Rabbi Neal's Weekly Commentary

Copyright Neal Joseph Loevinger 2023 

ד  וַיִּקַּח מִיָּדָם, וַיָּצַר אֹתוֹ בַּחֶרֶט, וַיַּעֲשֵׂהוּ, עֵגֶל מַסֵּכָה; וַיֹּאמְרוּ–אֵלֶּה אֱלֹהֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל, אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלוּךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם.

This he took from them and cast in a mold, and made it into a molten calf. And they exclaimed, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” (Exodus 32:4) 

Things get complicated in this week’s parsha, but as usual these days we’re going to focus on one little detail to see what we can learn from it. To summarize the story so far: after leaving Egypt, the Israelites come to the base of Mt. Sinai, where they have a great revelation. Moshe stays up on the mountain to receive more commandments, including how to build the Mishkan, and on the 40th day, the people get anxious wondering where he is and what’s going on. 

That’s when they gather against Aharon, at the beginning of chapter 32, wanting answers. So Aharon gathers up their gold and makes the Golden Calf, perhaps just wanting to delay the forthcoming rebellion, but things quickly spin out of control. Look at the verse above: it begins with “This he took from them and cast in a mold”- that “he” is clearly Aharon. Then in the next clause, “they said: this is your god, Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!” 

Who is “they” who said “this is your god?” Rashi and others point out that it says “your god,” not “our God,” and quotes an earlier midrash to suggest that it was the erev rav, or “mixed multitude” of non-Israelites who left Egypt during the Exodus. That would explain “your god;” a group of people who came from a culture of polytheism and religious images could easily revert to their previous beliefs when they thought that Moshe had abandoned them. As several commentators have suggested, they probably thought Moshe himself was a divine figure and were making a replacement for him. 

Now, on the one hand, blaming the Golden Calf on non-Israelite fellow travelers seems a bit too convenient in getting the Israelites off the hook. After all, it was just 40 days earlier that they’d heard the command at Sinai not to make any graven images or bow down to other gods, and here they are, caught in the act! It seems to me that an important point of this story is the universal human capability for error, fallibility, self-justification and false consciousness, even just a few weeks after a literally earth-shaking revelation. 

On the other hand, maybe Rashi has a point. We don’t want to blame others for our own misdeeds (like making idols), but it’s also true that there are always people who take advantage of anxiety or fear, and say, “this is your god,” for their own purposes. “This is your god” can mean “this will solve all your problems if you only obey me,” or “this is the only way to think about things,” or “this should be your ultimate allegiance.” Think of all the advertisers who take advantage of human insecurities about appearance, wealth, or social standing, and sell them the false gods of materialism, status-seeking and impossible standards of physical perfection. Even worse, think of all the times throughout human history when dividers and demagogues took advantage of social anxiety and stoked it with fear of the other, with hatred of another nation or people, with ugly or violent rhetoric, pushing people towards the false gods of nationalism, nativism, religious chauvinism, irredentism or ideological extremism. 

This is your god is a timeless trap, sprung on the vulnerable whenever we let our guard down. We must resist not only being led astray by the idolaters of our day, but also the temptation to take advantage of another’s anxiety or fear by offering easy but illusory answers to life’s difficult problems. We can never fix the problems within ourselves by grasping easy answers or ideologies which circumvent the painful and slow work of cultivating virtues. Back in the desert wilderness, the people feared the journey without the leader who brought them there, but just a smidgen of patience and faith would have kept them going till Moshe got back. How many false gods have we accepted in our lives, false gods we would have rejected with just a bit more clarity of conscience and ability to abide uncertainty? That’s faith in action, and it clears out the idols from before us. 

Copyright 2017 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Ki Tissa

And he said: “Show me, now, Your glory!” The Holy One replied: “I will let all My goodness pass before you; I will proclaim the Divine Name before you . . . . (Shemot/Exodus 33:18-19)

Good morning! Good to be back. So much going on in this week’s Torah portion, most famously the Golden Calf and the breaking of the Tablets, but also Moshe’s plea, after the post-Calf reckoning, on behalf of the Israelites and himself. Moshe asks God not to destroy the Israelites, reasoning that it would be bad PR to destroy a people that God had just liberated from slavery.

