This week's Parsha, Ki Tisa, is a confusing Parsha.
This week's Parsha, Ki Tisa, is a confusing Parsha. Chronologically, it contains another two ascensions of Moses up Sinai. After the first ascent and the receiving of the Torah and numerous civil laws, the Tabernacle is built and the priestly class is consecrated.
With the second ascension Moses receives the Two Tablets, descends Sinai after forty days again, hears the people partying and learns that they have grown impatient and build a golden calf. God wants to destroy all the people, but Moses argues with God and calms God, the Liberator, down. But as Moses continues to descend and sees the people carrying on, he, himself, is overcome with anger and throws down the Tablets. The perpetrators are then severed from the community and a period of awkward reconciliation and healing begins.
Moses ascends the Mountain again, for a third time and receives another set of Tablets. God promises compassion and lovingkindness. The Parsha closes with a warning about idolatry, the mitzvot about celebrating the Sabbath, the holidays and other rituals, and a description of the radiance that Moses experienced in the Divine presence.
Life is filled with challenges as we know. But we should not allow ourselves to get stuck, to attach ourselves to “golden calves.” Life requires us to ascend and re-ascend the mountain, to reach for higher places of meaning and awareness in our lives.
Saul Tchernikovsky, the famous Russian Jewish Haskalah Hebrew poet who lived in the late 19th century and early 20th century wrote the following poem. The Hebrew was set to music.
Sakhki, Sakhki
Laugh at My Dreams
Come with me, Come into my dreams.
It is I, the dreamer, who speaks.
It is a dream that in humanity I believe,
The in you I yet believe.
That still my soul for freedom yearns –
I did not barter it for the calf of gold,
That in humanity I still believe,
And in the soul, the spirit strong.
In the future, too, I believe,
Though the day may yet be far,
It will surely come – when one nation to the other
Peace will bring and blessings, too.
May we all become more radiant with understanding, compassion and hopefulness in the weeks ahead,
Reb David