Suddenly you lose your way. You quickly start feeling drained and lost and you don’t know what to do. It doesn’t matter what happened: don’t lose your head! Just proceed with simple faith. This is how you will be saved from falling into idolatry. This is the message of parshat Ki Tisa.
This week’s parsha is called Ki Tisa, where we read about the Sin of the Golden Calf. The Giving of the Torah had taken place just a short while beforehand, with the Nation of Israel as the bride of The Holy One Blessed be He. This represented the highest level connection possible with the Creator. Forty days later: a total disaster! The Nation of Israel turned their backs on G-d and sinned in the most grievous way: “The people saw that Moshe Rabbenu was delayed in coming down from the mountain. The people assembled around Aharon HaKohen and said to him, ‘Rise up. Make us a god that will go before us, for we don’t know what happened to this man Moshe Rabbenu who took us out of the land of Egypt’” (Exodus: 32:1).
Anyone who reads the story of the Sin of the Golden Calf is stunned and astounded. How could this have happened? After they saw such miracles and expressions of G-d’s might when He took them out of Egypt with amazing signs and wonders and after they stood witness at Mount Sinai and experienced G-d speaking to them from within the fire—everyone who was there experienced prophecy and lofty levels of spirituality far above the realm of normal human experience. Just forty days after this, they fell into such a deep abyss, into the sin of idolatry?! How could they trade the true God for a golden calf? How can we understand what happened here?!
Rabbi Natan teaches: Let’s look at the event itself and try to understand the main error that caused them to fall into this grave sin.
The crux of their error, teaches Rabbi Natan, was the fact that they did not try to search out the holiness of Moshe Rabbenu, may he rest in peace, on their own. If they had been properly trying to understand Moshe Rabbenu’s greatness and all the good that he had done for them, things would have been different. It began with the revelation of God in the land of Egypt during the ten plagues with all the wondrous miracles that Moshe Rabbenu had performed before their very eyes, as is recounted in parshat Va’eira and parshat Bo. And then he led them out of Egypt with a strong hand. There was the Splitting of the Sea and bringing down the manna. Then there was the highest revelation of G-dliness of all, at the Giving of the Torah, when G-d brought the Torah down to them with an open revelation of unbelievable miracles.
Just forty days after this, the Nation of Israel fell into such a deep abyss, into the sin of idolatry?! How could they trade the true God for a golden calf? How can we understand what happened here?!
If they had considered the matter and realized that the main thing that Moshe Rabbenu had really done for them was to reveal the Creator to them in stages—if they had searched their souls to refine them, and had purified themselves as they really needed to, they would undoubtedly have strived to come as close as they could to attaining his level of prophecy. They would have tried to cleanse and purify themselves. They would have understood that Moshe Rabbenu had disappeared so that they could deepen their search for him and his level of holiness, and that he had gone up to the heavenly realms to draw down the remaining mitzvot of the Torah for them in great holiness so that they too would be able to achieve spiritual perfection, which is the ultimate level of spiritual achievement. They would have been strong in their determination and would have not given up on him. They would not have come to the foolish decision to look for another emotional outlet as they ultimately requested: “a god that will go before us.”
In a case like this, they should have acted like Moshe Rabbenu’s closest disciple, Joshua. The Torah testifies that “Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not leave the tent” (Exodus 33:11). Our Rabbis teach that Joshua would stand by the mountain and would wait there for Moshe Rabbenu, his teacher, and would fix his gaze up toward the peak and anticipate only that he would return and be revealed to him.
Like Joshua, we too will believe that Moshe Rabbenu will return and we will not lose hope…
But, due to their many sins, the Nation of Israel was not careful to behave in this way, and they fell deeply into a grave sin which later resulted in the destruction of the Temple and the exiles. After the revelation at Mount Sinai, the Nation of Israel had merited to cleanse themselves from the negative influence of the primordial snake, but after the Sin of the Golden Calf they were infected again. As is known, the influence of the primordial snake is the source for all heresy and sin in the world, and the cause of all the destructions and the exiles. Therefore, the Sin of the Golden Calf is ultimately the root of the destructions and exiles that we are suffering from up until today.
How is all this connected to us now?
We must consider the great kindness that we merited receiving the Torah, and that each and every one of us has been privileged to experience the holiness of the Torah and the inner spiritual pleasure of doing mitzvot. But sometimes we can also “lose our head and fall, feeling as if G-d had distanced Himself from us and as if the Tzaddik who inspired us to a spiritual awakening had distanced himself from us and disappeared.” Supposedly, we feel like we will no longer be able to taste the sweet taste of holiness. Thus, we end up feeling exactly as the Nation of Israel did at this difficult time when they were at a loss and were searching for answers.
Let us not, G-d forbid, fall into the grave error that they did. Let us not look for meaning in a Golden Calf which is hollow and empty. Let us remind ourselves of all the holiness that we have been privileged to receive and remain determined to raise ourselves up like Joshua, about whom Torah attests, “would not leave the tent.” We will continue to hope and wish for one thing: “When will we return and merit the Divine Light that we tasted beforehand.”
We are not going to lose our heads. We won’t give up! We will not look for some new ridiculous thrill—“gods that will go before us”—just because “we don’t know what happened to him.” This itself is a reason to return and search and request and plead. May we all merit this!
(According to Likutei Halachot, Shluchin 5).
