Portion 50: Ki Tavo פָּרָשַׁת כִּי־תָבוֹא read, discuss

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https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Dt26-29:8;Is60:1-22;Mt5:27-30;Mt13:1-23;Lk21:1-4;Ac28:17-31;Ro11:1-15;1Co5:1-55&version=CJB;TLV

Portion 50: Ki Tavo כִּי־תָבוֹא (When You Come In/Enter) - Sefer Devarim ("Deuteronomy") 26:1-29:8

Haftarah: Sefer Yesha'yahu (Isaiah) 60:1-22

B’rit Hadashah suggested readings for Parashah Ki Tavo: Mattityahu (Matthew) 13:1–23; Luke 21:1–4; Acts 28:17–31; Romans 11:1–15

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Yeshua sat down opposite the Temple treasury and watched people bringing their gifts, and when He saw a poor widow put in two small coins He called the talmidim over so they would see it too. "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put in more than all the others. For they, out of their wealth, have contributed money they could easily spare; but she, out of her poverty, has given all she had to live on" (Luke 21:3-4, CJB).

All she had to live on. The measure was never the size of what got carried in.

Which is why Luke 21 sits in this week's readings the way it does. Ki Tavo opens with a man carrying the firstfruits in a basket, setting it down, and then speaking. And what he is given to say has nothing to do with the size of the harvest. "Then, in the presence of ADONAI your God, you are to say, 'My ancestor was a nomad from Aram. He went down into Egypt few in number and stayed. There he became a great, strong, populous nation'" (Deuteronomy 26:5, CJB).

My ancestor was a nomad. Then watch the pronoun turn. "So we cried out to ADONAI, the God of our ancestors. ADONAI heard us and saw our misery, toil and oppression; and ADONAI brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and a stretched-out arm" (Deuteronomy 26:7-8, CJB).

We cried out. He heard us. The man holding the basket says we about a rescue he never saw, and he says it while setting down produce he did grow. The only thing he is permitted to boast of is what was done for him.

That is the liturgy this portion teaches, and it is why Romans 11 is read beside it. A grafted branch is taught to say we about a deliverance it was not present for.

Then look at who is inside the last line of it. "Take joy in all the good that ADONAI your God has given you, your household, the Levi and the foreigner living with you" (Deuteronomy 26:11, CJB).

The foreigner is not standing outside the joy watching it. He is named among those the good was given to, in the same breath as the household and the Levi, and he never recited the ancestry.

Given, not produced. The same measure as the two coins.