Dear Yeshiva Family:
This week’s parsha introduces us to the special mitzvah of Bikkurim. After entering Eretz Yisrael and being blessed with its produce, a person takes the first of his fruits and brings them to the Beis HaMikdash.
Fascinatingly, the mitzvah requires one to speak “V’amarta eilav” — “And you shall say to him”. Rashi explains these words “She’eincha kafui tova” - you are demonstrating that you are not a kafui tov, someone who denies the good that he has received.
The farmer stands there holding the literal fruits of his success and the Torah tells him: Don't merely feel grateful, but you must speak it out!
Speak out where you came from. Speak about the land that Hashem gave you. Recognize the journey that brought you to this moment, and acknowledge that everything you are now holding in your hands is ultimately a gift from Hashem.
Apparently, hakaras hatov is not meant to remain merely a feeling somewhere inside of us. There is something about putting gratitude into words that forces us to recognize just how much we have been given.
Givers and Takers
A person enters this world as a complete taker.
A newborn baby gives nothing intentionally. Of course, he brings enormous joy to his parents simply by being there, by smiling, laughing, and being impossibly cute, but none of that is a conscious act of giving. His entire existence revolves around taking. Feed me. Hold me. Change me. Help me. And, appropriately, the world around him responds. Slowly, as a child grows, we try to teach him that the world does not revolve around him. First, we teach him to share. Then to notice another person. To say thank you. To give something up because somebody else needs it. Eventually, if we do our job properly, and if he does his, he begins the lifelong journey from being primarily a taker to becoming a giver.
Perhaps that journey is also at the heart of both hakaras hatov and anavah. Gaavah does not necessarily mean recognizing that you are talented. A person who is exceptionally intelligent does not become an anav by convincing himself that he isn't smart. A person who is a gifted speaker, successful businessman, tremendous talmid chacham, or wonderful parent doesn't need to pretend that he possesses none of those qualities. That isn't necessarily humility; sometimes it is simply a lack of self-awareness. True anavah is being able to recognize exactly what you have, and simultaneously recognize that none of it makes you the center of the universe.
You may indeed have tremendous talents. But who gave you the mind that possesses them? Who gave you the circumstances that allowed you to develop them? Who gave you the health to use them? Who put the right people into your life? And, of course, who gave you another morning in which to use them?
Everything is a gift.
And once a person truly understands that, the question changes. Instead of asking “What can I get out of the world with everything I have? he begins asking, “Why was I given all of this, and what am I supposed to do with it?”
That is the transition from taking to giving and the transition from gaavah to genuine anavah.
The immature person experiences himself as the center and everything else as existing to serve him. The mature person can recognize his own greatness without worshipping it. He understands that his abilities are gifts entrusted to him by Hashem, and therefore they come with a responsibility: What am I going to give back with what I have been given?
Marriage as a Training
Perhaps nowhere is this transition more important than when a person prepares to get married.
One of the most critical things for a young man to understand before standing under the chuppah is that he is not entering into a 50-50 business arrangement. He should not be approaching marriage with a ledger in his hand, making sure that for every unit of effort he puts in, an equal unit comes back.
His main focus and understaning should be that he is now accepting responsibility for another person.
I am going to provide this woman with safety and security. I am going to give her love and stability. I am going to create an environment in which she can thrive. I am going to take responsibility for building a home together with her.
In a certain sense, he is becoming the giver-in-chief.
Indeed, one of the very first things a husband does as he enters marriage is give his wife a kesubah — a document detailing the obligations he is accepting toward her. Before they have even begun their life together, he formally declares: I am responsible. I will provide. I will care for you.
Of course, a healthy marriage contains enormous giving in both directions. A husband receives immeasurably from his wife, just as she receives from him. But the mature way to enter marriage is not by asking, What am I going to get out of this? It is by asking, What kind of husband am I going to be? What am I going to give?
Sometimes people arrive at marriage before they have fully arrived at that emotional maturity. They are chronologically ready to get married, but some part of them is still living with the childhood assumption that life is primarily about what everyone else is going to provide for them. Marriage then becomes enormously frustrating, because the other person stubbornly refuses to spend every moment revolving around me.
But Hashem designed life itself to push us in the opposite direction.
