Exodus Cycle Five Ki Tisa

Ki Tisa

What to Do When It's Just There

by Chava Lion

In Ki Tisa we have begun to open our eyes. We have begun to  open our senses through the incense for purification. And we super-open our awareness through the commandments concerning Shabbat. We are rising. Then there it is, the biggest bring-down in the history of mankind. There it stands without a cubit-measurement recorded, without any known defining feature. Not an answer. Not a question mark. Just a stupid golden calf. Just there.

 How do we deal with it?

Here’s one clue…the verb sh’lah. The word itself means to throw.  I threw (v’eshlihehu) the gold into the fire, Aharon says, and this is what came out (32:24).  It’s a great comment.  I think of a teen (age 15) taking his father’s car and putting a nice fat dent in it. I just drove to the store, he might say, and this is what happened. More on this soon.

Similarly, in another use of the root word sh’lah Moshe throws the tablets  and shatters them (32:19).  We have a choice here. We can see Moshe as wrongly displaying his anger. Or we can try and sift through the action for meaning in the larger picture. So then, Moshe is coming down the mountain and he hears the people celebrating. Then he finds out about the calf.  In this moment Moshe senses that our ability to receive God’s word becomes blocked. That's because we value ourselves above God as proven by the calf (created from our golden jewelry). Awareness of God by means of the tablets is therefore also impossible. Something must be done.

Please note. Aharon doesn't place the gold in the fire. And Moshe doesn't gently place the tablets aside. The verb to throw infers an immediacy, a force, a finality.  These are important and direct actions. Let's put it this way. There are exclamation points everywhere. And once again the same root word (sh'lah) is used for both.

Rabbi Nachman says this: All wisdom comes from on high, each concept emanating from its proper place. All discoveries, sacred or profane, have a root above, each in its own particular place.

So, according to Rabbi Nachman the use of the same root word (sh’lah) could easily indicate that the actions are equally rooted to God above. It’s the same action (one might say) though on two different sides of the same coin.

Returning to Nachman’s comment, we know that Moshe is rooted deep. He is so rooted he can try to bring the Israelites to God. In Talmud (Bava Batra 10b) R. Abahu records that Moshe asks God how Israel as well could get as intimate as he (Moshe) has been…How should the horn of Israel be exalted? Through taking their ransom for God.  By raising their heads so that they can integrate with the most holy.

Moshe is also so rooted  that he can bring God to us. But it’s only after the scene with the gilded calf that he really can do this. Before the calf the Moshe-God connection is through miracles. It’s in the God-space, away from the people. After the calf God brings His voice to Moshe within the very edge of our human realm. The mishkan (accoding to Rashi) is instructed after the calf. And there, between the two cherubim, God’s voice can be heard.

Let’s look at Aharon. How rooted is he? He is personally involved in the miracles that enable our Exodus from Egypt. In Numbers 17:22 his staff blossoms.  With blossoms (one might say) there are roots. Rashi says that the reason why Aharon asks the people to take off their golden jewelry is to delay the action of idolatry. This is nice of Rashi. By the time he is throwing the jewelry into the fire though Aharon is (no doubt) involved in the creation of something dark. And it’s the same dark thing that Moshe grinds down and makes the people drink.  The sh’lah of Aaron therefore is a lot more difficult to integrate. But we have to do it anyway. Because in the integration of Aaron and his actions we also integrate all things rooted, Moshe included, God included. And They integrate us.

This is why (I believe) the verb sh’lah is used in both circumstances. Both actions are powerfully inter-connected. Both are necessary as we breathe in and out, as we get closer, get farther. Just as we protect our growth, with the same energy we must visualize our shadows and integrate them no matter how painful. It's important. It's immediate.

Finally, whatever the reason, whatever the circumstances, whatever emotions or mistakes or pain or joy…we want to discern. We want to know the time to sh'lah and the time not to sh'lah.  We want to do as we must so we don’t confuse the gold in the soul of our child with the golden bracelet we give, ao we don’t confuse the words we feel with the words we think, or the money we bring-in with our life’s-breath. And when we do confuse it…which we will…it’s important to once again face that the gilded calf is (no reason to be shocked) just there. And we must once again act carefully but also with immediacy.

So may we have boundaries and watch ourselves carefully. May we hear God’s voice in the center of the mishkan of action. And may we walk in God’s ways with chesed, grace and compassion as we raise each other to the place of Divine Love.

This is what we may want to do when it's just there.