Parashat Ki Tavo | Shira Bodnar, Rabbinic Intern | August 29, 2026

This summer. My dad. Turned. 81.

He was born in Russia and raised in Poland.

Right after the end of the Shoah, during which most of his family was murdered.

He grew up in an in an observant home, keeping.

Kosher and going to. School.

But the anti-Semitism that he faced in Poland was so intense that when he was a.

Teenager, he and his mother traveled.

By boat to Canada to escape.

That is the extent of what I knew

about my dad's childhood as I was growing up.

He just didn't talk about it.

I knew a bit more.

About my mom's family. History.

Most of her.

Father's family, too, was murdered in the Holocaust in.

Hungary.

Her father survived in.

Hiding and eventually ended up in Quebec.

Together with her mom after they.

Fled after they. Fled the Hungarian Revolution.

In 1956.

Even with

the small bits of knowledge that I had about my mom's family,

I felt completely disconnected from them as people,

and I felt the void of my dad's.

Stories in particular.

The obscurity around.

Them left me feeling unmoored. In the world.

I felt as if I had no connection to my ancestors and no connection

to my Judaism, other than the knowledge that it was in my blood.

I felt stuck.

I couldn't figure out how to move. Forward when so.

Much of my past.

Was shrouded.

In mystery and tinged with pain.

But when I began connecting to Judaism on my own, I finally plucked up the.

Courage and started.

Asking my dad to.

Tell me stories from his. Childhood.

His answer is always the same.

We'll see.

Or I need to find the photo albums first.

And the albums.

Of course, remain. Unfound.

Judaism places a heavy emphasis on transmission,

on tradition, on inheritance.

We inherit.

Tangible physical items like CDs tell us and fill in and the homemade family.

Hollow cover.

We pass down traditions and cultural connections.

Like Smith wrote songs, we sing around the meals and.

Seder. Rituals, and we pass down. Stories.

Both on the grand scale of the Jewish people, but also.

Those of our families.

When I began my own connection to Judaism, I felt a gaping absence of these.

First two inheritances.

The physical and the traditional.

And it really impacted my feeling of belonging in Jewish spaces.

I had missed out on 21 years of Jewish education, and I felt like an.

Outsider all. The time.

So I dove into my Jewish education as an adult.

I began studying Hebrew.

First learning the.

Alphabet on Duolingo and eventually studying with a.

Tutor.

I attended services every week.

I chose my own tallit, and I began learning how to lead.

Eventually, my learning led me to the cantorial school and subsequently.

Also the.

Rabbinical school at.

That's where I'm now studying.

For a long. Time I thought what I was missing was knowledge.

I imagined that if I.

Just learned enough Hebrew.

Spent enough time at school.

And work towards mastering enough liturgy.

And Talmud,

that that painful, lacking feeling I felt in Jewish spaces would disappear.

And I sense that this is a very human experience.

When we feel that something is.

Missing within ourselves, we look for.

Something to fill it that will make us feel whole.

We tell ourselves.

That if we just know enough, accomplish enough, make enough money.

Find the right. Person but the gap will close.

And sometimes.

For a. Moment. It works.

But often we arrive at the thing we thought would complete

us, and the feeling of the whole is still there.

In many ways.

My learning is transforming. Me.

It gives. Me a. Grounding and a home in Jewish life.

That I never could have.

Imagined even. Four years ago.

But that longing has not disappeared.

In fact, the. More I immerse myself.

In Jewish life. The more. I felt that pain.

I realized that.

What I was missing was not the physical or the traditional, but that.

Third kind of inheritance.

The stories of my people.

My father's. Family,

Jewish practice had become an essential.

Part of my. Life, but I didn't know the. Stories of the.

People who gave me that life.

In one way or another.

All of us spend our lives trying to locate ourselves.

Within a. Story.

We want to know where we've come from and.

Who the people. Are, who.

Have shaped the possibility. Of our lives.

Whether your stories are. Passed down.

Tenderly around the dinner table or remain fragmented, the search for connection.

Behind and beyond oneself is a. Part of our formation.

As people, we come to know.

Ourselves through our memories, through. Relationships, and through.

The worldviews that shape us as we're growing.

But there's also a.

Danger in looking behind ourselves for too.

Long.

It can be really easy to. Believe that if we can.

Only understand where we come from, that we might begin to understand ourselves.

We can become.

Trapped, searching our.

Pasts for the moments that made us who we. Are.

Instead of inhabiting the life. That's right in front of us.

And I have felt.

This through every.

Piece of my reconnection to Judaism.

I feel it every.

Day when I sit with my.

Mentor and her family at the Seder table.