As we grow older, giving becomes increasingly institutionalized into our lives. Marriage demands that we give. And then, im yirtzeh Hashem, children arrive — and suddenly the giving reaches an entirely different level.
A baby does not care that you are tired. He does not particularly care that you had a difficult day. He needs to eat. He needs to be changed. He needs to be held. He needs you at two o'clock in the morning. And slowly, almost without noticing it, another human being's needs become as real to you as your own.
Certainly, there is tremendous pleasure in all of this. We love our spouses. We love our children. We receive enormous nachas and fulfillment from giving to them. But that is simply part of Hashem's kindness: He made it pleasurable for us to become givers. The giving is still real.
And if we allow it to happen, marriage and parenthood become among the great vehicles through which Hashem takes the little baby who entered this world knowing only how to take and slowly transforms him into a person capable of living for others.
Life, then, is designed as a continual expansion of the self. We begin by seeing only ourselves. Then we make room for a spouse. Then children. Family. Community. Klal Yisrael. And ultimately, the more we grow, the more capable we become of asking not merely what the world can give us, but what we can give to the world.
Hakaras Hatov and Gaavah
There is a famous insight from Rav Yitzchak Hutner that perhaps brings all of these ideas together.
Rav Hutner points out that in Lashon HaKodesh, the word hoda’ah carries two seemingly different meanings. Hoda’ah means to thank, but it also means to admit — as in hoda’as baal din, when a litigant admits that the other side is correct.
Why should admitting and thanking share the same word?
Rav Hutner explains that buried deep within a person is a desire for independence. We like to believe that we can stand on our own. I don't need anybody. I can take care of myself. My successes are mine, my accomplishments are mine, and I got where I am because of what I did.
But then somebody does something for me.
And now, in order to genuinely say thank you, I first have to admit something. That I needed you.
There was something that I could not — or at least did not — provide for myself. You gave me something that I lacked. For this moment, I was a recipient and you were the giver. Every genuine expression of hoda’ah therefore contains a little hoda’ah — an admission. It chips away, ever so slightly, at the illusion of complete independence.
This is why hakaras hatov can be particularly difficult for a baal gaavah. Gaavah says, I stand on my own. I am responsible for what I have. Hakaras hatov forces us to acknowledge, No. I needed someone else. I received something from outside of myself. It turns out that gaavah and kefiyas hatov are not merely two unrelated bad middos. At their root, they may be closely connected. Both grow from a person's unwillingness to acknowledge that he is not the center, not completely independent, and not the sole source of everything good in his life.
Which brings us back to Bikkurim.
The Torah doesn't allow the farmer to walk into the Beis HaMikdash, put down his beautiful basket of fruit, mumble “Thanks, Hashem,” and leave.
He has to speak.
And he doesn't merely say thank you. He tells the story. He articulates where he came from. He speaks about the suffering in Mitzrayim, about Hashem taking us out, bringing us to Eretz Yisrael, and giving us the land whose fruits he is now holding.
He spells out the gift.
Perhaps there is a very practical avodah here for us.
We are accustomed to saying thank you. Hopefully we thank our spouses, our parents, our friends, our children, and the people who help us. But sometimes “thank you” becomes almost automatic. Someone hands us something: “Thanks.” Someone does us a favor: “Thank you.” We said the words, but did we actually engage in hoda’ah? Did we stop long enough to recognize what we received?
Maybe we should occasionally practice Bikkurim-style gratitude.
Don't just say to your wife, “Thank you”.
Say, “Thank you for taking care of that today. I know you were exhausted, and because you did it, I didn't have to worry about it”.
Don't simply tell your husband, “Thanks for helping”. Tell him what the help meant to you. Spell it out. Be specific. Allow yourself to acknowledge exactly what this person gave you and what your life would have been missing without it.
And perhaps marriage is the perfect place to begin. Earlier we described marriage as one of the great institutions through which Hashem teaches us to become givers. But marriage also forces us to become something else: grateful takers.
Because no matter how much of a “giver-in-chief” we become, the truth is that we are constantly receiving as well.
The avodah is to notice it and to admit it… and to say it out loud.
Have an amazing Shabbos!
Rabbi Moshe Revah mrevah2@touro.edu
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