Parshat Ki Tissa

Six days shall work be done

And the seventh day a day of rest holy to the lord

Whosoever shall work on the sabbath day

Shall surely die.

(Shemot 31:15)

 

Six days shall work be done - And one passage says 'Seven days shall you work', meaning that when you do the will of the Omniscient, your work shall be done by others, your male servants and your female servants, but when you do not do His will, you yourself will do you work.

                                                                                                                                    (Hizkuni, Ibid. ibid)

 

Rabban Gamliel, son of R. Yehudah Hanassi said, It is well to combine Torah study with some worldly occupation, for the energy taken up by both of them keeps sin out of our mind; all Torah study which is not combined with some trade must at length fail and occasion sin. Let all who work for the community do so from a spiritual motive, for then the merit of their fathers will sustain them, and their righteousness will endure forever.

(Mishnah, Aboth 2, 2)

 

Our Rabbis taught: And thou shall gather in thy corn. What is to be learnt from these words? Since it says, This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, I might think that this injunction is to be taken literally. Therefore it says, 'And thou shall gather in thy corn', which implies that you are to combine the study of them with a worldly occupation. This is the view of R. Ishmael. R. Simeon b. Yohai says: Is that possible? If a man ploughs in the ploughing season, and sows in the sowing season, and reaps in the reaping season, and threshes in the threshing season, and winnows in the season of wind, what is to become of the Torah? No; but when Israel perform the will of the Omnipresent, their work is performed by others, as it says. And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks. etc., and when Israel do not perform the will of the Omnipresent their work is carried out by themselves, as it says, And thou shall gather in thy corn. Nor is this all, but the work of others also is done by them, as it says. And thou shall serve thine enemy etc. Said Abaye: Many have followed the advice of R. Ishmael, and it has worked well; others have followed R. Simeon b. Yohai and it has not been successful.

(Talmud Bavli, Berachot 35b)

 

 

Tablets and shards of tablets

Maayan Cromer-Agmon

 

Parashat Ki-Tissa begins with God asking Moshe to gather from the children of Israel a donation of half a shekel which was to serve a double purpose - to count the population and to build the Mishkan. "The wealthy person shall not give more nor shall the pauper not give less than half a shekel to atone for their lives" (Shemot 30:15). I read this command as a hint of the extended narrative of the sin of the calf which is presented in this parasha. The giving of half a shekel, a coin of incomplete value, hints at the fracture to occur in the coming chapters.

We meet the Children of Israel on their long wilderness journey here. After forty-nine days of trekking through the wide and wild wilderness, slowly, step after step, the Children of Israel move further away from their past as servants under Pharaoh's rule, and come closer to the future - a nation that knows its Torah, accepts upon itself the yoke of God and dwells securely in the promised land. They reach one of the high points of the journey - the epiphany at Sinai and the receiving of the Tablets of Covenant.

A few chapters preceding our current parasha, in Parashat Yitro, we are told of the Children of Israel standing at the foot of the mountain, waiting to receive the two Tablets of Covenant. After long wanderings in the barren wilderness, after the desert winds blew above them, peeling away some of the difficulties of life in Egypt, they wash and cleanse themselves in preparation for hearing the words of Living God. And Mt. Sinai was covered in smoke and lightening and the rumbling voice of God is heard.

Following this awesomely impressive event, God invites Moshe to ascend to Him and to receive the engraved Tablets of the Covenant, and Moshe remains with Him for forty days and forty nights. This was such a long time for the Children of Israel to be without Moshe. The period that they spent at the foot of the mountain was only a bit less than all their trekking in the desert until arriving at Sinai - forty-nine days. It was really difficult for them - we can almost imagine them looking up with hope to the top of the mountain peak, anxious to see Moshe's familiar figure descending the dirt path, waiting to hear again his comforting voice which directs them through the winding desert ways. "And the people saw that Moshe lagged in coming down from the mountain [...] this man Moshe who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him" (Shemot 32:1).

They demand a replacement, consolation, a different figure to enter the empty space opened in their hearts. "Rise up, make us gods that will go before us [...]" (Ibid.), they ask of Aharon, and Aharon complies. He removes their gold ornaments and melts them into a molten calf. A shining calf, radiant, a luminescence of warm pleasant gold. Aharon fashions for them a statue in their own image, a tender calf that wants to suck and be warmed between its mother's breasts. "These are your gods, O Israel." How pleasant to find shelter in the shadow of a god who resembles ourselves, tender and young as ourselves, not threatening and not intimidating with blasts and flashes and thunder. The people rise to life "And the people came back from eating and drinking and they rose up to play" (32:6). After all this great anticipation, after the barren wilderness and empty hearts watching in vain for Moshe, there is great relief in gathering around the gold calf. Consolation in eating and fulfillment of the basic need for nourishment.

