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PARASHA KI TISA
EXODUS 30:11 TO 34:35
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL
"WHO EVER IS FOR GOD, JOIN ME!!!" (Ex 32:26)
Poor Moses. Poor, poor Moses. He schleps to the top of Mt. Sinai and
spends forty days and nights in Torah class, with God Almighty as his
teacher. He finally descends from Har Sinai carrying the word of God on
heavy stone tablets to find his people dancing around a Golden Calf.
Poor Moses...what's a tzaddik to do?
Midrashic apologists for our ancestors' behavior say that Moses promised
that he would be back in forty days and return in the morning.
The masses assumed that the first day of his assent counted as the first
day of the forty. But Moses meant he would be away for a full forty days and
forty nights and return on the morning of the forty-first day. So we
panicked, thought Moses was dead, and built the Golden Calf as a Moses-substitute,
but not as a God-substitute. The rabbis also blame this sin on the
non-Hebrews who came with us from Egypt, the eirev rav
(rabble) who the Rabbis say instigated us.
But if we believe that God is omniscient, we then know this rabbinic
interpretation to be false. God says to Moses to hurry and get back to
his people because "they have made themselves a molten calf, prostrated
themselves to it, and sacrificed to it, and they said 'This is your god,
O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt'" (Ex 32:08). God
doesn't blame the "goyem." God doesn't say the calf is a substitute for
Moses. God saw it and called it like it was.
Should any of this story surprise us? Are we any different today than we
were in Sinai 3,300 years ago? Don't all of us have our Golden Calves
that we worship more than God? I am not just referring to the "hi tech" toys
and gadgets that none of us need but that all of us want.
The Hebrews who worshipped this Calf wished to understand and experience
God on their own terms. They wanted to see and feel God in a solid state.
They wanted concrete answers to who and what God is. They were dependent
upon Moses to be their intercessor to God and in the past two parashat
were told the elaborate ways, via the intricate Mishkan and the ornate
garbs of the priests and the rituals, they were to worship God. Is the
Mishkan or the cult of the priesthood any less of an objectification of
God than a Golden Calf? Are the Golden Cherubim (angels) that adorn the
Ark, any less idolatrous? Is the construction of the Golden Calf just
another way for humans to try to seek answers--just as Eve and Adam ate
the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?
The Zohar teaches that Adam and Eve would have eventually been allowed to
eat from the tree of knowledge but only after they first ate from the
tree of life. Their sin was not that they ate the fruit, but that they
ate from the trees in the wrong sequence.
In Proverbs 3:18 we are taught, that "Torah is a tree of life to those that embrace her." Without
the life teachings of Torah, the Zohar says, we are lost in the real
world of good and evil. The sin of the Golden Calf, perhaps, is thinking
that one can fully and completely understand, know, see, touch, and feel
God, without study of Torah and living its precepts.
After the tragedy of the Golden Calf and the slaughter of "about 3000 men
that day" (Ex 32:28), the paradox still remained. How can we--as finite
people--understand God who is infinite? God is termed kabbalistically Bal
Tachlit, not bound in any way. That doesn't just mean that God is all
powerful, but that we, who see things with borders and definition, and
use terms like big, bigger, biggest, cannot and never can describe God
as He is indescribable. God is the Ein Sof, the indefinable.
We can bridge this paradox in the realm between God and man. This area IS
defined and is place where we can make use of our knowledge of Torah. The
Kabbalah calls this place the Hanhaga. Instead of trying to define God,
if we understand the divine Hanhaga we will get a glimpse of God himself.
In this parasha, we need not look far for a way into the realm of
Hanhaga. Because in Ex 34:06, God defines thirteen attributes of His
merciful side. If we as people try to emulate these ways, and get rid of the
Golden Calf false truths that keep us from them, we can reach God and
enhance our own spirituality.
Can we vow to ourselves to be more compassionate? Can we strive to help
our friends and family avoid temptations and distress?
Can we be more gracious? Can we try to act more magnanimous and generous
toward others? Is the social climbing, like rats working their way to
the top of the pile where the cheese is, and avoiding those who we
perceive not to be in the in-crowd, really the way God wants us to behave
at Oneg Shabbats?
Can we be more slow to anger? Can we try to see both sides of the
situation and give those who we feel have harmed us time to reflect, improve, and
repent before we get angry at them? Anger is an unhealthy emotion to
carry around. It will "eat" you before it causes harm to anyone else.
Can we be more abundant in kindness? Can we do more acts of ahavath
chesed? Can we be kind to those we don't know or foolishly think that we
don't care to know? Can we be kind to those at whom we think we are
angry? We are commanded to help our enemy's donkey if we see it
struggling with its burden. God wants us to make up and not hold grudges.
Can we be more truthful? There are lies of commission but lies of
omission as well.
Can we help preserve kindness? Can we work toward making our temples and
synagogues a place of Shalom Bayat and not let ourselves be bullied by
those who are bigots or snubbers? Do we really want those people on our
boards or teaching in our children's schools or leading our adult
education programs?
Can be forgive iniquity, willful sin, and error? Can we help those who do
these behaviors cleanse themselves as opposed to ostracizing them?
Everything that we have--our possessions, our health, our
intelligence--is all a gift from God. It is really a loan from God. Can we be more understanding of those who fail to
live in "our image"?
What Golden Calves keep us from behaving the way God wants us to behave?
What irrational belief systems keep us from behaving rationally? Who or
what are we really worshipping? We at times must force ourselves to be
decent. God knows that this is not easy. We have free will. We all have
two hearts. We want, and yet we feel. We want to visit an elderly
congregant we haven't seen in months, but we feel like going shopping instead. One
heart loves to do the right thing, the other heart prefers to be selfish.
Is the Golden Calf of the strict laws of Kashrut causing some of us
to spend more time reading labels than visit the sick or help the needy?
Is the Golden Calf of "we are the correct Jews" allowing some of us to throw
rocks (and even assassinate) other Jews?
Peaceful times demand win-win situations. Win-lose attitudes end
with war. Rabbi Elazar HaKappar says in Pirket Avoth, chapter 5, verse
28, that the Golden Calves of "jealousy, lust and glory remove a man from
this world."
Finally, God gives us another clue about himself. In Ex 33:21, even after
two parashat before outline His "dwelling place" on earth, God calls
himself Ha Maqom, the Place. God is wherever man lets Him into his
heart. Aaron placated the masses and erred greatly in making the Golden
Calf. He spent the rest of his days, as Cohan Gadol, "loving peace and
pursuing peace, loving people and bringing them closer to Torah," taught
Rabbi Hillel. Let this be our individual mission. By acting and being
good, and trying to behave in accordance with God's thirteen attributes
of Mercy (chesed), we will help God as partners in tikun olam (repair of
the world).
Shabbat Shalom,
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL
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