As for himself, Moshe to see God’s “glory,” or kavod, which usually means something like direct or revealed presence. The response, quoted above, is interesting: God says, I will pass my goodness, tuvi, before you, not kavod, glory or immanent presence. Perhaps Moshe was caught up in the same need for some sort of defined external experience or perception of the Holy that caused the people to build the Calf, and God instead redirected him to experience the Holy in internal moral and spiritual qualities. In other words- you need not look for the Holy out there when you can experience the Holy in good and giving relationship.

If that were all these verse taught- dayenu, it would be enough! Yet as usual, our friend Rashi brings a deeper dimension to God’s reply to Moshe’s request. You can find the full translation here, but the basic idea is that God wanted to teach Moshe the order of prayer, which began with Moshe’s invocation of the merit of the ancestors but needed to include the qualities of Divine goodness and mercy, which God proclaimed while Moshe was hidden in the rock. (These are prominently quoted in our prayers on the Days of Awe.) Rashi says that Moshe thought that the “merit of the ancestors,” or zechut avot, was depleted or finished, and therefore there was no more hope, so God revealed Divine goodness and mercy, which doesn’t depend on the merit of our matriarchs and patriarchs.

On the one hand, this is a midrash, or interpretation, which explains the one of our central prayers: you may remember that the Amidah, or standing prayer, begins with calling out to God as the God of our ancestors Avraham, Yitzhak and Yaakov- and in my versions our matriarchs Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah as well- and has a central section, during the week, asking for goodness and various forms of blessing. The idea is Moshe thought that the merit of our ancestors wasn’t enough, so God showed Moshe that there is Divine goodness which doesn’t depend on it. Therefore, our prayers begin with zechut avot, but don’t end there.

On a deeper level, I think Rashi’s comment speaks directly to our greater Jewish experience in the modern world. How many of us do Jewish because it was something our parents or grandparents did, as a way of honoring them and furthering their legacy? How much of contemporary Judaism is taught as a historical practice which obligates merely out of accumulated precedent? Moshe suspected, and in Rashi’s reading, God confirmed- that’s not enough. We also need the experience of the Holy in our own lives, not just in the memory of the lives of those who came before.

Many of us have ancestors who lived extraordinary Jewish lives of courage, devotion and sacrifice- but it may not be enough to sustain a life’s journey. Like Moshe, who suspected that the merit of the ancestors was exhausted, to truly revitalize ourselves and our communities we each have to find and feel the Divine Presence for ourselves, in our lives and our loves and our deeds and our doing, if we’re going to make it on the long journey forward.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

The views expressed are my own and do not reflect that of Vassar Brothers Medical Center or Health-Quest.

Copyright 2015 Neal Joseph Loevinger 

Copyright 2013 Neal Joseph Loevinger 

Copyright 2012 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Copyright Neal Joseph Loevinger 2010

Torah Portion: Ki Tissa , Shmot/ Exodus 30:11 – 34:35

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Ki Tissa

Regardless of the local weather, all over the world this week’s Torah
portion is Ki Tissa, which contains the story of the Golden Calf and
many subsequent injunctions against idolatry in all its forms-
including even having treaties with the “idolatrous” nations that
Israel will encounter when it gets to the Promised Land:

“Beware of making a covenant with the inhabitants of the land against
which you are advancing, lest they be a snare in your midst. . . ”
(Shmot/Exodus 34:12)

Based on this passage- which, depending on how you read it, goes up
till verse 15 or so- the ancient rabbis banned certain kinds of
commerce with non-Jews, with the reasoning being that:

1) some of what might be purchased could have been intended for
idolatrous sacrifices, and

2) if Israelites ate and drank the foods of the local “idolaters,” it
could lead to such social friendliness that intermarriage and a
weakening of loyalty to the God of Israel would result.