On one hand, I feel. So grateful to.

Be with them,

to have been taken in by a chosen family and folded into their traditions.

And on the other hand.

I can't pull my focus away from the grief.

I feel that I was not handed down the order of my ancestors,

and then in feel that I have nothing to hand down myself.

I think this tension is particularly alive on a global scale too.

For the Jewish people, we are living in a moment when the painful.

Histories we have carried feel newly close.

Our stories of Jewish vulnerability rush.

Into the present.

Often before we have a.

Moment to distinguish what is happening now. From what.

Happened then.

Memory can be a source of.

Wisdom and growth, but it can also make it. Difficult for us to.

Imagine a. Future.

That isn't. Just a. Repetition of the past.

The past. Becomes a force that.

Doesn't just shape us, but actually holds us back

from imagining who we might become.

This month of Elul holds the.

Delicate spiritual.

Tension of how we look.

Backwards without getting trapped there.

This summer, Felicia.

Pointed out to me that. We are always.

Living between the past and the. Future.

But that Elul exists as this special time in the middle,

where we think about the past in.

Order to actually get to a future.

And in an.

Ideal world, a better future than what we could have.

Imagined. Before.

The work of the husband. Her nefesh.

Spiritual accounting invites us. To reflect.

On the. Past year of our. Lives.

I often imagine this accounting as a.

Record. Of my actions.

Who have I hurt?

Where have I. Strayed from my values?

Where do I need to make repair?

But before we can.

Answer these questions, we actually have to ask.

Another who is the person.

Answering them?

What are the stories that.

Have shaped my soul?

And perhaps more importantly.

What do I want to do with what I discover?

As a rule, is asking us to take.

Inventory of the stories that shape our souls.

The Torah offers us a model of how to do it.

In our parsha. This week, Key Travel.

The Israelites. Receive instructions on what.

To do when they first enter the Promised.

Land, beginning.

With the ritual of the First Fruits.

They are to take some of.

Each of the first fruits of.

The land and bring them to the common, the priest in a basket

and recite a declaration that is likely familiar to many of us.

Alchemy of Z. Avi.

My father was a. Fugitive. Arameans.

Vietnamese schemer via sham BIM tae may that he went down to Egypt with meager.

Numbers.

And sojourned there via his sham like goy gate.

Dol a tomb. Bhargav.

But there he became a great and very populous nation.

This declaration, which we also.

Read each year in the Haggadah during.

Pesach, continues on to tell the.

History of the Israelites and their journey, their slavery in.

Egypt. Their crying. Out to the Holy.

One, their freedom.

By God's hand. And their arrival.

To this land flowing with milk and honey.

The juxtaposition is striking.

The Israelites have harvested the first fruits.

These symbols of the present.

Emerging from the land that they have been searching for for 40 years.

But before they. Can enjoy.

These fruits, they must first acknowledge the journey that has brought them there.

And it is particularly.

Striking to me that this declaration is not even about the personal life.

Of the person reciting. It.

It is. Really the story of their.

Ancestors that they must face in order.

To enter the present.

And it's not even.

About the stories of their direct ancestors.

When each Israelite.

Recites as a meat or veg Avi, my.

Father was a fugitive. Arameans.

They're not talking. About their own fathers.

They're talking about Jacob, this.

Patriarchal figure who lived. Hundreds of years.

Before any.

Of them, but who still remained a symbol.

Of inheritance. And connection.

I find this profoundly comforting.

God is not asking.

Each and every Israelite to present their. Distinct family.

History, but rather. Is giving them.

A larger historical and.

Cultural context into which they can step and see themselves.

The collective. Memory of the.

Jewish people becomes the foundation upon which each individual can.

Begin their offering.

And thinking.

Of the comfort this brings. Me as someone who couldn't access my Jewish past.

I imagine it might have. A particular kind of.

Resonance too.

For those who find their Judaism through conversion.

There can be a very real pain.

And not having a direct Jewish past to draw. From.

But here in this. Recitation.

Our tradition. Is telling.

Us that whether you inherited your Judaism through family or stepped into it

bravely as the first in your.

Line, Jacob. Is your father.

Avraham and Sara become a part of the.

Name of someone.

Who was converted as a reminder of the bigger story that we are all

a part of, as a reminder of the stories that are the inheritance of each

and every member of the Jewish people, and in turn, each of our.

Responsibilities to hand down.

Missioner B

Karim three seven describes the recitation of that avi.

It says, target Shana, call me your daily court.

Correct.

Originally, all those who.

Knew how to recite would recite.

The whole mission.

You know your daily court, Maxine Utter.

While those who did not know how to recite.

Others would read it for them, and.

