Weekly Torah Commentary Ki Tissa
Dr. Philip Bliss
Ki Tissa - Parah
Exodus 30:11 – 34:35
Plaut, The Torah: A Modern Commentary pages 632 – 662
Revised Edition, pages 581 - 597
Second scroll – Numbers 19:1-22 Plaut pages 1144 – 1147
Revised Edition, pages 1024 - 1026
Haftarah Parah, Ezekiel 36: 22-36 Plaut pages 1651 – 1652
Revised edition, pages 1455 - 1456
Saturday March 6, 2010, Shabbat Adar 20, 5770
From Rabbi Fred Morgan, Temple Beth Israel, St Kilda Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Most of time, synagogue services go just right. The bat-mitzvah stands proudly on the bimah, the couple for the aufruf are beaming with happiness, the leader announces the correct pages in the siddur. But it’s easy to imagine the things that might go wrong. The bat-mitzvah faints from anxiety, the parents have amnesia and drive to the wrong shul, the happy couple have a public broigus over their wedding plans, the Scroll is set to the wrong parashah, the person giving the sermon has left her script at home.
The portion Ki Tissa shows how easy it is for things to go wrong. The story thus far is auspicious. God leads the Jewish people out from Egyptian bondage. Moses herds them successfully across the Reed Sea and brings them to Mt Sinai. He ascends the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments. Everything is just right. But then disaster strikes. The reason why is not clear, even in the Torah account. Perhaps Moses is caught up late at the top of the mountain. The people fear that their guide is gone. Maybe they think God has killed Moses; after all, “no person can see My face and live!” So they panic.
In their panic they seek something ‘real’, something tangible to hold onto. Given their background, they probably ask themselves, What would the Egyptians do in this situation? They call upon Aaron to fashion for them a calf from the gold that they had received from their Egyptian neighbours. They proclaim a chag and dance until they are delirious – until the fear and agony of uncertainty go away.
Just then Moses enters the camp. In a flash the people realise that they have surrendered the very gift that God had given them: the gift of freedom, of self-respect, of dignity. Their festival becomes a mockery.
This is not just the story of the Golden Calf. It is the story of human history as viewed from the perspective of Torah. We are given precious gifts. We can gaze into the future and imagine peace and well-being, true reconciliation among nations, freedom and human dignity for all. And then we squander our gifts by denying our vision and trampling on the possibilities we imagine. Time and again civilisations rise on the wings of the imagination, only to fall through despair and a lack of confidence in the potential of human beings to overcome hubris and fear of the unknown.
What is it about, this betrayal of our destiny? I believe it is ultimately about control. We seek to control our world completely. We try to reduce Sinai to our level by proposing that it is control that God has given us, not freedom. When we discover that most of life is out of our control, we panic. The unknown defeats us. The Golden Calf represents our attempt to restore control.
Sometimes people think of religion as being about control. The Golden Calf story suggests the opposite: that religion is about relinquishing control and allowing the world to be as it is, to unfold at its own pace and run according to a rhythm beyond our will. Seen from this angle, Judaism encourages us to allow other people to be who they are, independent of our say-so.
All of this involves risk. It is the risk that parents experience when their child stands as bar-mitzvah before the congregation, knowing that anything can happen and praying desperately that it won’t! It is the risk that parents feel when they stand beside their child under the chuppah, knowing that life isn’t always this rosy, that simchas alternate with sorrows and that the real strength of a relationship lies in how we allow our partner to express him or herself as a free person. It is the risk that Moses faced in allowing the Jewish people to live in freedom, not as slaves. It is the risk each of us faces as we journey through life’s uncertainties and dark places.
On Sinai we were given the tools to deal with the unknown so that we can avoid betraying those who care for us because they have been delayed in coming down the mountain. Sinai teaches us to stand tall in our freedom, not to fashion a Golden Calf every time we might get into a panic over life. Having read the story, we know that Sinai is about learning how to be free from the need to be in control.
Questions for the Shabbat table:
- Have there been important times when things didn’t go right for you? How did you react? Did you take refuge in a ‘golden calf’ of your own devising? Did you find ways to face your challenges with equanimity?
- In what sense might the experience of our people at Sinai have given us the “tools to deal with the unknown”?
- Do you agree with the distinction made here between control and freedom? In your opinion, is it a helpful distinction in understanding how individuals function? How communities function?
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