“David Harbater is a master teacher and an inspired reader with a thousand theological insights”

Parashat Ki Tavo contains one of the Torah’s most beautiful expressions of gratitude.

When the Israelite farmer brings his first fruits to the Temple, he does not simply thank God for a successful harvest. He tells a story:

“My father was a wandering Aramean… the Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us… We cried out to the Lord… and the Lord brought us out of Egypt… and He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Only then does he declare: “And now, behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land that You, Lord, have given me.”

The farmer is grateful not merely for figs and grapes. He is grateful for the astonishing transformation of Jewish history: from powerlessness to freedom, from wandering to rootedness, from slavery in another people’s land to sovereignty in his own.

But what happens when life in that land is deeply troubled? What does gratitude mean when so much around us feels painful, frustrating, and frightening?

Why do the Jewish people need a sovereign state?

Modern Zionism offered several powerful answers to that question.

Political Zionism, most famously associated with Theodor Herzl, argued that Jews needed a state because Jewish life in the Diaspora had become politically untenable. Antisemitism was not merely a social prejudice that could be overcome through emancipation and integration. Jews remained a vulnerable minority dependent upon the goodwill of others. Sovereignty would give the Jewish people political independence, physical security, and the ability to determine their own fate.

Cultural Zionism, associated especially with Ahad Ha’am, offered a different argument. The Jewish problem was not only physical insecurity but spiritual and cultural erosion. Assimilation threatened to drain Jewish life of its distinctiveness. The Land of Israel therefore needed to become a great Jewish cultural center—a place where Hebrew language, literature, learning, and creativity could flourish and radiate outward to Jewish communities throughout the world.

Labor Zionism, articulated in different forms by figures such as A. D. Gordon and the pioneers of the Second Aliyah, added yet another dimension. Centuries of exile had distorted Jewish economic and social existence. Jews needed to return to productive labor, work the soil, build communities, and create a healthy national society. Sovereignty would enable the Jewish people not simply to survive but to remake themselves.

Each of these visions captured something essential. But Parashat Ki Tavo suggests another answer.