Parashat Ki Tisa
March 8, 2023
Lori Abecassis, Middle School Tanakh Department Chair
This week’s parashah, Ki Tisa, is not just about the Egel haZahav/Golden Calf, as the community goes astray when they demand of Aaron a god who will go “before them.” Sure, the bulk of the parashah contains the story of a newly freed nation feeling so abandoned, anxious, and afraid that they sinfully resort to what is familiar to them from Egypt, but there’s so much more to take in: the smells, sounds and sights in the Mishkan, an introduction to its master architect Bezalel and his sidekick Oholiab, a little discussion about Shabbat, and a new enumeration of laws which here are actually called aseret hadevarim/The Ten Sayings.
This week’s dvar Torah is dedicated to my wonderful students who teach me every day and to those in our community who are in need of our prayers for a refuah shleimah.
That being said, I continue to be pulled back into the dramatic telling of the Egel haZahav/Golden Calf story, with its split-screen description of God and Moshe’s conversation atop Har Sinai and Bnai Israel’s troubling behavior down below. While we can visualize, as so many film directors have done, the people’s frenzy before and after the Egel is built as well as God’s subsequent anger, it’s really Moshe who deserves the Oscar and our attention.
After all, this narrative is where Moshe becomes, well, Moshe. He reluctantly begins his career as a prophet with crippling self-doubt — referring to himself as “slow of speech and slow of tongue” (Shemot 4:10), “not a man of words” (Shemot 4:10) and someone with “circumcised lips” (Shemot 6:12) – yet here on Har Sinai he truly is the G.O.A.T. On two separate occasions during this story, he goes toe-to-toe, or shall we say mouth-to-mouth, with God not only to convince God to renounce the people’s punishment but to try to gain their complete forgiveness. When God says, “Hurry down for YOUR people, whom YOU brought out of the land of Egypt, have acted basely,” Moshe volleys those words back to God with “Let not Your anger, O Lord, blaze forth against YOUR people whom YOU delivered from the land of Egypt . . . ” When God says, “Now let Me be, that . . . I may destroy them,” Moshe knows the ideal words to appeal to God’s pride and integrity: What will the Egyptians think of You? Remember the promise You made to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaacov. And when God tells Moshe to say to Bnai Yisrael “You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go in your midst for one moment, I would destroy you,” Moshe turns the criticism into the very reason that God should forgive the people: being stiff-necked now in their passion for the Golden Calf may one day become their greatest virtue as they will be equally stiff-necked in their loyalty to God over other gods.
But is that it? Leaving God’s presence, does Moshe actually then fall apart and lose his cool when he sees what the people are doing? Sure, we all reach our breaking point at some time, but is that what is going on as Moshe hurls God’s tablets from his hands? Has some rowdy dancing bested the G.O.A.T? When we remember that Moshe is a prophet whose mission is to stand in the breach to avert God’s anger so that the people are not destroyed, we must consider a different possibility. Often, actions are needed to punctuate our words. This is an oratory technique that Moshe learned from God when God first commissioned Moshe to confront Pharaoh. God empowers Moshe with “marvels” – the staff becoming a snake, his hand turning scaly and white, etc. — to perform before Pharaoh (Shemot 4:21) in order to make God’s message crystal clear.
So too here in parashat Ki Tisa, words and actions are at Moshe’s disposal, and Moshe uses both — with the breaking of the tablets — to convince God to forgive the nation for the sin of the Golden Calf. Yes, Moshe gets angry when he sees the calf and the dancing; nonetheless, smashing the tablets seem to be part of Moshe’s larger, deliberate strategy to assuage God’s anger towards the people. When Moshe says to God, “Now, if You will forgive their sin [well and good]; but if not, erase me from the record which You have written,” Moshe firmly places himself in his peoples’ corner. As the midrash teaches, it’s as if Moshe is saying: “They sinned and I sinned in that I broke the tablets. If you forgive them, forgive me too. If you do not forgive them, do not forgive me, but erase me from the book you have written.” If it weren’t for the actions of breaking the tablets, Moshe’s words may have fallen on deaf ears, pardon the anthropomorphism.
