own portion of the Land of Israel affected everyone else’s joy too. A Jew cannot fully enjoy his own fruit while knowing that another Jew still has no land of his own.

That is why bikkurim could not be brought yet. (Based on Shulchan Shabbos, vol. 4, p. 205, from Likkutei Sichos, vol. 9, p. 152.)

Waiting for Everyone

We find a similar idea in connection with the prayer for rain.

In the Amidah, the central daily prayer, we ask G-d for rain during the winter months, and for dew during the summer months.

On Shemini Atzeres, Jews all over the world begin saying, Mashiv haruach umorid hageshem — that G-d “makes the wind blow and brings down the rain” — near the beginning of the Amidah. But on weekdays, we also add a separate request in the blessing for livelihood and produce: Vesein tal umatar livrachah — “Give dew and rain for blessing.”

At first glance, why do we need both? If we already say that G-d brings the rain, why do we need to ask for rain again later in the prayer?

The answer is that the first line is a statement. We are declaring the fact that G-d is the One who brings rain. But later, in the blessing for livelihood, we are asking. We are making a clear request: “Please give us dew and rain for blessing.” 

And that request does not begin immediately after Shemini Atzeres. In Israel, we wait until the seventh of Cheshvan.

The Alter Rebbe explains in his Shulchan Aruch, in the laws of prayer, why we wait. The Land of Israel is mountainous and needs rain right after the holiday. Really, it would make sense to begin asking for rain immediately after Sukkos. But the sages delayed the request for fifteen days, until the seventh of Cheshvan, so that even the last Jew who had traveled to Jerusalem for the holiday would have enough time to return home — all the way to the Euphrates River, the farthest settled area from Jerusalem — without being caught in the rain on the road.

The Rebbe points out (7 Cheshvan 5746), that this is remarkable.

Rain is not a luxury. Rain is essential. Without rain, crops do not grow. Everyone knows that life in the Land of Israel depends completely on rain.

On the other hand, the comfort of that last traveler — the Jew still walking home from Jerusalem — is not a matter of life and death. It is not that he cannot survive the rain. It is simply that we do not want him to be inconvenienced, delayed, or soaked on the road.

And yet, because of the deep love every Jew has for another Jew, the personal comfort of one Jew, even one who lives farthest from Jerusalem, matters to the entire Jewish people. So all of Israel waits to ask for rain because of him.

A Jew understands that if his prayer for rain will cause pain or discomfort to another Jew, even a Jew far away who is still walking home, then he cannot fully enjoy that rain.

So he gives up his own benefit and waits.

It is like parents who know that their child, even thousands of miles away, is suffering. They may have everything they need at home, but they cannot truly enjoy it while their child is in pain.

Complete Enjoyment

We find a similar idea with the manna, the miraculous food that fell from heaven during the forty years the Jewish people were in the desert.

In Parshas Behaaloscha, the people complained and said, “We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt for free, the cucumbers, the watermelons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic” (Numbers 11:5).

Rashi explains, quoting Rabbi Shimon, that the manna could taste like almost anything a person wanted — except for these foods. Why not these? Because they could be harmful for nursing mothers. As people would say, “Don’t eat garlic or onions because of the baby.”

In other words, the Jewish people could experience almost any taste they wanted in the manna. But these particular tastes were left out because they might affect a nursing mother and her child.

Now think about that.

The nursing mothers were only a very small percentage of the Jewish people. There were six hundred thousand adult men, not counting boys under twenty or men over sixty. And among the women, many were not nursing mothers. Some were not yet married, and others were already past that stage of life.

So the number of nursing mothers was a tiny minority of the nation.

And yet, those tastes were withheld from everyone.

The Rebbe explains (Likkutei Sichos, vol. 33, p. 76, and Behaaloscha 5728) that if the nursing mothers would see everyone else enjoying those foods, they might crave them too. So in order to spare them that discomfort, those tastes were removed from the manna for the majority of the Jewish people.

Again and again, we see the same message:

A Jew cannot fully enjoy something when that enjoyment causes pain to another person.

So what is the lesson for us?

In the Rebbe’s first maamar after accepting the leadership, Basi L’Gani 5711, he speaks about Avraham Avinu. The Torah says about Avraham, “He called there in the name of G-d, the G-d of the world” (Genesis 21:33).

The sages explain: do not read it only as “he called,” but as “he caused others to call.” Avraham did not only recognize G-d himself; he brought others to recognize G-d as well.

The Rebbe adds that if a person wants his own “calling out to G-d” to truly enter him and affect him, then he must also cause someone else to call out. He has to make sure that the other person not only knows about G-d, but is able to say it openly himself.

In simple words: a Jew cannot fully enjoy his own connection with G-d while knowing that there are so many other Jews who do not yet know about G-d at all. He cannot fully enjoy the prayers of Rosh Hashanah, or the atmosphere of Yom Kippur, if he has not done everything he can to bring another Jew closer.

Only when he brings spiritual joy to another Jew, only when he helps another person connect with G-d, can he truly enjoy his own personal relationship with Hashem.