Our Torah portion for this week is known as Ki Tavo. It begins with the 26th Chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy. The entire book of Deuteronomy is presented as a sort of last will and testament of Moses. Knowing that he shall not enter the Promised Land, Moses seeks to do what all parents do when they know their children will soon be beyond their help. Moses wants to warn them about all of the dangers that lie ahead. The focus of this particular portion is a set of instructions by Moses showing the Israelites how they should demonstrate gratitude toward God who brought them from slavery to freedom. The people are instructed to gather the first fruits of the harvest produced by the land that is now theirs.

“You shall put them in a basket and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His name. You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, ‘I declare this day to the Lord my God that I have entered the land which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.’ Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God. You shall answer and say before the Lord your God, ‘My father was a fugitive Aramean, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; but there he became a great, mighty and populous nation.”(Deuteronomy 26:2-5)

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“My father was a fugitive Aramean…,” should sound familiar to anyone who has listened year after year to the words of the Passover Haggadah. With these words the narration of the Passover story begins. In our Torah portion, the public recitation of Israelite history continues until the people’s arrival in the Promised Land. Except for Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, the entire generation that was released from the slavery of Egypt has died in the wilderness. Former slaves did not experience the triumph of reaching the Promised Land. The next generation of Israelites did not experience the tragedy of slavery in Egypt.

Moses is determined to join the two generations together for all time. The beneficiaries of the struggle for freedom and human dignity shall not be allowed to forget where they came from. Telling our story over and over, for hundreds of generations is the social glue that has kept us united as a people.

During the Begin years, members of the Carter administration would frequently complain that every meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister began with a history lesson. The Israeli PM would cite the relationship between the Holocaust in Europe and the need for a secure and defendable Israel virtually anytime his government was criticized for its diplomatic positions or military actions. Had Mr. Begin’s European and American adversaries studied our Torah portion for this week, Ki Tavo, they would have realized that reciting our history is basic to our DNA.

Rabbi Mark L. Shook is Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Temple Israel and Coordinating Chaplain for the St. Louis County Police Department.