Incomplete Histories, Unfinished Prayers: Finding God in the Ordinary (Ki Tavo)
This week’s Torah portion, Ki Tavo, offers two significant prayers. The first is a familiar one, the recitation of “Arami oved avi”:
“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 God 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… (Deut. 26:5–10)”
We chant it every year at the Passover Seder, telling the origin story of our people as we arrive in the land of Israel. Ki Tavo literally means “when you arrive.” So, at the end of Moshe’s life, he reminds the people: When we arrive in the land, our first expression must be gratitude.
But if you look closely at Arami oved avi, there’s something striking about the story it tells — and doesn’t tell. It skips over Sinai, and it skips the splitting of the sea. It moves quickly from the harshness of servitude in Egypt to the brief journey through the desert and ends with the arrival in the promised land. Isn’t that interesting? Why omit such central events like the giving of the Torah at Sinai and the splitting of the sea?
Here we are, finally arriving, and we are commanded to bring the first fruits of our land and recite this incomplete history. It focuses on the hardships and the arrival, but not on the peak moments. The omission of these highlights feels intentional, drawing attention to the journey, the struggle, and the gratitude upon arrival, rather than the miraculous interventions along the way.
This prayer speaks to our need to remember where we’ve come from — that the blessings we enjoy now were not always so. But in this moment of reflection, as we prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, in the midst of war and struggle, what parts of our story do we tell? What do we include, and what do we leave out?
This has not been a year of roses. Jewish history, too, has never been just good things. Right now, our family is not yet whole. The war is not over. Nearly 100,000 of our sisters and brothers in Israel cannot return to their homes in the north. What do we say in moments like these, when we bring our offerings and tell our story?
Would we include Sinai, the moment of divine encounter and purpose? Would we include the splitting of the sea, a moment of liberation at great cost? There is wisdom in the midrash that God rejects triumphant singing when others die, even those who would harm us. How do we carry that forward into our prayers this season? What will be the content of our prayers? What will we be singing about?
The second prayer in Ki Tavo follows when we bring ma’aser, the gifts of our own bounty for the vulnerable in our community. The farmer says,
“I have cleared out the consecrated portion from the house; and I have given it to the [family of the] Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, just as You commanded me; I have neither transgressed nor neglected any of Your commandments: I have not eaten of it while in mourning, I have not cleared out any of it while I was impure, and I have not deposited any of it with the dead. I have obeyed my God; I have done just as You commanded me. Look down from Your holy abode, from heaven, and bless Your people Israel and the soil You have given us, a land flowing with milk and honey, as You swore to our fathers. (Deut. 26:13–15)”
My dear teacher, Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, reminds us that both prayers follow mundane activities — bringing first fruits and providing for the poor. These actions, on the surface, don’t seem transcendent. But in reciting a blessing, we are drawn beyond the limits of the moment, connecting the everyday to the Divine. Rabbi Artson points here to Rabbi Max Kaddushin’s notion of “normal mysticism” — Judaism’s invitation to experience the presence of God in the ordinary acts of daily life.
As we navigate the complexity of our world — especially now, as we think of those in Israel, those still held hostage, those who can’t return to their homes — I invite us to open our hearts. Judaism teaches us to see beyond the immediate, to hope for peace when it seems unlikely, to demand dignity when it feels so far away. To be a “normal mystic” means to notice the miracles in the mundane, to believe that through our choices and actions, we can create the beauty and goodness we seek.
As we approach this new year, let’s take a breath and open our hearts to the possibility that we can be the miracle we are waiting for. Our openness to this belief is what will carry us forward.
May we all strive to be normal mystics in our extraordinary world.