"Nir's Weekly Parasha" - Parashat Ki Tisa
Parashat Ki Tisa is the ninth weekly Torah portion in the Book of Exodus. The beginning of the parasha deals with the commandment of the half-shekel and additional instructions related to the Tabernacle, but most of the parasha focuses on the story of the sin of the golden calf.
The story is iconic, mythological, an immortal metaphor. Here is a summary of the story in 4 points:
Moses ascends Mount Sinai to receive the Tablets of the Covenant.
The people waiting below lose patience and turn to Aaron demanding: "Rise up, make us gods... for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." Aaron collects gold from the Israelites and creates the "golden calf" statue. The Israelites are pleased, saying: "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt," and they declare the next day a festival.
God instructs Moses: "Go down – for your people have corrupted themselves." Moses pleads that God not destroy the people, and God agrees.
Moses descends the mountain, sees the golden calf, and immediately breaks the Tablets of the Covenant. Moses destroys the calf and sends the tribe of Levi to kill those who worshipped it. Moses returns to God and asks, again, not to destroy the people. God strikes the people with a plague but does not kill all the people.
What hasn't been said or written about the sin of the golden calf? Mountains of interpretations and endless comparisons between golden calves in different cultures. Songs have been written, parables composed, paintings painted, and infinite questions, wonderings, attempts at explanations, directions, and thoughts.
I ask a question I haven't read being asked before: Is God surprised? Doesn't God know human nature? Doesn't God know what to expect? And what's the deal with Him getting angry and wanting to destroy the Israelites, and then Moses convinces Him not to destroy them? It's not like deciding what color curtain to buy for the bathroom, and then compromising on blue with fish. It's a decision to destroy a people, and then compromising on just a plague.
But I have the answer. I know what happened there, during those 40 days when Moses was on the mountain;
"Have they broken yet?" Moses asked God, "It's been a week already."
"No, they haven't broken. They're still waiting," God answered.
"And now? Have they broken? It's been two weeks."
"No, nothing, they're waiting," God replied. "But they will break, just wait and see, I'm telling you, people are people."
After 39 days, Moses started to realize that nothing was happening, "Come on, I'm going down."
"Wait, wait, one more day," God asked him to wait, "If they don't break tomorrow either, I won't say a single bad word about these people, ever."
After 40 days, Moses began to descend, and halfway down God updated him that they had broken.
"Hear that? They broke."
"What did they ask for?"
"A calf," God answered.
"A calf?" Moses was surprised.
"Yes, a calf. Aaron made it for them. From gold."
"Wow, gold," Moses complimented them.
"Okay, you go down," God repeated the script, "I get angry, lose it, you beg me to calm down, I calm down, you break the Tablets of the Covenant."
"Yes, I remember," Moses answered as he continued descending toward the celebrants below around the calf.
"Just remind me, why are we doing all this?"
"Because they need to remember that they are human, that they make mistakes, that they fear the unknown, that they look for ways to find hope, comfort, help."
"I can tell them that," Moses tried to save the whole show.
"No, no," God ruled, "this way it will be engraved in their consciousness. In 3,000 years, someone will write something about it on Facebook."
"Write about it where?"
"On Facebook, it will be a social network," God explained, "Never mind, go down to them, I'm losing it, you calm me down."
Have a pleasant weekend and Shabbat Shalom,
Nir
Image: "The Adoration of the Golden Calf" - Nicolas Poussin, 1634
