TORAH SPARKS
Parshat Ki Tisa Parshat Parah
March 11, 2023 | 18 Adar 5783
Torah: Exodus 30:11-34:35 Triennial: Exodus 30:11-31:17
Maftir: Numbers 19:1-22 Haftarah: Ezekiel 36:16-38
Points of No Return
Bex Stern-Rosenblatt
Parashah
Sometimes, we mess up so badly that we don t feel we deserve a second chance. There are moments when it seems that we are, as God says after the flood, evil from our youth. We do something so egregious and recognize it as such, that we can only conclude that there is no hope that we might ever do good or count ourselves as decent people again.
It s hard when this happens on a personal level. It s harder yet when it happens on a peoplehood level. The idea of responsibility is complicated when thinking about our nation. The idea of recovering from wrongdoing as a nation is even more so.
We ve recovered from horrific wrongdoing before. In this week s parashah, while God speaks to Moses, we ask Aaron to make us gods to go before us. Aaron, our leader, acquiesces in that he takes our gold and makes us a molten calf. We see it and declare that it is our gods. Aaron does not stop us then, but rather, builds an altar, declaring tomorrow as a festival for HaShem, and not for these gods we had been referencing. The next day, we offer sacrifices on the altar, we eat, we drink, and we tzahek, we play, or act sexually, or make a mockery. God will want to wipe us out, Moses prevents God from doing so, and then Moses rallies the Levites to slaughter 3000 of us. Moses then bargains with God to forgive us and God concludes that only those of us who sinned will be held accountable.
We act wrongly. Aaron acts questionably. Perhaps, he was trying to nudge us into realizing our own error. Aaron never refers to the calf as a deity. Aaron remains steadfast in his verbal commitment to HaShem. Aaron may even set up the altar for us to sacrifice ourselves on. After, one could read tzahek as playing or becoming Isaac, Yitzhak. We got onto the altar Aaon built in order to be sacrificed. The Levites will comply when they slaughter 3000 of us. Perhaps, as soon as we ve suggested the building of gods, Aaron sees this death as the only way to reform the Israelites, the punishment which might change our nature. But Aaron doesn t try to stop the transgression. He even aids us in committing it.
Moses, meanwhile, is absent. We feel abandoned because he is not there. We act out from this sense of abandonment, demanding a new leader. When Moses returns, he will put his life on the line to spare us our own, he will demand to be erased from the book if God erases us. But it is too late. He was not there with us when it mattered most.
The Sifrei to Deuteronomy offers two very different accounts of how to understand this whole episode by interpreting the place name in Deuteronomy 1:1, Di Zahav, literally as enough of gold. One interpretation understands the phrase as God speaking, saying that the gold, the creation of the Golden Calf, was enough, was too much. God could have forgiven us for everything else we did wrong, but the Golden Calf broke the proverbial camel s back. This interpretation understands the Golden Calf incident as unforgivable, as necessarily changing the relationship between us and God. Another interpretation in the Sifre, however, understands the phrase as saying that we had enough gold not only for the golden calf but also for the Mishkan, the Tabernacle. Here, the voluntary donations of gold for the Mishkan are seen as atonement for the making of the golden calf. It s extraordinary. We who did the very worst thing are permitted to make an abode for God.
The Talmud (b. Berachot 32a) takes the interpretation of this verse even further. It reads that it was the surplus, the more than enough gold that God gave to Israel abundantly that caused Israel to make the golden calf. The gold was burning a hole in our pocket and so we built a calf. This interpretation, shockingly, holds God responsible. God gave us the materials and so we sinned.
The amazing thing about all these interpretations is that no matter what, the story continues. We move on. We build the Mishkan, we dedicate the Levites, we journey through the desert to Israel. It seems we have learned from our mistake. We will grumble and we will rebel – our basic nature does not change – but we won t do something of this magnitude again for hundreds of years. Likewise, Aaron and Moses change. Moses will no longer be an absentee leader. Aaron will no longer improvise, trying to lead us without a script. Standing in the ruins of horrible mistakes, the only thing we can do is keep moving, accepting responsibility rather than appointing blame and changing behavior rather than despairing about our essential nature.
Exodus by Any Other Name
Vered Hollander-Goldfarb
Haftarah
When we are in a crisis, we need to fix the situation that brought us to this point to get out of it. But that is a difficult road, especially on the national level. When our national relationship with God is hitting bottom, we may not be able to pull ourselves together and take action for change, leaving us wondering how we will get out of our trouble.
Ezekiel, whose words we are reading this week as the haftarah on Shabbat Parah, is living in Babylon. His community are those who were exiled from Jerusalem shortly before the destruction of the First Temple. While their physical existence is not in danger, they are torn between dreams of a future that will bring back the days of glory in the Land of Israel, and a reality that indicates that nations that have been exiled do not return home. If God sent them away, they reason, their relationship is severed, they have no hope of a future return.
God views the story differently; Ezekiel tells the people. When they came to the nations, wherever they went, they profaned My holy name when they said of them, these are the people of the LORD, and they have gone out of His land. (Ez. 36:20.) The exiled community is a defamation of God s name. Radak explains that other nations view the continued exile as proof of God s inability to take them out of there and return them to their land.
Therefore, I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for My holy name s sake, which you have profaned among the nations where you went (36:22.) Ezekiel and God understand that the people do not have the ability to extricate themselves from exile. The only hope is that such an exodus will not depend on the people but rather on the will of God. Nor can the people make the necessary changes to be deserving of salvation. God will single handedly carry out the salvation and change the people to avoid a repeat of the situation.