"And Moshe turned and came down the mountain, with the two Tablets of the Covenant in his hand" (32:15). Moshe approaches the encampment and he cannot believe his eyes. The people to whom he devotes his heart, the people of which he was the heart, this people could not wait for him and his direction; they made for themselves a calf of gold as a replacement for God. In his great fury he smashes the tablets "and Moshe's wrath flared, and he flung the tablets from his hand and smashed them at the bottom of the mountain" (32:19). What a powerful picture! The Tablets of the Covenant, sculpted and engraved by the hand of God himself, shattered against the rocks of the mountain. Had they waited only a bit longer, patiently restraining themselves, they would have received the real thing - tablets written in God's handwriting. What great greater gift could they possibly receive from God to signify the binding covenant between them? The two tablets, inscribed on both sides, were intended to be a wondrous unification of the two forces, the people and - through Moshe - God.

There is, at first glance, great tragedy in this event. A nation standing at the threshold of an amazing experience, deviates from the path a moment before the event. In my opinion, however, just as we are obliged to look at difficult and painful events in our personal lives with an understanding eye, so must we consider difficult events in our national history.

Actually, by making the golden calf, Aharon facilitated liberation from all the hard experiences and heavy baggage which the Children of Israel carried with them throughout the wilderness sojourning and the servitude in Egypt. He unloads from them, unburdens them, relieves them, exposes them bare of defense mechanisms. Ornaments can also represent beliefs and conceptions which pass down from generation to generation. Just as a mother passes on to her daughter a precious necklace which belonged to Grandma, so a nation passes on to future generations the consciousness of slavery which attended the people throughout its years in Egypt. And Aharon melts all these ornaments into a single unit, thereby freeing the nation from the yoke of the past, from the fears, from the dependency. Now they are more open and ready to receive something new.

Facing this, Moshe who broke the tablets; he too has created an additional opening for rapprochement between the people and God. For what is a fracture if not an entrance, a crack through which light may enter. As Leonard Cohen sings: "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light comes in".

For me the broken tablets are a symbol of the possibility of coming closer, an opening to great intimacy with the Lord. Instead of solid tablets, made from impenetrable stone, we received broken tablets, and between the cracks we have room to enter, there is room for true and full merger with God. Perhaps this is why, at the beginning of the parasha, the people are told to construct the tabernacle from the donations of half-shekels. The half-shekels make it possible to build a sanctuary which will carry the shards and their unification into a whole from the contributions of the masses. "There is nothing so complete as a broken heart" as Rebbe Menachem Mendel of Koztk used to say.

After Moshe breaks the tablets, he himself creates new tablets and God inscribes upon them again the words which were written on the first tablets. What is the difference between the two sets? The second set really connects God and Man. They are not given as a complete unit from God to nation, they are the fruit of a joint project of Moshe and God, both in their work and in their conversation. Moshe climbs the mountain with the tablets that he sculpted and when they are in his hands he prays to God: "The Lord, the Lord! A compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, and abounding in kindness and good faith [...]" (34:6), and God answers his prayers and forgives the people its sin.

I dedicate this dvar Torah to my father, Gerald Cromer, of blessed memory, who, in the Kol Nidre service of Yom Kippur eve, would bring his sensitive, fractured heart into the prayer, thereby bringing the congregation closer to their hearts and to God, and who, on Purim, was always willing to crack his masculinity and dress as a woman. I miss him terribly and hope that I, too, merit to walk in the ways of his open heart.

Maayan Cromer-Agmon, married to Ido, mother to Naomi and Yaara, works in therapeutic gardening.

 

 

Is it possible that the Children of Israel could come only forty day after the epiphany at Mt. Sinai, the commandments "I am the Lord" and "You shall have no other gods" still echoing in their eyes, and ask for other gods? It seems that the Torah wanted to teach us and set for us an example for all generations, that this indeed can happen. The very assumption that people who stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai cannot, are not able to sink again into ignorance, into foolishness, into the abomination of idolatry - is basically flawed [...] revealed miracles - one-time wonders - do not change man, his nature, his habits. They may astonish him momentarily, but they do not separate him from his world, his conceptions, his past, his routines.

(N. Leibowitz: Studies in the Book of Shemot, p. 399)

 

Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying: 'Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their way and by their doings; their way before Me was as the uncleanness of a woman in her impurity. Wherefore I poured out My fury upon them for the blood which they had shed upon the land, and because they had defiled it with their idols; and I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries; according to their way and according to their doings I judged them [...] For I will take you from among the nations, and gather you out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land. And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.

