Ki Tisa, Exodus 30:11-34:35
Shabbat Parah
Shabbat Parah
The Holiness of Wholeness—And of Brokenness
This week's Torah portion contains one of the most
dramatic events in the entire Torah, the incident of the Golden Calf. Moses has
been on Mount Sinai for a very long time, too long for those Israelites who
still carry Egypt in their hearts to wait. They can't maintain their faith in an
invisible God without their leader. So they convince Aaron to build them a
Golden Calf.
When God tells Moses what has happened at the foot of the mountain, both Moses and God are angry. Moses is able to sooth God's anger, but when he himself descends from the heights of Mount Sinai and sees with his own eyes that his people are dancing around this idol, he smashes the tablets written by the “finger of God.”
Moses goes back up the mountain a second time and then a third time, hoping to be able to start over again, praying for another chance, wondering whether God could ever forgive this people—and whether God could ever forgive him. The third climb began, according to Nachmanides, on the first of Elul (see Nachmanides on Exodus 33:7).
Perhaps he was still struggling to block out of his mind the terrible images of seeing all those people out of control, laughing as they danced around this golden idol, a calf like their Egyptian tormentors used to worship. Perhaps he thought: how could they do it, so soon after they had stood at Mount Sinai and witnessed first hand the thunder and lightning of God’s presence? Why were they so easily diverted? What made them so confused, so afraid to trust what they had just experienced, so quick to betray what they should have embraced?
Moses was angry at himself as well, because he had lost his composure then too. How could he have smashed the tablets? After all, they were touched by God’s own hand! Did Moses actually hurl them against the ground? Or did the holy letters fly away so that all that was left were stones so heavy he couldn’t hold them any more?
Tormented by his own despair and dread, he pleaded with the God he knew only as the Eternal One who always was and always would be to “let me behold Your Presence!” (Exodus 33:18). But even as Moses spoke those words, he knew he had asked the impossible, because no one can see God’s face and live.
Continue reading.
When God tells Moses what has happened at the foot of the mountain, both Moses and God are angry. Moses is able to sooth God's anger, but when he himself descends from the heights of Mount Sinai and sees with his own eyes that his people are dancing around this idol, he smashes the tablets written by the “finger of God.”
Moses goes back up the mountain a second time and then a third time, hoping to be able to start over again, praying for another chance, wondering whether God could ever forgive this people—and whether God could ever forgive him. The third climb began, according to Nachmanides, on the first of Elul (see Nachmanides on Exodus 33:7).
Perhaps he was still struggling to block out of his mind the terrible images of seeing all those people out of control, laughing as they danced around this golden idol, a calf like their Egyptian tormentors used to worship. Perhaps he thought: how could they do it, so soon after they had stood at Mount Sinai and witnessed first hand the thunder and lightning of God’s presence? Why were they so easily diverted? What made them so confused, so afraid to trust what they had just experienced, so quick to betray what they should have embraced?
Moses was angry at himself as well, because he had lost his composure then too. How could he have smashed the tablets? After all, they were touched by God’s own hand! Did Moses actually hurl them against the ground? Or did the holy letters fly away so that all that was left were stones so heavy he couldn’t hold them any more?
Tormented by his own despair and dread, he pleaded with the God he knew only as the Eternal One who always was and always would be to “let me behold Your Presence!” (Exodus 33:18). But even as Moses spoke those words, he knew he had asked the impossible, because no one can see God’s face and live.
Continue reading.
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