Among the items produced by non-Jews which were banned by the ancient
rabbis was wine, which they understood to be often used in offerings
and sacrifices to pagan deities. This led them to prohibit “yayin
neshech,” or “wine of libation,” very strictly- that is, any wine
which could possibly have been produced with religious rites in mind.

Going a step further, a more general (and slightly less strict)
prohibition was put on “stam yaynam,” that is, “regular wine” made
outside the Jewish community. Wine that is “mevushal,” which means
cooked or boiled, was considered unfit for ritual use, and is thus
permitted in some situations where other wines would be prohibited.
For example, many strictly observant Jews will not drink wine that has
been sold or even handled by non-Jews, but in some cases if the wine
is “mevushal” it can be bought in an ordinary liquor store or
supermarket.

Thus we get from a verse in this week’s Torah portion which seems to
prohibit making treaties with surrounding nations to that square
bottle of sweet Manischewitz “wine” (Chianti Classico it’s not) which
you may have encountered at a synagogue, Shabbat table or Passover
seder. (I should note here that I’m following Sefer HaHinnuch, a
medieval textbook on the commandments, which does however point out
that some major scholars see the prohibition on the wine of non-Jews
coming out of a verse in Deuteronomy.)

So far, so good- except for the fact that in this instance, the social
context of the halacha makes all the difference in the world. (Once
again, I think I just summed up Conservative Judaism.) Reasonable
people can and do differ on how best to strengthen the Jewish
community, but I personally cannot believe that regarding our
neighbors as “idolaters” is the best way to do so. We live in a world
where the Jewish community stands in religious solidarity with
Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and other people of good faith
in coalitions which support social justice and a compassionate
society- can we really lobby, march, or pray with our neighbors one
day and the next day think that drinking their wine will fatally
weaken our Judaism?

Thus, the Conservative Movement has embraced the possibility of a more
lenient stance on the kosher status of wine (while at the same time
pointing out that some wines, especially European ones, can be “fined”
with animal or dairy ingredients, which is a totally different problem
in keeping kosher.) Our teacher Rabbi Elliott Dorff has argued that
the prohibition on “stam yaynam” could be discontinued in a
pluralistic society where most wine is made by large corporations,
unconnected to any religious practice or community at all. I certainly
agree with R. Dorff’s perspective (which is more nuanced than I can
describe in a few words) and I might go even further to say that
traditional practices which depend on a suspicious view of our
neighbors demand moral scrutiny as a general principle.

To put it another way, there are very good reasons to keep kosher, but
a fear that in purchasing wine, one is being tempted to idolatry, or
supporting it in some way, is not, to me, one of them. It is certainly
a great idea to buy Israeli wines to show connection to and support of
Israel, but that is a positive perspective, not one based on fear or
suspicion.

Rejecting idolatry isn’t only about looking at what’s out there in the
world; it’s also about looking within, and uprooting from within
traditional teachings any residual xenophobia from earlier periods of
Jewish history. I believe the prohibition on the wine of non-Jews
falls in that category, and I encourage those reading this to study
the issue further. Conservative Judaism has always seen traditional
practices in the light of evolving knowledge and social perspectives-
let’s drink to that!

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Ki Tisa

Post-Purim L’chaims to one and all!

OK, we’re back to more serious Torah study this week,
with Parshat Ki Tisa, which is the building of the
Mishkan, the Golden Calf, and Moshe’s treks up and
down Mt. Sinai. After Moshe breaks the first tablets,
he goes back up the mountain, talks with The Boss
again, and come down radiant from the experience. He
then teaches Torah to the Israelites, as we learn in
chapter 34:

” When Aharon and all the Israelites saw Moshe, and
beheld that the skin of his face had become radiant,
they were afraid to come close to him. Moshe called to
them and they returned to him— Aharon and all the
leaders of the congregation— and Moshe spoke to
them. After that, all the Israelites came close [to
him] and he commanded them [regarding] all that God
had spoken with him on Mount Sinai.” (Shmot/ Exodus
34:30-32)

In Rashi’s commentary, an implicit question is: why
mention Aharon and all the leaders and then mention
that Moshe taught the Torah to the rest of the
Israelites? Couldn’t Moshe just teach Torah to
everybody all at once?

