Back from the Dead
Rabbi Noa Kushner
Parashat Ki Tissa
1.
God is not having a good day.
She was already worked to the bone
What, having cajoled, teased out, subtly encouraged, commanded
and planted hints until a certain Israelite people
who had previously believed themselves powerless
finally, finally wanted to leave slavery
Then, she pulled out the stops with 10 (count them) consecutive plagues
Not to mention the splitting of the actual sea
All so that the previously mentioned, very insecure and just emerging into themselves
Israelites will cross that sea for themselves, not at all a given,
And go out into the middle of nowhere,
to a place where God ensured there are literally no distractions
So that God can give her Torah / a new way to try to be in the world —
So that God can be in covenant with this people
Covenant, as in stay together forever,
That’s what covenant means,“Not leaving"
Not unlike the promise of a wedding day
But on this particular wedding day
God peers over and sees this chosen people,
the very ones God labored to ensure would have no distractions —
Went and made a distraction for themselves, not a small distraction either
It seems they found a loophole in the “together forever” promise
Or, to put it more clearly, they destroyed the premise of the promise
God peers over and her heart breaks
Because they went and built an idol and are praying to it, thanking that idol for taking them out of slavery into freedom
As if there is no longer a possibility of God anywhere else but in that idol
Not in the ground they stand on,
Not in the sky above,
Not in the mountain top,
Not in their own hands or mouths,
Not in transcendent places they do not understand
As if the golden calf is all the holiness that matters.
God closes her Godly eyes and presses her divine temples. She feels a holy migraine coming on. Not to mention her divine temper rising, rising, rising to the surface.
2.
In the Talmud we learn (1)
That God prays.
How do we know God prays?
Because, say the rabbis, God says in Isaiah:
וַהֲבִיאוֹתִים אֶל הַר קָדְשִׁי
I will bring them (Israel) to my holy mountain
וְשִׂמַּחְתִּים בְּבֵית תְּפִלָּתִי
and I will make them joyful in the house of MY prayer
Not:
תְּפִלָּתִם / “their prayer” but תְּפִלָּתִי/ MY prayer.
This proves that God prays. Says it right in the Torah!
And for what does God pray? The rabbis suggest:
יְהִי רָצוֹן מִלְּפָנַי
“May it be MY will
that my mercy will overcome my anger.”
3.
I don’t know if God was praying for his mercy to overcome his anger at the particular moment — looking at the full on spectacle of Israel melting jewelry, dancing around flames and fantasy — but God has good reason to be angry
I don’t know if God was praying but I know, it seems he does not succeed
God’s anger overwhelms him in that moment and, according to the Talmud (2)
He calls to Moses
Abruptly telling him what’s going on with Israel
“לֶךְ רֵד— Go down [See what’s happened]”
In other words,
“Go. Down. Get off your high horse, get off my high mountain, and away from me. You’re only valuable to me as an emissary to Israel. Now that Israel has sinned, they are worthless to me and so, you too are worthless to me. Why do I need you? There’s no need for an emissary.”
In that moment, the rabbis say,
It was as if Moses was struck
All his koach / life giving strength left him
And in the face of these words, this dismissal, he was powerless to speak a word.
You could say Moses was as still as a stone, as still as in idol.
You could even say, I want to say this shabbat
That by assuming Israel had fallen permanently, without hope for redemption
And by declaring Moses worthless by association
God was the one making the idols
In other words, if Israel had located all of divinity in one staggeringly simplistic golden statue God had also removed the possibility of divinity from the people Israel
Yes we were a people who made mistakes, true, big mistakes
But whose innate holiness, whose ability to surprise and repair, nevertheless remains.
4.
Because, let me remind you: According to Beit Yaakov, there are two kinds of idolatry,
and I learned them from my teacher Avivah Zornberg
one is well known and one is not as famous
The first kind you know, this is the kind when we elevate anything (money, drugs, an experience, stock, status, a relationship, a golden calf statue) to ultimate status, to having more God in it somehow.
Even if our intentions are innocent, we don’t make one thing extra holy because everything comes from God
and so assuming one thing or person is holier than the other leads to trouble
The second kind of idolatry
Is when we assume something or someone “has no power, nothing godly at all”
Because, see, then we have also forgotten that everything comes from God (3) and
Nothing can be cut off from the source, not out of extra holiness nor out of a lack of holiness.
And, see, this second kind of idolatry, of cutting people off from God?
I’m saying that is exactly the idolatry of which God was guilty on that very bad day
No wonder, then, when God says, לֶךְ רֵד / “Go Down,” to Moses
And says, “Your people have messed up” —
“Your people, that You, Moses brought out of Egypt…”
As in, “I have nothing to do with them or you — “
No wonder Moses feels drained of everything in him.
5.
