KI TISA DRASH • GUGGENHEIM • PAGE 1 OF 4 KI TISA Shabbat Shalom. I ’ d like to dedicate this to Robert Richter, my childhood neighbor and bar mitzvah tutor who recently passed away. I want to begin this morning by thanking Hillel Wasserman for his kind invitation to deliver the congregational drash for this morning’s Torah portion, Ki Tisa I honestly don’t know what compelled Hillel to think of me for this. A rabbinic scholar I’m not. In fact, I could probably speak more authoritatively about bacon cheeseburgers than the Talmud. I ’m fond of saying that I put the ISH in “Jewish.” However, I like to think that Hillel thought of me for the Ki Tisa parashah becau se of my background as a television producer. In television terms, Ki Tisa would be considered what’s known as a “sweeps episode” -- an important or significant episode designed to drive up ratings during a period where the networks customarily set their a dvertising rates. Basically, if a character was killed off in one of your favorite television shows, chances are it was a sweeps episode. And the events of Ki Tisa are so momentous that you could consider this parashah not only a sweeps episode, but a “sea son finale” as well. In other words, a lot of stuff happens . And in particular it happens to Moses, the “show’s main character.” In Hollywood terms I’d say Moses was “Number One the callsheet” but I think we all know who really gets that position. (point s up) Anyway, in this “episode,” Moses gets two tablets inscribed with the finger of God , destroys said tablets, gets two more tablets to replace the ones he smashed, and stands up to Number One on the callsheet , not just once but twice But what prompte d Moses to stand up to God in the first place? Well, the answer to that question is why the title of this episode is called “The One With the Golden Calf.” So... spoiler alert: While Moses was atop Mount Sinai receiving the aforementioned stone tablets, th e people of Israel grew impatient. They went to Moses’ brother Aaron and said, “Come, make us a God who shall go before us, for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt -- we do not know what has happened to him.” In other words, I guess the I sraelites thought Moses had abandoned them or something, because Moses goes missing for a little bit and suddenly they want a whole new God to worship. And Aaron accommodates them. He tells them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me.” The people did as instructed and Aaron took that gold, melted it down, and made it into a molten calf. KI TISA DRASH • GUGGENHEIM • PAGE 2 OF 4 And they looked at the calf and exclaimed, “ This is your God , O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” Now, not only were Aaron and the Israelites giving a golden cow credit for what God did for them, they also managed to break the second and third of the T en C ommandments God had literally just finished writing down. The Second Commandment said, “Thou shalt have no other God s before me.” And the Third Commandment said, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.” The golden calf? That’s two for two. As screw - ups go, this one was -- shall we say -- biblical And God was so angry that he intended to destroy the children of Israel and start all over again beginning with Moses. Now, from my perspective, this is a pretty sweet deal for Moses. In fact, God is promising Moses tha t he will -- quote -- “Make of you a great nation.” In Hollywood terms, this is tantamount to a multi - million dollar overall development deal. But Moses not only doesn’t take God up on this, he implores God to spare the Jewish people. And Moses makes two a rguments -- one a stick, the other a carrot. The stick was an appeal to God ’s reputation: “ Let not the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that He delivered them, only to kill them off in the mountains and annihilate them from the face of the earth. ’” Good argument. The carrot was a reminder to God of the promises God had made to Israel: “ You swore to them by Your Self and said to them: I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and I will give to your offspring this whole land of wh ich I spoke, to possess forever .” In other words, this is the first recorded instance of what would become known as “the Jewish guilt trip.” Thus making this my mother’s favorite parashah And so God spared the people of Israel. However, when Moses returne d to the camp he was not only so angry that he smashed the aforementioned tablets, he also ordered the Levites to kill anyone who wasn’t -- quote -- “For the Lord.” And the Levites did as instructed and killed three thousand people The next day, Moses said to the survivors, “You have been guilty of a great sin. Yet I will now go up to the LORD; perhaps I may win forgiveness for your sin.” Now, in Hollywood terms, we call this “a logic bump.” Why does Moses have to go back to ask God for the very mercy G od has already granted the people of Israel? I don’t know. KI TISA DRASH • GUGGENHEIM • PAGE 3 OF 4 In television, we sometimes call this “refrigerator logic” -- the story makes complete sense until you get up from the television to go to the fridge for a snack. There’s an argument to be made th at there really isn’t an inconsistency because God knew that the Jewish people had acted -- quote -- “basely” but didn’t know about the golden calf until Moses came back and told Him about it. And we’re going to go with that explanation because it buys us what I consider to be Moses’ finest moment in the episode. He tells God that if God doesn’t forgive the people’s sin , God should erase Moses from the record which God as written . And there’s an exclamation point in there so you know Moses meant business. This is why we had to invent the word “chutzpah.” And it mostly works. God spares the Israelites -- for the second time -- but not completely. Apparently unsatisfied by the three - thousand deaths already imposed as punishment by Moses, God sent a plague as further punishment. In the writer’s room, we call this a “hat on a hat.” (By this point you’ve probably gotten the idea that like the people of Anatevka in Fiddler On The Roof , Hollywood writers have names for everything.) • • • Now, the reason I focused s o much on the back and forth of God ’s mercies and Moses’ attempts to persuade Him is because the incident of the golden calf is, for me, a story about the relationship between punishment and forgiveness. The Israelites do something horrible. The virtual in k isn’t even dry on the Ten Commandments and they managed to violate twenty percent of them in a single night. They violate Abraham’s covenant with God and they do it for no reason other than Moses happened to be a little late getting home. And yet, God fo rgives them at Moses’ urging. Yes, God does send down a punishment in the form of a plague -- and I think we have all learned this year that plagues are no fun. But God does spare the Jewish people. Not once -- but, as I’ve pointed out, twice Why does Go d do that? Well, we saw Moses give Him three reasons. The first two, as we discussed, were reputation and guilt. But the third was the one that was most compelling: Moses tells God that if God doesn’t forgive the Israelites, God should remove Moses from hi s book. Which Talmudic scholars such as KI TISA DRASH • GUGGENHEIM • PAGE 4 OF 4 myself interpret as Moses telling God that if God is going to destroy the Jewish people, God has to destroy Moses along with them. And we know God stays His hand. But the question is why? Now, one could argue that Go d doesn’t want to destroy Moses. But I think there’s a more interesting interpretation of God ’s decision. I think it’s possible that Moses’ willingness to die for the Israelites said something to God about the Israelites. That in that moment, God basically thought, “Well, if Moses considers the Jewish people worth dying for, then maybe they’re not so far gone after all.” In fact, God ’s greatest indictment of the Jewish people is that they’re -- quote -- “stiff necked.” Stubborn . The Israelites break two of the most important of God ’s commandments, violate their covenant with Him, and God basically shrugs and says, “They’re stubborn.” Which, by the way ... guilty as charged We are stubborn. And so was Moses. And I like to think that God looked at His children and felt that stubbornness was something to not only forgive, but to encourage And we’ve seen that stubbornness play out time and time again for the Jewish people. It’s what allowed us to survive the Holocaust and form the nation o f Israel. And we see that perseverance play out today in not only the continued existence of Israel and the daily struggle against anti - Semitism but also the embrace of the cause of social justice, including the elimination of all forms of prejudice . Our s tubbornness has proven to be our greatest strength. That being said, Ki Tisa teaches us that God’s penalty for breaking the Second and Third Commandments is a plague and given that we’re almost one year into one, you’ve gotta ask yourself: What schmuck wo rshipped a golden calf last year? Shabbat Shalom.