First things first: Achieving a special role in the world

Shemot

Exodus 33:12-34:26

Numbers 28:19-25

Ezekiel 37:1-14

As a kid, I felt like my oldest sister had all the luck. Eleven years older than me (she reminds me that it is only 101⁄2), she got all the “grown-up” privileges and it didn’t seem fair. Comments that today seem ridiculous to me crossed my lips like, “Just because she is firstborn and 17 while I am 6, why does she get to drive?” I so badly wanted to sit in the front seat, but being much smaller did little to advance my case.

Driving, voting and generally expanded independence are functions of being older, but they apply to anyone who has been alive longer and are not restricted to the oldest in a family.

Indeed, although I understood it better with time, the same types of thoughts crossed my mind with each of my older sisters as they reached ages that offered privileges. Yet Judaism has a twist on this setup; it is only the oldest who has a special status. Being first in birth order, a position known as the “bechor,” brings with it many mitzvahs and special roles.

For example, it is the firstborn that were targeted and spared in Egypt, and thus were designated to be the Priestly class until the debacle of the Golden Calf led to the substitution of the Levites in their stead. There is a special mitzvah of redeeming the firstborn by giving five silver coins to the Kohen.

Firstborn animals are consecrated to HaShem. In Jewish law, once the sustenance of each member of the family has been provided for, firstborns receive twice as much of the remaining inheritance than any one of their siblings.

The fruits of the first three years of a tree’s life are off-limits. The first fruits grown in any subsequent season are consecrated and presented to the Temple in Jerusalem with fanfare and a declaration that encapsulates Jewish history, focusing its purpose on the land and its first fruits. Why all this focus?

To make matters slightly more complicated, the Torah reading for the Shabbat that falls in the midst of Passover begins quite understandably, talking about the holiday of Pesach.

Yet it then switches out of nowhere to the mitzvah of bechor animals. To explain this abrupt change of subject, the Rashbam comments that the reason for the commandment of offering bechor animals is because HaShem spared the firstborns of the Israelites in Egypt. But what is the big deal about being firstborn, per se?

The Sefer HaChinuch suggests that we give the first to HaShem to show that we know where our blessings came from. Yet this logic would dictate giving the best, and not necessarily the first. (Yes, you eldest children may claim that “first is best” but we the younger children beg to differ!)

One might then suggest that the difference between the first and later ones is that the first showed that something was possible. After that, we hope to repeat it again. But until the first, whether it is a child, a job, a relationship or a pregnancy, we have all sorts of anxiety as to whether it is possible at all.

By dedicating the first to HaShem, we show that we understand that the very possibility of something existing or coming to pass is a blessing from HaShem. Thus HaShem calls the Jewish people “Bni Bechori Yisrael” — “Israel my firstborn.” How are we HaShem’s bechor? There were clearly nations in the world before us!

Perhaps because we showed that something was possible. After the failures of Adam, Noach and all the generations in between, Avraham and Sarah showed that it was indeed possible for a family to live in accordance with HaShem’s instructions.

Thus we are a “firstborn” to HaShem. In the middle of the holiday of our national birth, we take to heart that we are a people with a special role in this world, a people whose role is to show what can be done.

We the Jewish people are all firstborns, and are responsible to achieve the greatness that derives from our special position in the order of the human family.

Rabbi Judah Dardik is the spiritual leader at Orthodox Beth Jacob in Oakland. He can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).