It is a common misunderstanding that in matters of idolatry statues are the problem
That images or material things are all suspect
But first, while it is true the golden calf was an idol made of gold, it could have just as easily been an idol made of words or ideas or propaganda or social pressure or secrets, I trust you know what I mean
And second, it is not actually the gold that is the whole problem, I’m not even convinced it is the statue part,
it is putting all of God in one statue that is the problem
And in this moment in our history
When we crave to just give each other a hug or cup another person’s face affectionately in our hands
Maybe it’s just me
When we miss physicality and materiality of a large gathering
The sound of children running down the hall, laughing
The whispers of the people behind us, their singing
The sounds of food being presented on giant plates in a dining room set for 150
We should remember that the material things, our physical being, this is not the problem
In fact God dedicates chapters to the material quality of the sanctuary, how it should look and what we should wear
Verses on emeralds and woven purple cloth and woven trim and yes, gold
And we can make metaphors about all of it from now until the world to come
But those colors and textures and configurations also exist very much in this world
God created them for us here and now
In order that we might touch, hear, taste, experience the world and receive its holiness and elevate that holiness, not apart from physicality, from the material, but through it
On the mountain top and below
In the sanctuaries and in our Kitchens
Thanks to Tara Mohr, a Kitchen-ite, I began a conversation with Gerdie Rene Gordon, a minister who has served God and her people for twenty years through a Beauty Salon and Spa in Queens. Yes.
Minister Gordon has made a new kind of sanctuary in Queens
Because she dares to understand that God is not apart from our hair,
She understands that God is not apart from our bodies
But rather that God created our hair and our limbs and our mouths
God designed them and takes great interest in them as parts of us
And Minister Gordon understands that it is precisely in the places like a beauty salon
where God likes to hide, to hear the secrets, to feel the closeness between her creations.
Which leads me to wonder — if you, like me, never sought God in a beauty salon, at least not yet
Where else it is we have assumed
We were cut off from God
Making a place with no God, a kind of idol, without knowing it.
How many places have we turned into idols with our lack of imagination?
How many people?
6.
This brings me back to our parasha, to our God who has forgotten his own rules, that divinity is in the whole world
Who, in fury, continues, saying to Moses, “Now, leave me alone and I will destroy them!” We know God already feels alone, so this is no leap. And as for the destroying part? Once we have decided someone far or someone close to us has nothing holy nor surprising in them, destruction is not too far a leap either.
7.
But you see, it is that phrase of God’s, “Now leave me alone!” /
וְעַתָּה֙ הַנִּ֣יחָה לִּ֔י
That becomes just the opening Moses needs
I love the Jews
Because first, the rabbis point out
That a person does not typically say, “Leave me alone!” when the other party isn’t saying anything. You say it when you want to cut someone off from talking!
So there is, say the rabbis, something about Moses’ very presence that has become disturbing to God
And it is disturbing because it is disrupting God’s fantasy that God is alone, surrounded by inanimate, devoid-of-God, separate and useless people / objects
See Moses, even in his depleted state, even speechless, is still a living reminder that God is not alone, in fact, cannot be alone.
So, in a very strange way, Rashi says God saying, “Leave me alone!” is just the tiny opening
אֶלָּא כָּאן פָּתַח לוֹ פֶּתַח
that Moses needs. (4)
In that moment, Moses knows, realizes, God is mistaken
For God, like it or not, is always with us,
Moses cannot leave God alone any more than God can leave us alone
The material and spiritual pieces of us and God and God’s world are all mixed up in a big holy mess!
8.
And now the color rushes back to Moses’ face, because not only does he know he is not separate from God
He, the one closest to God is needed, precisely him, in this moment
So the rabbis say Moses does everything possible, he argues, prays, implores in his soul, gets a fever in his bones, dares to holds onto God’s cloak — like a friend who will not let another go — and refuses to give in to God’s reductionist view of Israel and himself.
“My people!” Moses yells. “These are your people, God. —
They are not only your people, they are your children. You cannot disown them. You cannot disown us. You cannot start all again. Maybe that’s the way it was once done but
Things don’t work like that anymore.” (5)
And everything stops. And I imagine, in that moment
Somehow God goes into their inner most chambers,
you know, that room where God hides and prays for their mercy to overcome their anger
and God emerges from that chamber having created t’shuvah / forgiveness.
Because we know God finds a way to forgive, to return even from this distant place — we still say those words from that moment of forgiveness, even now.
And so we learn, Torah and forgiveness are always given together, received together, never one without the other. For there is no real way to fight idolatry, not even for God, no way to make a lasting promise of any kind — without forgiveness.
And now, at last, the color returns to God’s face, whatever you think that means.
“וְאוּלָם, חַי אָנִי”
And God says — to Moses and to all of us,
“In spite of everything, I live,”
“וְיִמָּלֵ֥א כְבוֹד־יְהוָ֖ה אֶת־כָּל־הָאָֽרֶץ”
“I live and my presence fills the entire world.” (6)
1) Berakhot 7a:1-3
2) Berakhot 32a:14
3) Beit Yaakov, Parshat Yitro, Siman 114, p. 256
Do not make a sculpted image (pesel) or any likeness (temunah) (Ex. 20:4).
“Pesel” teaches that you shouldnt assign to anything a great power, saying, “This thing has a great power and an excess of God.” Because you shouldn’t cut off anything from its source and understand it as having a strength separate from God. “Temunah” teaches that you shouldn't disparage anything, saying “This has no power at all.” Because you shouldn’t disconnect anything from God, saying it doesn’t contain any heavenly honor. For if you say this, you will effectively be saying that God didn’t create it! and if you’re saying that God didn’t make it, then you make it into a “temunah.” And in these two ways one worships idolatry. (Trans. R. Aaron Potek)
4) See Rashi on Exodus 32:10
5) Shemot Rabbah 46:4
6) See Berakhot 32a:31 + Numbers 14:21
