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Parasha Ki Tisa : Exodus 30:11-34:35
Rabbi Arthur Segal
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC;Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA
"We Don't Know Where We're Going, But The Season's Right For Knowing. I Want You To Join Together With The Band"
Poor Moses. Poor, poor Moses. He schleps to the top of
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 substitute for Moses, but not as a substitute for God. The rabbis also blame this sin on the non-Hebrews who came with us from
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
Should anything in 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 parashot 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
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, "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 me that day" (Ex. 32:28), the paradox still remained. How can we, as finite people, understand an infinite God? God is termed, kabbalistically, Bal Tachlit. That is, 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 a 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 slower 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. 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 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 commit these behavioral errors 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 Pirkei Avot, 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 parashot before outlining 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 taught Rabbi Hillel: "loving peace and pursuing peace, loving people and bringing them closer to Torah." 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
Via Shamash Org on-line class service
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC;Bluffton, SC, Savannah, GA
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