All this will happen in a manner reminiscent of the Exodus from Egypt. There, too, the people were not in a position to save themselves. In a description similar to God s oath to take out, salvage, and redeem the people from Egypt and become their God (Ex. 6:6-8), here too God will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. (Ez. 36:24-28.)
When the people of Israel are at a point where they are unable to help themselves God may step in and do what is necessary even when we may not have done much to deserve it. Drastic measure may be applied, and the nation will have as hard of a time believing it in Babylon as they did in Egypt, but it will happen. This haftarah takes the first step towards retelling the story of Pesach, whether from Egypt or from other nations.
Dressing Up for Purim and Shabbat
Ilana Kurshan
Adventures in the Mishnah with My Kids
The week before Purim, my children have to wear different costumes to school every day of the week: Sunday is pajama day. Monday is red shirt day. Tuesday is clown day. It feels like a full-time job ensuring that everyone has the right paraphernalia for school each morning. When the kids get home from school each afternoon, they go through our costume box to decide what to wear on Purim day. My toddler puts on a pirate hat and brandishes a plastic sword, while his sister parades before us in a princess dress with a tiara on her head and a rhinestone bracelet on her arm. It is not long before Matan and I realize that they are dressing up in all the props and paraphernalia mentioned in the mishnayot we are studying.
The sixth chapter of Masechet Shabbat is about what a person may wear on Shabbat when leaving home and traveling into the public domain. It is forbidden to carry from one domain into another on Shabbat. We generally don t think of clothing as something that a person carries, but in the Mishnah, some sartorial accessories are regarded as such. The mishnayot in this chapter are divided along gender lines what may a man leave the house dressed in? And what about a woman?
The first mishnah in the chapter (6:1) begins by listing the various types of hair accessories and headpieces that the rabbis forbid a woman from wearing outside the home on Shabbat. A woman may not leave home wearing ribbons woven into her hair or tied around her head on Shabbat; the rabbis are concerned that if one of the ribbons were to fall out, the woman would retrieve it and end up carrying it on Shabbat. Likewise a woman may not go out wearing a tiara on her head out of concern that it might fall off and the woman would retrieve and carry it; however, if she ties her tiara to her head covering, then she is permitted to leave the house with it, since it would be less likely to fall off. And indeed, my daughter Shalvi s tiara keeps falling off her head, as if to prove the legitimacy of the Mishnah s concern. Maybe you should tie it to her hat, Matan suggests, but Shalvi is quick to reject his suggestion what kind of self-respecting princess would wear a hat?
The next part of the Mishnah lists various items of jewelry that a woman may not leave home wearing on Shabbat, out of concern that they might fall, or that she might take them off to show them to a friend, which in turn might lead her to carry in the public domain. A necklace, ring, and earrings are all prohibited, as well as an accessory known as a Jerusalem of gold, which may have been some sort of golden head band carved with an image of Jerusalem. It seems that Shalvi s rhinestone bracelet would also be a problem on Shabbat what if she were to take it off in the park to show to her friends?
The Mishnah explains that the prohibition on jewelry is merely a rabbinic decree to guard a person from sin it is in fact not considered carrying to wear jewelry, but the rabbis decreed that a woman ought not to wear such items lest she come to carry them. But Matan thinks he has a better way to safeguard the jewelry-wearer from sin. Maybe someone could make special Shabbat earrings that electrocute you if you try to take them off. That way a woman would not even be tempted to take off her jewelry, because she d know she could get electrocuted. I need a minute to think that one over. Yes, but you can t use electricity on Shabbat, so how could you rely on electrocution? I ask Matan. Exactly, he tells me. If you don t want to use electricity on Shabbat, you can t take off your jewelry.
When it comes to the items that a man may not leave home wearing on Shabbat, the Mishnah focuses on weapons of war (6:4). A man may not leave the house with a sword, a bow, a spear, a helmet, or iron boots. These items are regarded as unnecessary because it is forbidden to fight a war on Shabbat (except in self-defense), and thus a person should have no reason to wear them. Rabbi Eliezer comments that these items are in fact considered ornaments for a man, much like jewelry for a woman. But the other rabbis disagree, insisting that it is disgraceful for a man to adorn himself in weapons of war, as per Isaiah s prophecy about a future when They shall beat their swords into ploughshares . Nation shall not lift up sword against nation (Isaiah 2:4). I think about my little pirate with his sword and my daughter with her princess tiara. He is as excited about his weapon of war as she is about her sparkly crown.
Both Shabbat and jewelry are discussed in this week s parashah, Ki Tissa, which is about the building of the golden calf. When the people demand that Aaron make them a god, Aaron responds by instructing the people to Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me (32:2). The Golden Calf is fashioned out of the people s molten jewelry. But the entire episode of the Golden Calf is flanked by the laws of Shabbat in the verses immediately preceding the building of the calf, God instructs Moses to tell the people that You must keep my Sabbaths, and in the verses immediately following, Moses reminds the people that they are to work for six days and rest on the seventh (35:1-3).
Perhaps the mishnayot about jewelry on Shabbat, when read in light of our parashah, can teach us about how we relate to finery and adornment: If we worship our jewelry as an idol in its own right, we may be more likely to make the mistake of removing it to show it off to others. But if our jewelry is a way of adorning ourselves to honor Shabbat, we are less likely to lose sight of the significance of the day and its laws. Whereas dressing up for Purim is about celebrating the topsy-turvy nature of the Jews unexpected victory in Shushan, dressing up for Shabbat is a way for us to honor and remember the sanctity of the day.