Tran Trong Duyet, jailer and chief warden of Vietnam's Hoa Lo Prison (sardonically called the "Hanoi Hilton") from 1967 to 1973, may be responsible for making an American hero. Tran died last month at the age of 92, long after his stint overseeing the torture of American prisoners of war. His most notable captive was a pilot named John McCain. 

In 2008, Senator McCain accepted the Republican Party's nomination for President at the Republican Convention by recalling that his love for the United States only developed while he was in Tran's prison, where he was abused and humiliated for five years. McCain said:

I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else’s. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency; for its faith in the wisdom, justice and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again. I wasn’t my own man anymore. I was my country’s.

Senator McCain admitted that he felt most like an American when he was a stranger in a strange land. That formative experience led him down a path of public service that lasted well past his military career, into the halls of Congress and almost the White House. And forever thereafter, he expressed his fealty to the United States through concrete action. 

The birth of our nation was also necessarily as prisoners. Our cradle was Mitzrayim. Our forefather Avraham was promised:

יָדֹ֨עַ תֵּדַ֜ע כִּי־גֵ֣ר יִֽהְיֶ֣ה זַרְעֲךָ֗ בְּאֶ֨רֶץ֙ לֹ֣א לָהֶ֔ם וַֽעֲבָד֖וּם וְעִנּ֣וּ אֹתָ֑ם אַרְבַּ֥ע מֵא֖וֹת שָׁנָֽה

You shall surely know that your seed will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will enslave them and oppress them, for four hundred years.

Our nation was formed among former prisoners of war liberated from Egypt, who marched to Sinai and formed a covenant with God, and once again in the plains of Moav, before entering the Land of Israel. 

There was a gap of hundreds of years between the promises to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov that they would be the fathers of a great nation living in safety and security within Eretz Yisrael, and the fulfillment of those promises. The completion was delayed for forty years in the  wilderness followed by the military and political fulcrum that was the capture and settlement of the land. Those formative generations prepared us for the responsibilities of finally inhabiting Eretz Yisrael. 

Significantly, we have a ceremony that formally declares Mission Accomplished, a ritual that marks the fulfillment of the promises to our avos, and teaches us to see ourselves as living in the moment for which they prayed:

וְהָיָה֙ כִּֽי־תָב֣וֹא אֶל־הָאָ֔רֶץ אֲשֶׁר֙ יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ נֹתֵ֥ן לְךָ֖ נַֽחֲלָ֑ה וִֽירִשְׁתָּ֖הּ וְיָשַׁ֥בְתָּ בָּֽהּ

And it will be, when you come into the land which the Lord, your God, gives you for an inheritance, and you possess it and settle in it,

You shall take of the first of all the fruit of the ground, Bikkurim, which you will bring from your land, which the Lord, your God, is giving you. And you shall put [them] into a basket and go to the place which the Lord, your God, will choose to have His Name dwell there.

And you shall come to the kohen who will be [serving] in those days, and say to him, "I declare this day to the Lord, your God, that I have come to the land which the Lord swore to our forefathers to give us."

And the kohen will take the basket from your hand, laying it before the altar of the Lord, your God.

And then, a strange, seemingly unnecessary word. It comes time for the farmer who has brought his Bikkurim to speak:

וְעָנִ֨יתָ וְאָֽמַרְתָּ֜ לִפְנֵ֣י יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֗יךָ אֲרַמִּי֙ אֹבֵ֣ד אָבִ֔י וַיֵּ֣רֶד מִצְרַ֔יְמָה וַיָּ֥גָר שָׁ֖ם בִּמְתֵ֣י מְעָ֑ט וַֽיְהִי־שָׁ֕ם לְג֥וֹי גָּד֖וֹל עָצ֥וּם וָרָֽב

And you shall answer and say before the Lord, your God, "An Aramean [sought to] destroy my forefather, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there with a small number of people, and there, he became a great, mighty, and numerous nation.

