Ki Thavoh: are we there yet?

 Ki thavoh: when you arrive. . The first instruction, the tax (tithe)  declaration, which includes a statement
'I profess this day unto the LRD thy Gd, that I am come unto the land which the LRD swore unto our fathers to give us.
 As if to say that there is some uncertainty  about whether he has actually arrived
What?--the ground needs to be tilled? What - honey does not effortlessly grow from the ground?   It is always impossible to fulfill the fantasy, nothing can be as good  ( or as bad) as it was pre- imagined.

When my parents came to America from DP camp, the change in language, and the change in architecture,  and the change in attitude told them that they had arrived ( in the Goldene Medinah).  But they were poor and struggled to find work ... Did they ever arrive?  Paying American taxes may have been convincing.

The blessings and (especially) the curses in this parsha are a progression.  In the parsha, one arrives at the end.  My parents saw the curses . I have seen the blessings. We are not there yet.

Everyone knows she will eventually arrive and descend into the ultimate promised land. Until that time, things  could be better, could be worse.... not there yet.