The Sacred In the Mistake and The Joy In Teshuvah
Olivia Ames’s Drasha for Ki Tis(s)a
Parshat Ki Tis(s)a is the longest weekly parsha in the book of Exodus, containing 245 lines, 139 verses, and 2,002 words. For such a long section it does indeed cover a variety of themes. It starts with instructions for conducting a census by collecting a half-shekel donation (or tax, depending on how you look at it), ambles along with some Tabernacle building instructions, takes a detour to remind us of the importance of Shabbat, and then hones back in on the Golden Calf incident.
And while Torah and succinctness are never mentioned in the same breath, these myriad of ideas are connected for a reason.
Before Ki Tis(s)a we know that Moses is going up the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights after hearing the Ten Commandments. Before his planned absence Moses had written down God’s words and asked the people to keep them. They agreed, and Moses trekked back up the mountain, perhaps unaware of how deeply common a lack of object permanence can be.
And as I mentioned, Ki Tis(s)a is a bit wordy. Though like much of the Torah, every word and character choice is deliberate.
So what, then, do we actually learn?
First, we get the details of the tax for the building of the Mishkan (which is also a neat way to conduct a census, as each Jewish man aged 20 and over will give a half-shekel). This tax is created so that “the rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less.” This money is a sort of soul offering, an atonement for wrongdoing. This is the first teshuvah mention that we’ll get in the parsha, and it sets the tone for what’s to come. I’m defining teshuvah here as return, or the return to God through repentance. Put a pin in this for now though, because I’ll come back to it.
The real significance of this offering is that it shows that we are one. “Jews in the rabbinic model do not primarily sacrifice as individuals. They sacrifice as one collective whole.”1 Each man gives a half coin so that only in joining with another can they become a “whole thing.”
This idea, to me, comes in part from the Pharisees' vision of Jewish law, a vision that saw this as a means by which ordinary people could engage with the sacred in their daily lives.
After this we go through a few more details of copper baths and a recipe for a sacred anointing oil, we arrive at the most emotionally heightened section of the parsha, the Golden Calf incident.
When the Israelites saw that Moses had been gone for what felt like an unreasonably long time on the mountain, they turned to Aaron and demanded he make a god for them to worship (remember: object permanence). Aaron then melts their gold jewelry to make the Golden Calf for the people to worship at the altar of. Now when God hears this, he is enraged and plans to destroy the Israelites, telling Moses “your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have acted basely,” they have become corrupt. Only after Moses begs and pleads for God not to destroy the people he had previously saved does God renounce this punishment.
As Moses begins his descent of Mount Sinai, carrying his Two Tablets of stone, I wonder what exactly he was thinking. Did his thoughts race with anger? What did he think he would find? When he does finally arrive and sees the Golden Calf and the people dancing, he erupts in anger, shatters his tablets, and destroys the idol.
In his anger he turns to Aaron and asks (depending on the translation): “What did these people do to you that you have brought such great sin upon them?” or “What did these people do to you that you permitted such a great sin?” And Aaron responds “don’t be angry, you know these people were already predisposed to evil.” Moses calls any believers to the front of the camp and has them slaughter the remaining 3,000 unrepentant people left inside the gates.
A gruesome scene. But ultimately God does forgive them, Moses prepares new tablets, and then he heads up the mountain for God to inscribe them yet again. This is the second and perhaps more crucial moment of teshuvah in the parsha.
Upon the altar of the Golden Calf have we not seen the ultimate betrayal? After witnessing the power of God in the ten plagues, after seeing the Splitting of the Sea, after having received the Torah at Mount Sinai just 40 days ago? After all this the Jewish people still decided to stray? And God still decided to reconcile with and forgive them.
Now when I first read through this I, like many others, I’m sure, had to sit with my discomfort at a mass murder. But I think it’s vital that we don’t skip over this because there is a radical solidarity in discomfort and disagreement. I recently watched a bit of a conversation with Iranian-Canadian director Alireza Khatami where he talks about the idea of narrative sovereignty. He discusses the need to “care about the sovereignty of our stories. Nations are not sustained by borders. They are sustained by the stories they tell themselves. Do we have narrative sovereignty? Are we telling our own stories or is someone else?”2 So even if this section makes us uneasy, how can we explore it more deeply? How can WE tell our own story?
Remember that this murder is preceded by the actions of Aaron. When he insists that it mostly has to do with the existing evils within the hearts of the people, he is effectively claiming some level of plausible deniability.
But Maimonides says that “if one has a base view of oneself, one will readily do base things.”3 So, conversely, if one has a base view of others, one will readily encourage them to do base things, or at least not discourage them from doing so. Did Aaron fail the Israelites by not holding them to a higher standard and encouraging them to hold the faith? How did Aaron’s closed-mindedness about these people almost pre-determine their fate?
While Aaron repents and is not punished in the immediate aftermath, he does eventually end up dying in the wilderness without ever entering the Promised Land, which has to be some form of biblical punishment. I’m not sure there’s an exact answer there to holding Aaron accountable for h’s actions, and murder sits heavy on our hearts and minds. But as I reflect on narrative sovereignty and the privilege we have in this space to disagree and remonstrate, I encourage us to use our own lenses to dissect the story. Rabbi Shai Held says that we will feel the “need to grapple with the distance between the sacred text and our own most deeply held moral intuitions4…The refusal to hide or look away [from human suffering] is a manifestation of deep love.”5 So being able to pick apart a story, whether we like it or not, is an act of loving kindness.
So: God was angry, Moses pleaded on our behalf, and God forgave us. The Israelites had made a terrible mistake, but now they are even closer to God. It can feel like a contradiction in terms, that this sin of the Golden Calf made it possible to have a closer relationship with God than prior to the sin! But I think this is the crucial part of teshuvah. Only in the vulnerability of making a mistake and admitting a fault can real reparations and healing be done. What a blessing to have the agency to err and still return.
Mistakes and sin can sometimes be inevitable, and they are a fundamental part of being human. In seeking to be perfect all the time we likely be miserable and miss out on all the moments of goodness and truth. Only in being courageous and potentially failing can we reach the highest of highs. Only someone truly skilled in making mistakes and being brave enough to try and fail again a million more times could represent and get closer to teshuvah. Rabbi Held says that “God’s love is not something we earn, but rather something we (ought to) strive to live up to.”6 We are already loved. We are already whole. We already have an innate, deep value. There’s nothing to prove, just everything to aspire towards.
I want to close this out with something I recently heard the Olympic gold medalist figure skater Alysa Liu say. She was interviewed before the Olympics last month and when asked about her determination, she said “I love struggling, actually, it makes me feel alive.”7 So as I think about teshuvah, and making mistakes, and embracing the tender parts of ourselves that are willing themselves to be brave for the sake of something better, I want us to remember that that yes “sometimes, too, the pain of living makes being alive feel like less than a blessing,”8 but what if there is joy on the other side of uncertainty, and everything turns out better than you could have possibly imagined?
SOURCES
1 Sebastian Selvén, The Privilege of Taxation: Jewish Identity and the Half-shekel Temple Tax in the Talmud Yerushalmi, pg. 84
2 Alireza Khatami, Why Canadian Film is Moving in the Right Direction
3 Maimonides, Commentary to the Mishnah, Avot 2:18
4 Rabbi Shai Held, Judaism is About Love, pg. 60
5 Rabbi Shai Held, Judaism is About Love, pg. 54
6 Rabbi Shai Held, Judaism is About Love, pg. 23
7 Alysa Liu, Alysa Liu: The 60 Minutes Interview
8 Rabbi Shai Held, Judaism is About Love, pg. 41