(From the haphtarah for Parashat Parah, Ezekiel 36)

 

Haver, we miss you

In the month of Elul, 5757, my good friend, Gerald Cromer z"l, who was then chairman OzveShalom/ Netivot Shalom, approached me with an offer to edit a weekly parasha sheet to be distributed among synagogues, a message with a different voice of religious Zionism, which draws its inspiration from the Torah of Israel.

I first got to know Gerald on the bus to Bar Ilan, where he served as a professor in the Criminology Department. Shortly after our first meeting, we became neighbors and close friends, and hardly a day passed without our conversing. We used to celebrate Seder eve together and Gerald invited us every year to consider the "straits" (מיצרים) from which we wished to exit. We also learned in chevrutah for many years, and Mashechet Berachot - which we learned together with two more friends - we completed on the first anniversary of his passing.

While yet in England, Gerald was involved in social and spiritual activity, and when he immigrated to Israel he was active from the very first moment in social projects.

From a very personal and involved position, he identified what was lacking in Israeli society and labored tirelessly to bring about change.

When he sensed that the existing synagogues no longer provided a place that answered his spiritual needs, he established, together with friends, Kehillat Yedidya, which strives to realize principles of female participation in the synagogue within the perimeters of halacha, and promotes action for peace and social justice.

When he sensed that within the national-religious schools there existed a tendency towards extremism,

withdrawal and nationalistic influences, he, together with a group of friends, established the Efrata School, which opened its gates to the children of the neighborhood to education towards tolerance and acceptance of the other.

Before the First Lebanon War and before the Jewish underground, there existed a small movement of religious intellectuals called "Oz V'Shalom" which defined itself as an ideological group for religious Zionism. During the period of the Jewish underground and even more during the First Lebanon War, there was a feeling prevalent in a larger public -  which also included yeshiva students  - that there is place for a wider movement which would express the feeling that something went wrong in the order of value priorities of part of the religious national community, and in the assembly which met in Bet Agron, Jerusalem, to establish "Netivot Shalom", two featured speakers were Rav Amital, z"l, and Rav Lichtenstein, heads of the Har Etzion Yeshiva. Gerald was, of course, one of those led the organization of this new movement.

Following the murder of Yitzchak Rabin, Gerald thought that the most suitable place for the reading of the Eicha scroll on Tisha B'Av night would be alongside Yitzchak Rabin's grave. This is because the greatest threat to our existence as a Jewish (and democratic) state and the most palpable danger of destruction are latent in baseless hatred, that is, in the inability to accept the other and in incitement, and since then, every year, we meet on Mount Herzl for the reading of Eicha and the recitation of lamentations.

On Tisha B'Av 5765, the day before the disengagement from Gush Katif, Gerald organized a public symposium in Jerusalem's Bell Garden, in which representatives of all shades of the ideological and political rainbow, religious and secular, expressed their personal feelings about what was about to happen. This twilight assembly had no chairman. Each speaker introduced the following speaker, and it was impressive and touching to see that, despite the intense feelings and deep disagreements which divided the public, it was possible to conduct a respectful discussion even in disagreement. This was in part because of the sensitivity which characterized Gerald; despite his deep commitment to the values in which he believed, he was a true pluralist.

Shortly before his death, when there was great distress in the south, especially in Sderot, because of the exposure to missiles from the Gaza strip, Gerald believed that ways must be found to support this development town.

When, upon returning from a round of lectures in the United States, he discovered that he was very sick, Gerald asked me: What should a man do, when he knows that his days are numbered? At the time I could not believe that in only six weeks he would leave us, but he knew, and until his last moments he strove to live a life with meaning.

You showed us the way, dear Gerald. A source of inspiration and motivator, you are lacking, but we shall try to continue, each in his place, to act on behalf of those values in which you believed, and in which we believe, for the sake of a better Israeli society, more just and peace-loving.

Pinchas Leiser

 

 

About us

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom is a movement dedicated to the advancement of a civil society in Israel. It is committed to promoting the ideals of tolerance, pluralism, and justice, concepts that have always been central to Jewish tradition and law.

Oz Veshalom-Netivot Shalom shares a deep attachment to the land of Israel and it no less views peace as a central religious value. It believes that Jews have both the religious and the national obligation to support the pursuit of peace. It maintains that Jewish law clearly requires us to create a fair and just society, and that co-existence between Jews and Arabs is not an option but an imperative.

4,500 copies of a 4-page peace oriented commentary on the weekly Torah reading are written and published by Oz VeShalom/Netivot Shalom and they are distributed to over 350 synagogues in Israel and are sent overseas via email. 

Our web site is www.netivot-shalom.org.il.

Shabbat Shalom is available on our website: www.netivot-shalom.org.il

For responses and arranging to write for Shabbat Shalom: pleiser@netvision.net.il