The farmer links himself to the generations before him. This little basket of figs and pomegranates contains not just fruits that I grew. It represents so much more. This is the moment Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov were promised. I am living their dream. An Aramean sought to destroy my forefather, and now I am here, expressing what he was living for. 

We ought to dwell on a seemingly extraneous word:

וְעָנִ֨יתָ וְאָֽמַרְתָּ֜ לִפְנֵ֣י יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֗יךָ

And you shall answer and say before the Lord, your God

Just say it, Mr. Farmer! Why וְעָנִ֨יתָ?

That little word וְעָנִ֨יתָ indicates a response to something. For example, When Miriam led the women in song after Krias Yam Suf:

וַתַּ֥עַן לָהֶ֖ם מִרְיָ֑ם שִׁ֤ירוּ לַֽיהֹוָה֙ כִּֽי־גָאֹ֣ה גָּאָ֔ה ס֥וּס וְרֹֽכְב֖וֹ רָמָ֥ה בַיָּֽם

And Miriam called out to them, Sing to the Lord, for very exalted is He; a horse and its rider He cast into the sea

As the Gemara Sotah 30a explains, Moshe said the Song to the men, and they answered after him, and Miriam said the song to the women [and they too repeated it]. מֹשֶׁה אָמַר שִׁירָה לָאֲנָשִׁים – הוּא אוֹמֵר וְהֵם עוֹנִין אַחֲרָיו – וּמִרְיָם אָמְרָה שִׁירָה לַנָּשִׁים. 

So, וְעָנִ֨יתָ וְאָֽמַרְתָּ֜ by Bikkurim must also be a response to something, but what? Where was the question to which we respond: אֲרַמִּי֙ אֹבֵ֣ד אָבִ֔י?

Perhaps the question was not one posed by the Kohen to the farmer, and not even posed in the present day. The question was lingering in the air from previous generations. It is the sentiment of all the mothers and the fathers who asked, When? The ancestors who toiled but did not see the fruits of the labors and who wondered, When will this all matter? What am I working for?

Until one day, their great-grandchild takes a little basket of fruit to the Kohen in the Beis Hamikdash in the land of Israel, and triumphantly answers that question:

וְעָנִ֨יתָ וְאָֽמַרְתָּ֜ לִפְנֵ֣י יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֗יךָ

I, the humble farmer, am the answer to that question. I am the result of the struggles of my forebears. They did it for me. They loved this land and its people so much that they laid the groundwork for my success, even as they struggled through many challenges. 

They loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. Yes, they had many doubts and questions along the way, but now, little me is the answer to those questions. How can I not demonstrate hakaras hatov for what I inherited?

*

In our lives, we often see dreams deferred. If it can’t happen to me now, perhaps it will happen one day. If not to me, perhaps for my child or grandchild. If not here, perhaps there. What we can’t attain at this moment, we are forced to delay for an unknown period of time. That’s just the way the world works. One day there will be an answer, because no prayer goes to waste. 

We’re about to spend a lot more time in shul, beginning Motzei Shabbos with Selichos and continuing through a majestic season of closeness with Hashem. Lest we think that prayer is a magic bullet with instant rewards, a vending machine to which you press a button and - POP! - out comes the object of your heart’s desire, the prolonged tale of Bikkurim serves as an important reminder that Tefillah is about a lifelong relationship with God. We all have a lot to ask for. Sometimes the response will be felt right away. Other times, the answer will be not yet, not yet, maybe later, or maybe even in future generations. 

The blessings we enjoy right now are the product of the striving of everyone who dreamed before us, and so on Rosh Hashanah, we daven for both ourselves and our futures. We bring Bikkurim now and link ourselves to those who came before us. One day, there will be people bringing Bikkurim with us in mind, answering the questions we pose right now. This is the time warp we create by living lives in which we are not our own men and women anymore. We are our nation's.