ki tisa
parashat Ki tisa, Exodus chapters 30—34
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and thoughts…
ki tisa
when you take
Moshe’s greatest moment.
Put yourself in Moshe’s sandals for a moment.
Now, take them off—you’re on hallowed ground—set them aside, and ascend the mountain. Are you there?
Imagine his state of mind, standing on the mountain with the stone tablets in his hands, having just experienced the closest encounter with HaShem that any human has been granted before or since. But HaShem breaks the spell by telling him what’s going on down below in the real world.
Fearing that Moshe had died and wouldn’t be returning, the people he’s been leading have created an idol to take his place.
Talk about a buzz kill!
Moshe is shocked. He’s horrified.
A freaking cow! Made out of gold!
After he has seen the shadow of the Glory of the One!
Can you imagine?
There they were, on the mountain. Moshe and HaShem, united in fury. HaShem is so enraged that HaShem wants to wipe the Israelites off the face of the earth.
HaShem has decided that this people are not worth the trouble, that they’re incorrigible.
Moshe is the only one worthy. HaShem tells Moshe that HaShem will crush these people and start over.
Moshe will be the father of the great nation, the chosen people. God’s people will be the children of Moshe, not the children of Israel.
Imagine the feeling of vindication,
The honor!
The chance to do things over
Your way,
Better!
And Moshe says no. In fact, he pleads with HaShem not to destroy them, to give them another chance. Moshe uses logic. He asks, “What will it say about You, if the people You liberated from Egypt never make it to the Promised Land?”
Moshe said no. He turned it down. Perhaps this is why it’s said that he was the humblest human of all time. Regardless, this is Moshe’s defining moment, his greatest moment.
Moshe says no and HaShem relents.
When he descends the mountain and actually sees this abomination for himself, Moshe is so filled with rage that he smashes the very tablets he’s so lovingly carried down—the Tablets of The Law that had been written by the “finger” of God.
Moshe gets things sorted out and then ascends the mountain again.
But on this second go-round, HaShem’s going to do things a bit differently. These people have not attained the level of holiness needed to enter into so intimate a contact with HaShem. The Word needs to be diluted for them to receive it. And so, rather than replacing the broken tablets with another set, also written by the hand of HaShem, HaShem teaches Moshe the entire Torah and waits, as the Word of HaShem is inscribed by the human hand.
We know what this says about Moshe, but what does it say about HaShem?
I think it actually says a lot about evolution.
When we think of evolution, we think of Australopithecus becoming Homo Habilus, that sort of thing. But we, as individuals, also evolve. I know my thinking has changed over my many decades. I’m still me, but in many ways I’m a better version of me, a more me-ish me. That’s evolution, too.
As we’ve evolved, genetically, socially, and personally, HaShem has been right there with us, getting to know us better, refining the way that HaShem deals with uskkkllllltwo way relationship The God that I know is the same God who knew us 4,000 years ago, but that God, the One God, has evolved right along with us. Ein Sof is Ein Sof, immutable and transcendent, but Adonai is now more Adonai-ish than Adonai was back then.
A being with free will is what HaShem wanted. Someone to have a genuine relationship with. God wanted to teach, but also to learn. And that’s gotta be a bit messy.
Over the millennia we’ve cried out to our God, pleaded with our God. We’ve shaken our fists at the sky in anger, and we’ve joyfully danced with reckless abandon. And HaShem hears. And HaShem considers. And HaShem evolves.
A four-year-old long ago explained it to me this way—If God is everything, and if every person sees God in a different way from anyone else who ever lived, then every time a new person is born, God gets bigger. Because if God is everything, and there keeps being more everything, then God has to keep being more to keep being everything.
Clever boy. Anyone know a nice Jewish girl? Mid 30s, Ivy League…? But I digress.
We’re a stiff-necked people. We hear that phrase a lot. What does it mean? Did they sleep in a bad position and wake up with a stiff neck? I’ve been there. We all have. It hurts like crazy, sometimes for days.
The prevailing opinion of the meaning of this phrase is, of course, stubborn. But when I had a stiff neck, I couldn’t turn my head to the left or to the right. I could only see what was directly in front of me. You can miss a lot, with that limited perspective. Perhaps what we need is a communal psychic massage to free up those muscles…I’ll take it further and say a global psychic massage, not just for our people, but for all people, so that we can truly see and be awake to the reality that’s all around us. Oh wait. We have a word for that. Mashiach. And so we wait. But I digress…
And then comes the part that makes my heart pause in my chest:
Moshe longs to see God’s Glory. Moshe’s greatest desire is to come even closer to HaShem, to know HaShem completely. Alas, no one, not even Moshe, can look directly upon that Glory and continue to live a human life. The constraints of being corporeal render this encounter impossible. And so HaShem tells him to hide himself in a cleft of the rock. HaShem tells him, “When My glory passes by, I will place you in a crevice in the rock, and I will shield you with My hand until I have passed. I will then remove My hand. You will see My back, but My face will not be visible.”