They would repeat the. Words.

When I imagine the scene, I see myself and.

My father in both of these roles.

In one sense, I am the one who does not know how to recite, because.

I literally don't know the story of my family.

I need him to recite at first, so I can learn it and.

Begin to recite it on my own.

And in another sense, he is the one who does not know how to recite.

After a lifetime. Of containing his memories,

he does not know how to begin re-opening them.

The Mr.

continues, though

meal Harvey hits Kenan shaggy humor clean at Mr.

Yoda admission. You know Yoda.

But when they refrained from bringing, they decreed that they should read

the words to.

Both those who could

and those who could not recite so that they could repeat after them.

Now, when the Mishna says when.

They refrained from.

Bringing, what does that mean?

The part Nora, a 15th.

Century Italian commentator.

On the Mishna, clarifies for us.

That people stopped.

Bringing their offerings of the first fruits.

Because they were so ashamed that they didn't know how to recite.

Reading this broke my heart, and it clearly broke the hearts of the rabbis.

Too, because in response, they.

Transformed how this ritual was carried. Out.

Instead of making only those who didn't know.

How to recite repeat after.

Someone else, they. Had everyone. Repeat.

Even those who already knew.

This adjustment to the ritual ensures.

That every single Israelite can bring their fruits.

Without judgment and shame.

In this way, not knowing.

One's story is neither a barrier to bringing their fruits.

Nor. An.

Excuse to step aside.

From the work of self-reflection.

Rather than either grieving their.

Disconnection from the. Past or getting.

Stuck in it.

This inclusion is what allows them to step into the present and join in the.

Imagining of their future.

I will likely never feel.

As close to my direct.

Ancestors as I. Want to.

I will never know what's me wrote.

They sang around. The Shabbat table.

I will never know what God meant to.

Them or what being Jewish. Meant to them.

And that is a real loss.

But I'm also beginning to.

Learn that my work around inheritance.

Is not only. About recovering.

What has been lost.

It is about deciding what to do with what has reached me

and how to proceed in the absence of what has not.

I can grieve.

What I did not. Inherit without its.

Absence, becoming the only. Story.

That I tell about myself.

I can learn what.

God meant to Moses. And the Israelites.

I can learn this me route from my.

Friends and mentors.

Who welcomed me to their Shabbat dinners.

And I can ask.

My father for his stories, even.

If the photo. Albums never turn. Up.

I can take.

All of these.

Fragments, what I have. Inherited.

But I have. Discovered what I have learned.

And what I have.

Missed on inheriting.

To build a meaningful life in the now.

In order to imagine the future that I will one day hand down

to someone else.

I have spent so much of my life

grieving what I did not inherit, that I didn't realize I.

Was creating an inheritance. Of my own.

It doesn't make the absence less painful,

but it does change what I do with it.

And this is where my questions about my own family.

History become bigger than. Myself.

They are questions for all of us, and they are.

Questions that this time of Elul is built.

To support.

Nefesh.

Spiritual accounting is not just asking us to.

Recover the. Past.

It is asking us to take an honest look at what has shaped us,

so that we can consciously decide what we want to bring into the future.

Which stories are shaping the way I move through the world?

Which ones do I look away from?

What have I inherited that I want to carry forward?

And what have I inherited that I want to transform?

What kind of. Story.

Do I want to write with my life?

The rabbis

understood that the first fruits. Was.

Never really. Just about the. Fruit.

It was about bringing ourselves.

Our ancestors inherited a story.

And cultivated something.

New from within. It.

We do not have to choose.

Between honoring our. Past and creating something new.

Of our own.

And in fact. This ritual. Demands that the past and the.

Future work in. Tandem.

First, we must remember, and then.

We must actually step into the present, tending the trees that will feed us as.

We each dream up our own.

Promised land.

Perhaps that is why the rabbis refuse.

To let anyone abstain out of shame.

Whether someone knew the words or not.

Everyone recited together.

Everyone brought their fruit.

Everyone brought. Themselves.

And everyone put in the work to arrive at the future.

We inherit the

soil, but we must grow the fruits ourselves.

We inherit stories.

Traditions. Memories, wounds.

And silences.

But what grows from them is not predestined.

It's a choice.

In these two weeks that we have left of a law.

May we dive. Wholeheartedly.

Into husband nefesh.

May we learn our stories.

Honestly so.

That we can bring our whole selves into the.

Present, then able to.

Discern what we want to carry forward and what we want to transform.

And may we participate with courage.

Intention, and.

The support of our. Communities in.

Shaping our lives into stories that we are proud to.

Hand down to those who come. After us.

Shabbat shalom.