It’s easy to make promises about what we’ll do if we have abundance.
“If I win the lottery, I’ll give so much tzedaka. I’ll do endless chesed.” We’ve all said it, at least in our hearts. But here’s the truth: the challenge isn’t in making those promises before the blessing comes—it’s in following through once it actually arrives. The yetzer hara doesn’t bother attacking an empty bank account. It shows up when there’s something to grab hold of.

This is the deeper meaning of Bikurim, the mitzvah in this week’s parsha. When a farmer in Eretz Yisrael would see his first fruits beginning to ripen, he would tie a string around them and declare: “These are for Bikurim.” Before he even knew how the rest of the harvest would turn out, before he tasted a single fig or grape, he had already committed those very first fruits to Hashem.

That’s bitachon. Real trust. Not waiting to see how things play out, but living with the certainty that everything comes from Hashem and dedicating the best of it back to Him from the start.

And the Torah tells us that when you live this way, when you can hand over your first fruits without hesitation, **you unlock the ability to truly rejoice—vesamachta b’chol hatov—**to feel joy in all the good that Hashem gives you.

Bikurim remind us that bitachon isn’t about what we’ll do when we “win the lottery.” It’s about what we do right now, with what we already have, trusting that Hashem will continue to provide.