Despite Moshe’s testing the strength of his relationship with God by asking to “behold God’s kavod/glory,” this week’s parashah reflects Moshe’s finest hour as he wordsmiths his way through his confrontation with God and doubles down with a compelling gesture. Moshe may not be permitted to see God’s face, but he has surely seen into God’s essence. He has become an astute learner of God’s motivations and actions, and finds success moving God towards tolerance and acceptance. Moshe has taught the Teacher, bringing to focus Rabbi Chanina’s famous proverb (Taanis 7a): “I have learned much from my teachers, more from my colleagues, and most from students.”
After all, this narrative is where Moshe becomes, well, Moshe. He reluctantly begins his career as a prophet with crippling self-doubt — referring to himself as “slow of speech and slow of tongue” (Shemot 4:10), “not a man of words” (Shemot 4:10) and someone with “circumcised lips” (Shemot 6:12) – yet here on Har Sinai he truly is the G.O.A.T. On two separate occasions during this story, he goes toe-to-toe, or shall we say mouth-to-mouth, with God not only to convince God to renounce the people’s punishment but to try to gain their complete forgiveness. When God says, “Hurry down for YOUR people, whom YOU brought out of the land of Egypt, have acted basely,” Moshe volleys those words back to God with “Let not Your anger, O Lord, blaze forth against YOUR people whom YOU delivered from the land of Egypt . . . ” When God says, “Now let Me be, that . . . I may destroy them,” Moshe knows the ideal words to appeal to God’s pride and integrity: What will the Egyptians think of You? Remember the promise You made to Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaacov. And when God tells Moshe to say to Bnai Yisrael “You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go in your midst for one moment, I would destroy you,” Moshe turns the criticism into the very reason that God should forgive the people: being stiff-necked now in their passion for the Golden Calf may one day become their greatest virtue as they will be equally stiff-necked in their loyalty to God over other gods.
But is that it? Leaving God’s presence, does Moshe actually then fall apart and lose his cool when he sees what the people are doing? Sure, we all reach our breaking point at some time, but is that what is going on as Moshe hurls God’s tablets from his hands? Has some rowdy dancing bested the G.O.A.T? When we remember that Moshe is a prophet whose mission is to stand in the breach to avert God’s anger so that the people are not destroyed, we must consider a different possibility. Often, actions are needed to punctuate our words. This is an oratory technique that Moshe learned from God when God first commissioned Moshe to confront Pharaoh. God empowers Moshe with “marvels” – the staff becoming a snake, his hand turning scaly and white, etc. — to perform before Pharaoh (Shemot 4:21) in order to make God’s message crystal clear.
So too here in parashat Ki Tisa, words and actions are at Moshe’s disposal, and Moshe uses both — with the breaking of the tablets — to convince God to forgive the nation for the sin of the Golden Calf. Yes, Moshe gets angry when he sees the calf and the dancing; nonetheless, smashing the tablets seem to be part of Moshe’s larger, deliberate strategy to assuage God’s anger towards the people. When Moshe says to God, “Now, if You will forgive their sin [well and good]; but if not, erase me from the record which You have written,” Moshe firmly places himself in his peoples’ corner. As the midrash teaches, it’s as if Moshe is saying: “They sinned and I sinned in that I broke the tablets. If you forgive them, forgive me too. If you do not forgive them, do not forgive me, but erase me from the book you have written.” If it weren’t for the actions of breaking the tablets, Moshe’s words may have fallen on deaf ears, pardon the anthropomorphism.
Despite Moshe’s testing the strength of his relationship with God by asking to “behold God’s kavod/glory,” this week’s parashah reflects Moshe’s finest hour as he wordsmiths his way through his confrontation with God and doubles down with a compelling gesture. Moshe may not be permitted to see God’s face, but he has surely seen into God’s essence. He has become an astute learner of God’s motivations and actions, and finds success moving God towards tolerance and acceptance. Moshe has taught the Teacher, bringing to focus Rabbi Chanina’s famous proverb (Taanis 7a): “I have learned much from my teachers, more from my colleagues, and most from students.”
This week’s dvar Torah is dedicated to my wonderful students who teach me every day and to those in our community who are in need of our prayers for a refuah shleimah.