Parshas Ki Savo
“And you shall say before Hashem your G-d, “I have destroyed the holy things from the house!”” (Devarim 26:13)
It is a positive commandment to confess before Hashem and to say with our mouths in His temple that we have fulfilled our obligation of separating the correct Terumos and Ma’asros (all the different types of tithes) from our fruit and that we have not kept any of them behind in our property which we have not yet given to the correct people. This is called the commandment of the confession of the Ma’aser, and about this the verse says “And you shall say before Hashem your G-d, “I have destroyed the holy things from the house!””.
Amongst the roots of this commandment are that since the main advantage of a person over the other creations is his ability to speak (as all of the other movements of a person can be replicated by animals) it follows that there are many people who are scared to defile their speech (which is their great asset) more than they are scared to sin by deed or action. Since the obligation to tithe our fruit is a great and important matter, and also that the livelihood of the Priests who are the servants of Hashem are dependent on it, it was part of His kindness over us to engineer that we should not sin in these matters to warn us specially to separate them and not to derive benefit from them, and also that we should give testimony about ourselves in the holy temple that we have not lied about it nor have we held back any part of them. All of this is so that we are very careful about the matter.
This commandment applies when the temple was standing to men. One who does not make this confession when the temple was standing, has transgressed this commandment.
