TorahParsha

How pure do you need to be?

for Parshat Ki Tissa

 

There is a water basin in the courtyard to God’s Tent.

It stands between the altar and the Tent itself.

The priests purify their hands from it

and purify their feet from it

before they approach the altar

or before they enter the Tent.

*

They enter God’s courtyard

hands unwashed

and feet unwashed.

They wash their hands

right there, beside God’s altar,

before His Tent.

*

So, perhaps:

You need to be clean and pure

to serve before God.

But to walk toward Him,

you only need to be ready

to wash yourself.

 

__

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

___

Exodus 30:17-21

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What if we have no leaders?

for Parshat Ki Tisa

 

i

Moses takes too long

coming down  from the mountain

up with God.

*

The people feel helpless

and they say to Aaron:

You

make a new god for us.

*

Aaron molds a calf from gold

and the people dance before it,

saying:

This is the god

who has taken us from Egypt.

*

When God forgives the people at last,

He tells Moses:

three times a year

the people must come to Me,

to My Temple.

 

ii

If Moses was the way to God

and Moses is lost,

what can the people do?

So they make a new god

to be close to them.

 

iii

But God says:

You have misunderstood.

Everyone can come to Me.

Everyone must come to Me.

My Temple doors

are open wide.

 

 

_______

Shabbat Shalom,

Abe

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What is your place if you do not lead?

For Parshat Ki Tisa

i

In one war, the people fend off the nation Amalek for as long as Moses’ hands are raised. Aaron and Hur support Moses’ tired arms.

Before ascending the Mountain, Moses says: Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a matter should come to them.

*

Aaron’s children become priests in God’s Tent. Hur’s grandson will build the Tent where Aaron’s sons are priests.

Aaron’s legacy is of leadership. But Hur—comfort to Moses’ tired arms, substitute for Moses in Moses’ ascent, whose family builds the sanctuary where another family serves—is not the leader.

Hur is the one who enables.

Hur supports.

 

ii

After the Golden calf, we hear no more of Hur’s life.

 

iii
The Golden Calf comes when Moses delays coming down the Mountain. The people do not know what has happened to him. They tell Aaron: make us a god in replacement. They choose idolatry over the vacuum.

They do not see  that even they who are not Moses, who do not lead, still hold the responsibility to keep the world. They reject the notion of supporters.

They reject the notion of Hur.

*

They end Hur’s story.

That is their downfall.  

____

 

I may have heard parts of this idea elsewhere.

Discussion of Midrashic origins on Facebook

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

____

Please pray for the premature infant  Baer Yakov ben Emunah. Please pray for Fievel ben Chaya, Ahuvah Rachel bat Orah and for Rachel Tovah bat Yehudit Esther.

 

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The Sin of the Calf (Parshat Ki Tisah)

i

Moses is with God, up on the mountain.

The people saw that Moses was…long in coming down

They say: we do not know what has happened to him.

They say to Aaron: make a god for us

Aaron melts their jewelry down, he makes the Golden Calf.

ii

On the mountain, God tells Moses:

I have called…Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Yehudah;

and I have given also Aholiav son of Akhisamakh, of the tribe of Dan

and all the wise-hearted people

to construct the Mishkan,  the Tent from which God will dwell among the people.

 

iii

God says: let the people build the Mishkan together, and I will dwell among them.

The people say to Aaron: you alone make a god for us.

 

*

There is religion of the people joined together, joined to God.

There is religion of the lone saint.

The Golden Calf is this second kind of religion.

And there, too, is its sinfulness.

 

 

Shabbat Shalom, Abe

 

_____________

For thoughts on Parshat Ki Tisa from years prior, click here (and scroll down).

Verses quoted: Ex 32:1; 31:2,6; 25:8

You Come to God for Yourself (Parshat Ki Tisah)

i
Moses is up on the Mountain with God and he is long in coming down.

So the people are frightened.

The people say to Aaron: the Man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.

*
So Aaron tells the people: Take…the gold rings of your wives, your sons, and your daughters; and Aaron takes the rings and casts them into a fire.

And the Golden Calf is made.

ii
The gold and silver and copper and cloth and jewels of the Mishkan—the dwelling-place of God—are to be offered by every person whose heart so moves him.

And every man in every census of Israel must pay a half-shekel…for his soul.

These half-shekels will fund the work of the Mishkan.

*
To make God’s house, you give of your own heart, of your own soul.

To make the Golden Calf, you hand over your wife’s jewelry, your children’s jewelry--someone else's jewelry.

iii
You can come to the divine yourself.

Or you can expect that others will come to the divine for you.

*
Which of these options you choose is the difference between the path toward idol-worship, and the path toward the house of God.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Torah Through Mercy

i
God gives the Torah to Moses. But the Children of Israel commit the sin of the Golden Calf. And Moses, in anger, smashes the stone Tablets of the Covenant—the stones of Torah—that God had written.

*
God forgives the Children of Israel. He tells Moses to re-fashion a second set of stone Tablets. He calls Moses back up the mountain.

He gives Moses the Torah again.

*
Moses returns from the Mountain. His face shines.

But Moses does not know that his face shines. The people flee from him. Even Moses' brother flees.

*
Moses calls them back. They return to him. He teaches them Torah.

ii
One imagines that Moses is lonely when the people flee from him. And so his calling them back is more personal than a calling-back-to-holiness, alone. He is calling to them because he needs them.

But it is impossible for them to stand before this shining man. And so, until he calls them back, they flee.

*
So there is the guilt of sin. And there is Moses' need of others.

There is an impasse

Until Moses calls the people back, overcoming their guilt.

iii
Moses reaches out to the people from his loneliness: he ignores their sin.

Moses brings them back: the need for others overcomes sin itself.

That is the essence of Mercy.

*
It is in this way that the Torah is finally given.

~~~~

The Two Halves of Existence are Within You

As the Children of Israel takes a census then each one of them counted is to give over a half-shekel for the Temple sacrifice. This is the Law. God tells it to Moses. God says this Law is so so there will not be a plague amongst [the Children of Israel] when [Moses] number[s] them.

And so the results of not giving over a half-shekel at the time of the census is death.

*
This is not unlike God’s laying down of the Laws of how the priests must behave in the Temple. God says the priest must follow the Law and he will not die. These Laws begin shortly before the Laws of the census.

The Temple is Holy. To fail to recognize the holiness about you is fatal.

*
To number a person is to sum him up. But a person is both holy and mundane. And so the act of summing a person up calls for the holy half to be recognized. The half-shekel seems to recognize that holy half.

To fail to recognize the holiness within you is fatal.