As usual, Rashi finds a minor stylistic point in the
text and turns it into a profound moral lesson by
bringing an imaginative midrash from the Talmud. In
this midrash, these verses teach that Moshe taught the
Torah to Aharon first, then his sons, then the elders,
and then the community, as follows:

[Rashi]
“After he taught the elders he would again teach that
section or that law to all Yisrael. The Sages have
taught: What was the order of the teaching of the
Torah? Moshe would learn from the Almighty. Then
Aharon would enter and Moshe would teach him his
chapter. Aharon moved away and sat on Moshe’s left.
Whereupon his (Aharon’s) sons would enter and Moshe
would teach them their chapter. They then moved away
and Elazar sat on Moshe’s right and Itamar on Aharon’s
left. Whereupon the elders would enter and Moshe would
teach them their chapter. The elders moved away and
sat on the sides. Whereupon the entire people would
enter and Moshe taught them their chapter.
Consequently the lesson came into the possession of
the people once; into the possession of the elders,
twice; into the possession of Aharon’s sons, three
times; and into the hands of Aharon, four times.”

I love this midrash because it turns our stereotypes
of learning and leadership on their heads- maybe you’d
think that the “big shots” only had to learn the Torah
lesson once, or they could learn in private sessions,
but no, the biggest “macher” of them all, Aharon (the
High Priest) had to learn the same lesson four times.
Perhaps the idea is that the High Priest or the elders
get the must lesson exactly right (hence, the
repetition), but I also think this midrash is about
humility and being a role model. After all, when the
people came into get the teaching on the fourth time
around, they’d see all the assembled leaders already
learning- and even the High Priest could not be too
proud to be seen learning in front of his sons and the
other leaders and people.

I’m a rabbi, and my job is to inspire people to learn
Torah- therefore, I have to show that I’m a Torah
learner, too. The same thing goes for other Jewish
professionals, not to mention synagogue leaders,
parents and anybody else concerned about the spiritual
vitality of Jewish life. If we want people to learn,
then, like Aharon, we have to learn with them, side by
side, not just as role models, but as fellow seekers
of spiritual truth. Torah is best studied in community
because it is the inheritance of every Jew, and every
Jew has the right and responsibility to bring the
insights of his or her experience and life and soul to
the ongoing conversation, which is then infinitely
richer as a result.

Maybe that’s the real point of this midrash- that even
Moshe and Aharon studying Torah together is somehow
incomplete without the insights of all the people.
Moshe might have been radiant with the light of God,
but Torah is what brings the Jewish people together,
and gives us our purpose and our direction as a source
of light unto each other and the entire world.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

A summary and futher commentary can be found here:

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Weekly_Torah_Commentary/kitissa_index.htm

and of course, the text itself is here:

http://www.jtsa.edu/community/parashah/index.shtml

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Ki Tisa

The Torah portion Ki Tisa begins with further instructions for the maintenance
and ritual of the Mikdash, or portable Sanctuary. This theme is interrupted by
the story of the Golden Calf and Moshe’s reaction to it. After Moshe punishes
the people who built the golden idol, he goes back up the mountain and
pleads for a vision of God’s Presence, and has a powerful spiritual
experience of God’s merciful nature.

