“This day you have become a people to the Lord your God.” (Deuteronomy 27:9)

It is a strange declaration in this week’s parsha, Ki Tavo.

Why now?

God had already called the Israelites “My people” while they were slaves in Egypt. They left Egypt together and crossed the sea together.

At Sinai, they received the Torah and entered a covenant with God. There, they were called “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Exodus 19:6)

Yet forty years later, as they prepare to enter Israel, Moses declares: “This day you have become a people.”

What changed?

Ki Tavo opens with the answer:

“When you enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you possess it and settle in it…” (Deuteronomy 26:1)

Only then begins the commandment of Bikkurim, bringing the first fruits. Standing on the Land with its produce in his hands, the farmer must recount Jewish history: the descent into Egypt, suffering, liberation and finally:

“He brought us to this place and gave us this land.” (Deuteronomy 26:9)

The Exodus was not simply about leaving Egypt. It was part of a journey toward somewhere.

Egypt gave us freedom. Sinai gave us the covenant. The Land gave us responsibility.

Israel was already a people in Egypt and a covenantal community at Sinai. But entering the Land changed the nature of that covenant.

Now Jews would have land, property, businesses, courts, borders, wealth and poverty. They would no longer simply receive God’s laws. They would be responsible for effectuating them through a society of their own.

That is why Bikkurim matters. Sovereignty does not permit the successful farmer to begin his story with himself. Holding what he grew on his own land, he must recite the history that put him there.

History creates the claim. Covenant creates the obligation. Sovereignty makes both real.

That gives “this day you have become a people” particular resonance after nearly two thousand years without Jewish sovereignty.

A people is not fully defined by what happened to it, what it believes or even the laws it accepts. It is also defined by what it takes responsibility for building.