My father went wandering – Ki Tavo
The sidra tells us (Deut.26) that when we enter the Promised Land and build a sanctuary we must bring first fruits to the kohen and explain that the land has brought us fertility, going back to the time of our ancestors.
The Hebrew is Arami Oved Avi. According to a rabbinic view found in the Haggadah, this means that an Aramean, i.e. Laban, had tried to destroy Jacob the Patriarch.
Another view understands the Hebrew as saying, “My ancestor was a wandering Aramean (and I am one of his descendants who settled in Egypt before coming to Eretz Yisra’el).”
Many people prefer the second interpretation to the first.
