Rabbi 360

Last week we marked the festival of Shavuot, the holiday when we celebrate the story of Sinai–the revelation of the Torah by God through Moses to the Israelites. This holiday affirms the foundational idea of covenant and the centrality of Torah and sacred text in defining our relationship with each other and to the divine.

Like many of our Jewish festivals, there is both an historical and an agricultural foundation to the celebration. The revelation of the Torah on Mount Sinai is the “historical” reason. The agricultural reason, on the other hand, is the celebration of the first fruits of the spring wheat harvest.

This celebration would be marked with a ceremony, described in the Torah in Deuteronomy chapter 26. During the ritual, one would bring an offering of first fruits to the ancient Temple, present it to the priest, and recite a liturgy. Following the ceremony, one would then be welcome to enjoy the bounty of the harvest along with the community:

When you enter the land that your God is giving you as a heritage, and you possess it and settle in it, you shall take some of every first fruit of the soil, which you harvest from the land that your God is giving you, put it in a basket and go to the place where your God will choose to establish the divine name. You shall go to the priest in charge at that time and say to him, “I acknowledge this day before your God that I have entered the land that swore to our ancestors to assign us.”The priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down in front of the altar of your God. You shall then recite as follows before your God: “My father was a fugitive Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meager numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us. We cried to the God of our ancestors, and heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. God freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents, bringing us to this place and giving us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Wherefore I now bring the first fruits of the soil which You have given me.” You shall leave it before your God and bow low before your God And you shall enjoy, together with the [family of the] Levite and the stranger in your midst, all the bounty that your God has bestowed upon you and your household.

Deuteronomy 26:1-9

While the Torah does not specifically mention that this ritual takes place on Shavuot, it becomes associated with the holiday because Shavuot is mentioned in other places in the Torah as being the “Festival of First Fruits,” namely Exodus 23, Leviticus 23, and Numbers 28. All of these texts taken together create a framework for how one celebrates the holiday. [The association with the giving of the Torah comes in post-Biblical Jewish literature.]

Later Jewish tradition provides a more elaborate description of the ritual of first fruits, or, in Hebrew, bikkurim. In the Mishnah (2nd c.), the ancient rabbis provide more details:

How does one set aside bikkurim? One goes down into the field, sees a fig that ripened, or a cluster of grapes that ripened, or a pomegranate that ripened, ties a reed-rope around it and says: “Let these be bikkurim.” How were the bikkurim taken up? All [the inhabitants of] the cities would assemble … An ox would go in front of them, his horns bedecked with gold and with an olive-crown on its head. The flute would play before them until they would draw close to Jerusalem. When they drew close to Jerusalem they would send messengers in advance, and they would adorn their bikkurim. …While the basket was still on their shoulder they recite from Deuteronomy 26 until they complete the passage. …. They then deposit the basket by the side of the altar, bow and depart….Rabbi Shimon ben Nanas says: they would decorate the bikkurim [with produce] other than the seven species. But Rabbi Akiva says: they may decorate only with produce of the seven kinds.

Mishnah Bikkurim 3:1-9 (excerpt)

Here we have a description that is much more elaborate, that describes the gathering in one central place of the entire community, the presentation of the first fruits in special decorated baskets, and the recitation of prayer and song. The crop that is celebrated is not just wheat, but any “first fruit.”

So while most of our contemporary observance of Shavuot focuses on the celebration of Torah through prayer and special study sessions that go late into the night, we would also do well to remember and mark this time as a time of humility and hope for the growing and harvest season.

There is a beautiful confluence this year for Jewish communities in the Pacific Northwest, for as we celebrated our festival of the First Fruits, a number of the Native tribes in the Salish Sea region are holding First Salmon ceremonies this week. During these ceremonies, the first salmon of the season will be caught and ceremoniously presented to the community. The fish is prepared and served to all in attendance, and then its bones are returned to the water on a bed of cedar. Variations in the rituals may be found among different Nations, but the general theme is the same–an expression of gratitude for the salmon and a hope that the salmon run will be plentiful.

Those of us in the Pacific Northwest know how important the salmon are to the life and culture of the indigenous peoples of this region as well as to the entire ecology of the area. The forests and the waterways, other species such as the orca and the seals, as well as humans, are all dependent on this important fish.

[Currently there is a governmental debate about the possibility of breach the dams in the Lower Snake River to allow for the protection of the health of the salmon and the vitality of the region. Last week, on the eve of Shavuot, I was honored to be invited by Earth Ministry, a multifaith, statewide, environmental advocacy organization to speak on behalf of faith communities in support of the breaching of the dams as part of a federal government listening session.]

In reading and watching about the First Salmon ceremony, I was struck by the echoes between these ceremonies and the First Fruits ceremony described in our sacred texts. A short video of the ceremony from the Lummi Nation created a few years ago for the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission can be seen here:

This confluence of these spiritual observances should remind us that this season should be for us Jews an opportunity not only to celebrate Torah, and not only to celebrate agriculture and harvest in general, but to acknowledge and celebrate our relationship with our local bioregions. And it is another opportunity to learn from and listen to the Native people on whose land we dwell.

[As we learn, the “first fruits” we should perhaps be celebrating on Shavuot here in the Pacific Northwest are not only the seven species (barley, wheat, figs, dates, pomegranate, olive, grape) of the Torah and the Mishnah, but the salmon and other regional species. Any suggestions? What might it be for other regions?]

And since a theme of the Native First Salmon Ceremonies is our obligation to care for the land and water so that the salmon can thrive and return, let that be a lesson for us as well. As we present our First Fruits, let us remember that we are not only acknowledging humility and hope for a good harvest, but our obligation to create the conditions that will make that happen.