Parashat Ki-Tavo begins with the mitzva of bikurim, which requires that a farmer bring his first fruits to the kohen administering in the Beit Ha-mikdash and recite a special declaration. The syntax of the introductory declaration to be made by the farmer has troubled numerous commentators: "Higadeti hayom le-Hashem Elokekha ki vati el ha-aretz asher nishba Hashem la-avoteinu latet lanu" (26:3). This sentence literally translates as, "I have told the Lord your God this day that I have entered the land that the Lord had promised our forefathers to give us." The obvious difficulty in this sentence involves the word higadeti – "I have told." What does the farmer mean when he says that he has "told" God that he has entered the land? This difficulty has given rise to alternate definitions of the word higadeti. Most famously, perhaps, Targum Yonatan translates this word as "I give thanks and praise." The farmer thus declares that he gives praise and thanks to the Almighty for bringing him to the land promised to the patriarchs.
The Ketav Sofer suggests a different, particularly novel, reading of this verse. He makes reference to the Rambam's comments in The Guide for the Perplexed, where he explains the purpose of bikurim as intended to foster a sense of control and restraint over one's physical instincts. A farmer who has toiled and invested immense effort in cultivating the land and harvesting its produce is very eager to finally partake of the season's first fruits. The Torah demands that he deny himself the first products of his labor and consecrate them to God, thereby training the farmer in the art of self-restraint. This skill, as the Rambam discusses in several contexts, is necessary for a person to focus his attention, time and energies onto more meaningful and sublime pursuits, rather than focusing on physical and material pleasures and comforts.
On the basis of this approach towards the mitzva of bikurim, the Ketav Sofer suggests an explanation for the aforementioned verse. The farmer enters the Temple and declares that through his fulfillment of this mitzva, he "tells" – meaning, he expresses – the fact that he has "come into the land that the Lord had promised our forefathers to give us," that he perceives his life in Eretz Yisrael as his forefathers did. As the Ramban notes in his commentary to a later verse (26:15), nowhere in God's promises to the three patriarchs does He describe the promised land as "a land flowing with milk and honey," an appellation that is used numerous times later in the Torah in reference to Eretz Yisrael. Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov did not concern themselves with the delights and luxuries of the Land of Israel, and were content with the knowledge that this land is promised to their descendants insofar as it is the land chosen for them by the Almighty. By bringing bikurim, denying himself the first of the land's produce, the farmer affirms that his perspective on the nation's existence in Eretz Yisrael is the same is that of the patriarchs, that he looks upon the soil he tills as "the land that the Lord had promised our forefathers." He approaches the land not as a source of grain and sweet fruits, of wealth and luxury, but rather as an opportunity for Am Yisrael to actualize their spiritual potential and achieve the closest possible relationship with their Creator.
According to the Ketav Sofer, then, the underlying purpose of bikurim is to reinforce the farmer's emotional and cognitive connection to his past, to the origins of our nation's existence in Eretz Yisrael. Indeed, the mikra bikurimproclamation, presented by the Torah in the subsequent verses, briefly recalls the story of the Egyptian bondage, the Exodus, and Benei Yisrael's entry into the land. As the nation works to cultivate and develop their country, they are obliged to never lose sight of their roots and the sacred purpose for which they are there.
Courtesy of Yeshivat Har Etzion - www.etzion.org.il