What does it mean, God’s face, God’s back? HaShem has no physical form!
For a human to fully comprehend the nature of God, Creation, and the higher worlds would be like getting my cats to understand quantum physics. And so we need poetry and metaphor to tease us into a glimpse of that higher reality. It’s why I say “HaShem” rather than “God.” History is full of gods. There are more gods than you can shake a stick at. And the name “God” has different connotations for different cultures. HaShem tells my brain exactly Who I’m talking about.
We say HaShem, TheName, because the four letter Name of God is unpronounceable for us.
(You may hear it pronounced Yaweh or Jehovah in the Christian world, but these are both unequivocally wrong, and miss the point entirely)
Moshe heard TheName. Aaron heard it and, as High Priest, he was enabled to utter it once a year, on Yom Kippur, in the Holy of Holies, where no one may enter except for the High Priest and only on that one day.
How could a human mouth, human vocal chords, possibly say “was, is, will be” all at once? We’re only able to speak words one at a time. In our world of limited dimension we can’t fathom, wrap our minds around, the secret of the fourth dimension, time—that secret being, as I’ve expressed before, that all of time is happening all at once and sequentiality is an illusion.
To see HaShem’s face is to see into that truth, and the human form could not exist on that plane. We’d dissolve into it. To see HaShem’s back is to see present and past, something we’re all quite adept at. But to see present and past through HaShem is to see them stripped of lies and misunderstanding, to see all of the present and the past in perfect truth and understanding, with the very mysteries of creation revealed. Without having this experience, Moshe would not have been capable of writing the Torah, HaShem’s words, in a form that humans can, with much dedication, comprehend.
And what does Moshe hear as HaShem passes by? After all that has transpired, golden calf and all? HaShem does not show him the qualities of Divine Judgement, the anger and fury that was so recently expressed.
What HaShem shows Moshe are HaShem’s thirteen attributes of Mercy. Mercy and Love—these are the predominant attributes of the One. And they’re the words we still cry out today, on Yom Kippur and at any time when we are in dire need of God’s mercy.
“Adonai! Adonai! God, Compassionate and Gracious, Slow to anger and Abundant in Kindness and Truth, Preserver of kindness for thousands of generations, Forgiver of iniquity, willful sin, and error, and Who Cleanses (but does not cleanse completely, recalling the iniquity of parents upon children and grandchildren, to the third and fourth generations)” click here for a detailed explanation.
It’s Mercy and Lovingkindness that are God’s Glory.
So, what’s happened? Through this extraordinary encounter between Adonai and Moshe, it seems that this time, God was both teacher and student. And ultimately, as undeserving as we were, the children of Israel came out on top.
And HaShem tells Moshe, “Whenever Israel sins, let them recite this in its proper order and I will forgive them.”
And Adonai was faithful to the covenant with Avraham and led us to the land of milk and honey.
God’s Mercy and Love prevails. For me, that’s astounding. It’s humbling. And it’s mind-blowing. And it reminds me that my approach with others should be the same—love before judgment and everyone gets another chance…at least one.
So what shall we eat?I
It’s all about two. Two tablets. Two chances. Two approaches. The Great Dichotomy, Yin/Yang, Good and Evil, and the One-ness that was before the beginning of God’s creating and the diversity of Beresheet.
I guess “two” will be the theme of our menu.
Two challot? That’s standard! (if you’re wondering why, check out this page.)
Let’s start with the soup…two matzo balls is a no-brainer. But maybe something different from the standard chicken soup, just to keep things interesting…we could have our greens in the soup, rather than with the entrée…I’m going to go with my garlicky Green Soup, a purée of spinach, parsley, asparagus, and arugula. Super healthful and also super tasty. (Even the toddlers like it.)
It occurs to me that stuffed zucchini halves, 2 halves per person, could resemble the two tablets of the law in the center of the plate. We can do two versions, one with meat and one vegetarian…in a Syrian-style sauce with cherries, dried fruits, tomato, and tamarind—sweet and tart, mercy and judgement. Now the sides…a pilaf of rice and vermicelli that’s chock-full of root vegetables—carrots, parsnips, golden beets, and some sweet peas for good measure to form a ring around our “tablets”…that’s really all that’s needed.
Except for dessert. There’s got to be dessert! I’m thinking I’m in the mood for a nice fruit tart.
Desserts for Shabbat can be challenging for me. It’s often a meat meal, or one that has a meat version and vegetarian version, and that means that dairy desserts are out. That really puts a strain on my repertoire. I’ve often been heard chanting the mantra…baking and butter begin with B.
But if there’s one thing I love, it’s a challenge.
This one wasn’t much of a challenge. How to make pastry cream without dairy? Use coconut milk! I’ve been a coconut fan since childhood, when every now and again my dad would come home with a coconut. My brother and I would wait with anticipation as he banged out the eyes with a big nail and a hammer, strained out the milk for us, and then used the hammer to break the whole thing into negotiable pieces….ahhh sweet memories!
If you love coconut, you’ll find there’s no sacrifice to be made with this fruit tart.