PIKESVILLE, Maryland — The seventh weekly biblical portion in Deuteronomy, Ki Tavo, teaches that knowledge of history helps people grow and gives many other benefits, while ignorance of it is detrimental.
In Deuteronomy 23:3-5, the Torah instructs the Israelites to bring a basket of first fruits to the priest at the tabernacle and recite a verse that demonstrates their remembrance of the past. They say, “My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt and dwelt there while just a few in number, yet he became a nation there, great, mighty, and populous.”
The requirement to remember history highlights the fact that the present and future are not sufficiently knowable without understanding the past. It is vital. It is a part of our identity and a crucial source of wisdom.
While this requirement in Deuteronomy only suggests the need to remember, but does not explicitly state so, there are “six remembrances,” called 𝑆ℎ𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑎ℎ 𝑍𝑒𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑜𝑡 in Hebrew, that the Torah clearly mandates we must remember. These six events from Jewish history, which the Torah traditionally requires observant Jews to remember each day, are:
Exodus from Egypt: The miraculous departure of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. This encourages us to free ourselves and others from all kinds of slavery, even some enslaving habits.
Revelation at Sinai: The giving of Torah Laws and the Decalogue, which people call the Ten Commandments, where all the Israelites heard what God desired.
Amalek’s attack: The unprovoked attack by the Amalekite nation against the vulnerable Israelites as they left Egypt. It is a relevant command today. It teaches us to remove all kinds of evils.
The Golden Calf: The sin of the Israelites in worshipping a golden calf while Moses was receiving the Decalogue on Mount Sinai. Even today, people disregard the Divine will and engage in activities that could be described as idol worship.
Miriam’s punishment: The tale of how Miriam was afflicted with a skin disease for speaking negatively about her brother Moses. We need to learn the possible harm and consequences of speech.
The Sabbath: The requirement to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. The need to work for six days and enjoy the benefits that God provided us on those six days, as well as on the Shabbat.
These remembrances serve as practices to shape one’s thoughts and actions consciously. They are often recited from the prayer book, known as the Siddur, at the end of morning prayers.
Jews are not the only humans who recognize the importance of remembering the past. Many ancient wise people recognized the role of history as a guide, its ability to illuminate, the responsibility to remember, and the consequences of forgetting history. Cecero advised us, “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born will keep you always as a child.”Confucius taught, “Study the past if you want to define the future.” President Harry S. Truman recognized that, “The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know.”
George Santayana and many others stated, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Prime Minister Winston Churchill said, “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” The author Robert Heinlein wrote, “A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.”
It is a tragedy, a tragedy on the level of a catastrophe, that far more than half of the world’s population is ignorant of history, even their own people’s history. It is a plague that infected civilization, an early dementia. Even many Jews, who were able to survive many past plagues because they recalled the teachings of their religion to wash daily, while their non-Jewish neighbors did not and died.Many of these Jews today succumbed to a vicious antisemitism, criticizing fellow Jews and the State of Israel.
They, like their neighbors, went to school as children. The Jews learned about Judaism and life, while their neighbors learned about their culture and the basic sciences. However, neither continued learning after the basic schooling. In school, they could only learn childish ideas because of their age and undeveloped minds. As they grew older, they failed to increase their learning and absorb the wisdom of the past. What they knew was the information that children could understand, but it was insufficient for adults to live as they should. While they learned much in life, they lacked historical knowledge, which hindered their growth.
Professor Halivini’s commentary on Ki Tavo and the historical statement required to be recited when presenting the gift of new fruits to the priest can be used to summarize my prior remarks. He writes, “The present is incomplete without the past. Today’s harvest cannot engender the appropriate depth of appreciation without remembrance of history…. We do not understand the present without knowing the past…. In addition, examining what we do today in the context of history gives perspective to our decision-making. If all Jews were personally aware of the history contained in these verses, there would be none who could take the existence of the State of Israel for granted.”*
Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin is a retired brigadier general in the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps. He is the author of more than 50 books.
1 thought on “Ki Tavo: The Value of Remembering History”
Thank you Sir.