i. prescribed steps
"(1) It will be when you will come to the land, which HASHEM Your G-d gives to you [as] an inheritance, and you will possess her and dwell in her,
(2) [then] you will take from the first of all the fruits of the earth, which you will bring from your land which HASHEM your G-d gives to you, and you will put [the fruits] in a basket and you will go to the place which HASHEM your G-d will choose to place His Name there.
(3) You will come to the Kohan, which will be in those days, and you will say to him "I professed today to HASHEM your G-d that I have come to the land, which HASHEM swore to our fathers to give to us."
(4) The Kohan will take the basket from your hand and place it before the altar of HASHEM your G-d. And you will answer and you will say before HASHEM your G-d…"
These verses describe the mitzvah of hava'at bikkurim , the bringing of the firstfruits to the Beit Hamikdash. As the offerer draws closer and closer to Hashem, as he approaches the holy place, it is particularly jarring to hear him, in speaking to the Kohen, refer to Hashem as "your G-d". Has the speaker suddenly become distant from HASHEM, that he calls HASHEM "your G-d", as though to say 'You, the priest who takes my sacrifice, you may have some connection to this god, but this not my god, and not our god'.
Though one might want to say that being "your" is an incidental feature of G-d and that the speaker rather will express in terms personal to the Kohan that they two are dedicated to the same G-d; however, there are additional signs of disassociation of the speaker from HASHEM: It is also written that he will come "to the Kohan" and not 'before HASHEM', and also that he will say "to him [the Kohan]" and not 'to HASHEM'.
The speaker's statement hits my ears as an accusation: 'Kohan, you wear your fancy clothes and you live in this grand Temple, and you assert some privilege of holiness and claim some connection to some god who feeds you through our sacrifices, and that's fine for you. But what have I to do with this god? You had your position established long ago when that god had something to say to the rest of Israel, but my position is only as certain as the rains and just as secure as the infestations. Long ago I came to this land, and I have watered it with the sweat of my brow, and now I bring a sacrifice to your god who you say swore my land to the long dead fathers.'
ii. an echoing voice
It's possible to read this portion not as prescriptive but rather as prophetic; e.g., read "v-laqachta" not as 'you must take', and rather as '[it will come to pass that] you will take'. Pointing toward this understanding are the phrases "'asher yehieh ba-yamim ha-hem" ('which will be in those days') and "asher yivchar HASHEM Elokeikha l-shakein Shemo sham" ('which HASHEM your G-d will choose to place His Name there'). These phrases, in emphasizing future election by HASHEM, turn these verses about bringing first fruit from description of static ritual to history of what will be.
ii. verbs without antecedents
In (3), the speaker says, "higadeti" ('I declared' or 'I professed') - in the past tense -, but this is the first time this speaker speaks! When did the speaker previously profess? Why are the words of profession not written down when many of the speaker's words are recorded?
In (5), it is written "ve-anita ve-amarta" ('you will answer and you will say'), but the speaker who is to answer was not asked a question! To what implicit question does his answer refer? And why is it written "ve-amarta" ('and you will say')? -isn't this unnecessary? how will he answer but by words?
iv. pre-cedings
Unless we are to assume that the bringer of the first-fruits is lying, it must be that prior to saying "I professed …" in (3), the speaker had indeed professed to HASHEM that he came to the land, which HASHEM swore to the fathers to give to Israel .though such a profession is absent from the passage, the text does detail a series of actions that, taken together, constitute such a profession:
"… you will possess her [the land] and dwell in her, (2) [then] you will take from the first of all the fruits of the earth, which you will bring from your land which HASHEM your G-d gives to you, and you will put [the fruits] in a basket and you will go to the place which HASHEM your G-d will choose to place His Name there. (3) You will come to the Kohan …"
In light of this, let us read not "I declared today to HASHEM, your G-d, that (ki) I have come to the land…" but rather, "I declared today to HASHEM your god when (ki) I came to the land…" In this demanding series of actions, the speaker will satisfy a ritual obligation to give to HASHEM (from) the first fruits and, in this way, will profess some degree of dedication to the system of Beit Mikdash rituals.
But isn't this surprising? This is the same person who will say, not 'my G-d', not 'our G-d', but instead "your god". On one hand, the speaker will profess-by possessing, dwelling, taking, putting, going, and coming-firm dedication; and then, on another hand, he will make distance from HASHEM by saying "your god". Apparently, the speaker unravels within some conflict-perhaps he has become aware of this-: I execute carefully choreographed motions dedicated to HASHEM while at the same time I am deaf to the music motivating the dance. This tearing-away of dancer from dance is the awkwardness and dissatisfaction of many in the unfolding of Creation. We think, feel, teach, study, parent, grow, eat, sleep, breath, and we are disconnected from the ultimate source of meaning; in our embarrassed dance, we even pray and perform actions of goodness failing to hear and forgetting altogether the music who would invigorate the bundles of limbs falling upon themselves unaligned with rhythm, cadence, and melodic contour. We have come into the land given our parents, we take and put, come and go, and still we miss the world, we fail to meet the ground with wonder and awe and love.
From the tear between my motions and music, from this syncopation between action and attention, springs the possibility of raising up the dancer and dance in grand resolution. This potential for unification is the prelude of teshuva (lit. 'turning', to mean 'returning to holiness').
v. question-answer-question
Prior to answering in verse 4, the speaker must be asked a question. Now, while no question is pronounced, the priest does take the basket from the hand of the speaker. It is as though he is asking the bringer, 'Only my god? … if only my god, then I will take the sacrifice to offer for myself.' Then, further, the priest places the basket on the altar. This is like asking 'Not also your god? … if not your G-d, then we are done here, and you have no more connection to what you have brought from the land which you cultivated and which HASHEM gave you.'
Here, the speaker leaps. In this culmination of the labor of possessing, dwelling, taking, putting, going, and coming, he realizes-My G-d!-answers the priest's questions and calls out the truth which was inaudibly motivating all the action. As it is written: "ve-anita ve-amarta" - You will answer [the priest] and You will say [for yourself] - "lifnei HASHEM Elokeicha" - facing HASHEM Your G-d. The action of trying to do what's good-right-holy, without cleaving to the source of these movements, generates a conflict; and the conflict becomes a question; and this question utters answer from speaker returning the uttering back toward the realization of The Good-True-Holy. How is the leap accomplished?
vi. teshuva
The utterance of the speaker accomplishing teshuva may be able to guide us. In the speech that follows the passage we are considering, which begins "My father…", the speaker will reconnect with HASHEM through personal history-or rather through making the history personal. In fact, on Pesach, we use this passage to profess/retell the story of the Exodus instead of any from Shemot because it requires us to expand upon the bare bones it provides and thus make it our own. The history will become immediate and impressing in poetic comprehension of past action. In the speech, the speaker will do more than recall, he will re-envision, re-image, re-imagine. In outpouring poetic imagery-"mighty hand… outstretched arm"-the speaker will reveal the meaning, the inner truth, of the action. By imaging in poetic terms our histories, in order to reconnect motion with significance, perhaps we can offer up questions that will pull us into answering resolution, into realization of our intimacy with The One.