Shabbat Commentary - Ki Tissa

This week's Portion, Ki Tissa, continues the theme of God and Moses on Mount Sinai. God gives Moses more instructions for the Israelites - instructions for taking a census; instructions for fashioning oil, incense, and utensils for Priestly rituals. God divinely inspires Betzalel, a master craftsman, to lead the building process.
God tells Moses to remind the Israelites to observe Shabbat even though they have been given many sacred tasks to fulfill.

Meanwhile, down below...Uh Oh! After 40 days, the Children of Israel fear that Moses has abandoned them. They enlist Aaron's help in making a statue of a Golden Calf for them to worship. What a horrifying turn of events! Or is it?

Let's imagine that our ancestors, the Israelites, waited 40 days for Moses' return. Let's imagine that they and their leader-in-Charge, Aaron waited patiently, calmly, faithfully. Moses returns bearing the Tablets of the Covenant. The Tablets remain intact. Moses has no reason to return to the Mountain top. All rejoice and follow God's Laws and instructions. Everyone lives happily ever after. What do we learn? We learn that God is with us when we're good.

However, in real life, we're not "good." God created us to be human. On the one hand, we are capable of great creativity ourselves. We have been given an agile intellect and the vision necessary to carry out God's Laws for behavior and God's complex instructions for a place and procedure for worship.
On the other hand, we humans are free to succumb to fear, pressure, selfishness, arrogance, greed, loss of faith, and a multitude of other negative forces which constantly ensnare the human psyche. No, all too often, we are not "good." A god who only connects with and responds to "goodness" would, in time, have become irrelevant and most likely would have been abandoned as the Jewish people struggled to survive.

Wisely, however, the Torah gives us Ki Tissa and the Golden Calf to teach us that God forgives our inevitable wrongdoings and continues to guide and connect with us.
In his anger over the Golden Calf, Moses smashes the Tablets. It is then necessary for him to re-climb the Mountain to ask forgiveness for the Israelites and to again receive God's word. It is at this time that Moses is allowed to see God's "back" and to feel very close to God's Presence. Moses proclaims, "...The Eternal! The Eternal! a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness..." (Exodus 34:6)
Moses' return to Mount Sinai enables us to know more about the attributes of God and we, with all our imperfections - we, too, come closer to the Eternal.

We learn from the Israelites' errors in Ki Tissa to heed the "Golden Calf alert" within us, to compare our actual behavior with the Laws God has given to guide us. We learn to remember, to believe, to improve.

When we make mistakes, like the Children of Israel, we're given a chance to change our ways, to grow, to thrive. Like Moses, when we err, we are given another chance to experience God's presence in our lives.

Shabbat Shalom - Rest and Renew