You’re you, I’m me – but we’re all part of the Nation

“Looking out for Number One” is a tried-and-true path to success. After all, as the great sage Hillel said, “if I am not for myself, who will be for me?” Individual action and achievement is one of the most important aspects of creativity, inventiveness, social and scientific progress. The willingness to buck the popular trend, to tread a lonely path, is one of those things that helps us grow as individuals, and as societies.

This week’s parsha, Ki Tavo, addresses this idea of individual effort, but it also sends a message that for Jews, individual success is tethered to the success of the nation. “All Jews are responsible for one another,” the Talmud teaches us (Shavuot 39a). While many take that principle as relating to helping out other Jews in trouble, Ki Tavo – in describing the commandment of Bikkurim, or bringing an offering of the “first fruits” to the temple – tells us that this collectivism refers to success, as well. Without national success, there is no individual success – because of our collective responsibility to each other.

The “first fruits” are exactly what they sound like; the first pomegranates, olives, wheat, and other crops that sprout in a farmer’s fields. These first harvests are to be given to the Cohen at the Holy Temple, one of the gifts the Torah grants Jewish priests as compensation for dedicating their lives to spirituality. When the farmer brings his gifts to the Temple, the Parsha tells us that he recites a speech, basically thanking G-d for his ability to bring those gifts – and for the fact that G-d performed miracles for his ancestors, taking them out of Egypt and bringing him to the Land of Israel. Without those, there would be no gifts, no Cohen, and no Temple – and that farmer would not be able to enjoy the success of his farm, and instead likely still be a slave in Egypt. That his farm is able to produce fruits that he can enjoy and share with the Cohen is the result of that national salvation – and without the nation there would be no individual success.

That message is further emphasized later in the Parsha. Moshe describes a dramatic event which is to take place when the Jewish people enter the Land, where six of the twelve tribes will stand on Mount Gerizim – the “mountain of blessing” – while the other six will stand on Mount Eval, the “mountain of curse.” With the Priests and Levites standing in between as witnesses, those on either mountain will recite passages connected to sins that could be committed in private.

“Cursed be the man who constructs an idol,” those on Mount Eval recite, while those on Mount Gerizim bless those who do not act in that way. Idols are generally found in the home; no one would know if an individual was worshiping one. “Cursed be the man who violates his neighbor’s border” – with an individual secretly moving his border fence just a few feet into his neighbor’s property. Without witnesses, who would know? “Cursed is he who sleeps with daughter-in-law,” a sin that would certainly be done in private, and would affect only the individual.

But the fact that the perpetrators of these sins are cursed (while the ones who refrain from them are blessed) in a public forum shows us very clearly that for Jews, there are no “individual” sins. Just as the success of the individual farmer is tied to the success of the nation, so the transgressions of the individual are tied to those of the nation. When we thank G-d for our individual success, we bring blessing to the entire Jewish people – and when we sin, we bring the opposite to the people.

We live today in a very atomized society – one where many people don’t even know the names of the people they live next door to. We have to realize that what we do affects others – and what they do affects us. People were not meant to live atomized and highly individualized lives. With all our personal efforts and work, we’re still part of a collective – and Parshat Ki Tavo shows us just how much a part of that collective we really are, every day of our lives.