Ki Tissa

In this week's portion, we are told that Moshe, up on Mount Sinai for forty days receiving the Torah, is delayed in returning to the people of Israel, who are waiting for him at the foot of the mountain. The Israelites get nervous, and fear that he is gone for good, so they ask his brother Aharon, the high priest, to supply them with a new leader. Aharon responds to their demand and says to them: "Remove the golden rings which are in the ears of your women, sons, and daughters, and bring them to me." We are told that immediately after he makes this request, "the entire nation removed the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aharon." The rest is history: Aharon takes the earrings, melts them down, and fashions a golden calf, which the people worship.

Rashi, the 11th century commentator on the Torah, obviously wondering what Aharon thought he was doing, tells us the following: "Aharon thought to himself: 'the women and children care about their jewelry, perhaps this will delay things, and Moshe will arrive in time'. However, they did not delay, and voluntarily removed them themselves".

Rashi is clearly trying to defend Aharon, and therefore understands the earring thing as a ploy, a delaying tactic, which, unfortunately, didn't work - rather than dithering about their jewelry, the Israelites rose to the challenge and unhesitatingly coughed up all their gold earrings, the calf was made, and the people worshiped it just before Moshe arrived. 

According to this story, Aharon was counting on the Israelites to behave in a certain way, which, had they done so, would have saved them from the sin of the Golden Calf. He assumed that the Israelites, though apparently desperate for religious leadership, and demanding, in Moshe's absence, a God or God-like figure to take them through the desert, would still have enough self-interest to pause, at least for a few moments, before parting with their gold earrings. Had they done so, and behaved normally, with a bit of vanity and selfishness, all would have been well, as Moshe would have returned in time to prevent the calamity. Instead, they went along with Aharon's demand, and didn't give a second thought to donating their gold jewelry to the cause.

I would like to suggest that this self-interested behavior which Aharon was counting on to delay and ultimately prevent the sin of the Golden Calf is good behavior - after all, it would have prevented idol worship - and, as such, I'd like to think about it with you for a bit. It would seem that the ability to stop and consider one's personal good, one's self-interest, one's self - how I look, what I wear, what belongs to me - even when one is swept up in a religious fervor, perhaps especially when one is swept up in a religious fervor,  is a good thing.  The sin of the Golden Calf, seen through the lens of the earring story, can be understood precisely as a loss of that normal self-regard, of that natural self-interest. It would have been healthier for the Israelites to retain, as Aharon thought and hoped they would, a degree of distance, a measure of concern for their personal needs and wishes, and not so readily lose their sense of self,  even in the name of a larger, all-consuming, religious passion.  Forgetting, erasing, losing your self, is not the way to give yourself to a value, or a belief system; you are meant to come to it with your self - as who you really are, along with your sensibilities, interests, and concerns - earrings and all.

Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Shimon Felix
Executive Director, BYFI
Tel. - In Israel - 972-2-566-1194
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Fax- 972-2-563-1872
shimon.felix@byfi.org
www.bronfman.org Support the BYFI Alumni Venture Fund: www.byfi.org/venturefund - but hang on to your earrings!

This week, in Parshat Ki Tissa, we read about the sin of the Golden Calf - a major event in Jewish thought and tradition. This horrible sin, coming, unbelievably, immediately after the Jews received the Torah from God on Mt. Sinai, has a somewhat prosaic cause; it all starts because Moshe is late: 'And the people saw that Moshe was late in coming down from the mountain, and the people congregated against Aharon, and said to him, 'arise, and make us a god who will go before us, for this Moshe, the man who took us up from the land of Egypt, we don't know what has become of him.' Aharon then collects gold from the Israelites and fashions for them a calf, which they recognize and worship as their god. This seems very strange. If Moshe has gone missing, why not just promote Aharon himself, or Joshua, or someone else from among the people? Why this ridiculously regressive turning to a golden doll? What kind of substitute is that for a living, breathing person to lead the? What could they possibly have been thinking?  READ MORE »

This week's portion, Ki Tissa, opens with an interesting commandment: "And the Lord spoke to Moshe, saying: When you count the heads of the children of Israel, according to their numbers, each man shall give a payment for his soul to God, to be counted, and no harm will come to them when they are counted. This is what all those who are counted will give: half a shekel...half a shekel as a gift to God... The rich will not give more, and the poor will not give less than half a shekel... And you shall take the money of atonement from the Children of Israel and give it for the service in the Meeting-Tent, and it shall, for the Children of Israel, be a remembrance, to atone for their souls." Apparently, a few birds were killed with this particular half-shekel: a census was taken of the Jewish people, and at the same time money was raised to cover some of the costs of the Temple service, here called 'the service in the Meeting Tent', which is the Tabernacle in the desert. This Mitzvah continued to be practiced during the period of the Temple in Jerusalem, and, in fact, is practiced in many Jewish communities today, with the money which is given to commemorate the Biblical half-shekel going to charity. The gift of the half-shekel also, according to these verses, achieved some sort of atonement for the Jewish people. The Rabbis explain that this refers to an atonement for the sin of the Golden Calf (silver for gold), which is described a bit later in this week's parsha but which, according to some, may actually have happened before the commandment to give the half-shekel was formulated.  READ MORE »

This week's parsha, Ki Tissa, contains the story of the golden calf. Moshe is due to return from the summit of Mt. Sinai, where he has been learning Torah from God. The People of Israel, nervously awaiting his return, believe that the promised forty days and forty nights of Moshe's absence are over, and yet there is no sign of Moshe. It is this delay which, the Torah tells us, precipitated the people's demand for a new leader, a new God, and led to the creation of the golden calf - "And the people saw that Moshe was late in coming down from the mountain, and the people congregated around Aharon, and said to him 'arise and make for us a God who will walk before us, for this man, Moshe, who took us up from Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him'." The Rabbis of the Talmud speculated as to the nature of this delay, and the people's hysterical response to it. Basically, the entire episode is seen as a mistake made by the Jewish people, a misunderstanding between them and Moshe about when he was actually meant to return to them. However, the Rabbis add an interesting element to the Jewish people's nervousness about the whereabouts of their late leader. The Talmud, in Tractate Shabbat, (page 89a), says that Satan, when seeing the concern of the Israelites, made it look as if Moshe was, in fact, not just late, but dead. Satan conveyed this dire message in stages. He is described as first bringing darkness, confusion, and disorder into the world. Finally, in Satan's most extreme effort to undermine the confidence and well-being of the Israelites, he shows the people Moshe's corpse, lying on a bier. They believe that he is dead, and, probably worried not only about his death but also about its apparent cause - spending too much time with God - clamor for a new God, the golden calf.  READ MORE »