The story of the Golden Calf is endlessly instructive, but many, if not most,
interpretations focus on the social, spiritual, or psychological dynamics which
led to its creation. Less attention is paid to the aftermath, but here too there
is much to consider: after Moshe comes down the mountain to find the people
dancing around the idol of gold, he takes the Calf, burns it, grinds the ashes,
puts the ashes in water, and makes the people drink the mixture. (Cf. Shmot/
Exodus 32:20)

Our teacher Rashi, along with many other commentators, compares Moshe’s
actions to the “sotah,” or test of a woman suspected of adultery, which also
involved drinking “bitter waters.” (Cf. Bamidbar/ Numbers 5:11-31). In this
interpretation, God is like a loyal husband who find out that his wife (in this
case, the people Israel) has betrayed his trust (because they have given their
loyalty to the idol.) It is a plausible comparison, since the action of giving
an unfaithful people a bitter mixture to drink is so extraordinary and has clear
similarities to the ritual described in Numbers.

However, one can also ask a different question: if the Golden Calf, and the
idolatry it represents, was such a bad thing, why didn’t Moshe get rid of every
trace of it, purifying the camp of its noxious presence? A possible answer
comes from thinking about the act of consumption as a physical process:
whatever you eat or drink is quite literally taken into you, becomes part of
you, down to the molecular level. Moshe may not have understood what a
molecule was, but when he made the people drink the ashes of the Golden
Calf, I think he was showing them, in the most palpable, dramatic way
possible, that this breach of covenant will stay part of them – should, in fact,
stay part of them- for a lifetime.

We all carry our histories with us, and in this case, whatever it was that
caused the people to sin by making the Calf is now something they mustn’t
forget. The people have to ingest the lesson – both literally and symbolically-
that a covenantal relationship is a fragile thing, easily ruptured by
temptations, anxiety, fear, self-centeredness, or ego. By making them drink the ashes of
the Golden Calf, Moshe teaches the people a basic human truth: spiritual
growth necessarily involves “taking in” our experiences, carrying them with
us, reflecting on them, and using them to become conscious of the emotions
or inner needs that may lead to doing things which seem out of character, if
not self-destructive.

I take it for granted that most people are good, but everybody does things
they’re not proud of. A plausible religion therefore offers a framework for
struggling with and becoming aware of those inner forces which lead us to do
things which fall short of our ideals – like building a Golden Calf, or putting
any material object or human creation or ideology above the highest spiritual
values. The Torah doesn’t pretend that life can be lived without error or
imperfection, but offers a model of redeeming those errors for the good. Thus,
to me, this act of drinking the ashes of the Golden Calf is not a punishment,
but something which can turn the sin into its opposite: greater consciousness
and self-awareness, without which we cannot effectively be of service to
ourselves, God, and others.

PS- My interpretation of the act of drinking the ashes is partially based on an
idea found in Aaron Wildavsky’s book “The Nursing Father,” which is a study
of Moshe as a political leader. I haven’t read the book in its entirety, but
I’ve perused it enough to put it on my “must-finish” list.

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Ki Tissa

This d’var Torah was originally distributed by Kolel: The Adult Center for Jewish Learning during the year 5761 and can be found in its archives.

Ki Tisa (Exodus 30:11-34:35)

OVERVIEW

Parshat Ki Tisa begins with instructions for taking a census and a half shekel contribution from the Israelite adults, and continues with more instructions for making the worship implements for the Mishkan. After that, God reminds Moshe to tell the people about the holiness and importance of Shabbat.

The most famous part of our Parsha is the story of the Golden Calf: the people, upset at Moshe’s delay up on the mountain, make a statue of a bull or cow and venerate it as their liberator, apparently with Aaron’s cooperation. Both God and Moshe become angry with the people, and although Moshe rebukes them harshly, he also prays on their behalf. Finally, Moshe goes up the mountain again and beseeches God to reaffirm the Covenant; Moshe also wants a unique experience of God’s Presence. With great drama, God shows Moshe God’s “back” but not God’s “face,” and does reaffirm the Covenant and its ritual and ethical stipulations.

IN FOCUS

“Do not make for yourself any molten gods.” (Exodus 34:17)

PSHAT

After the sin of the Golden Calf, Moshe goes back up the mountain to plead with God, Who reveals attributes of mercy and forgiveness along with strict justice. However, Israel must obey the terms of the covenant, which include keeping the holy days and a stringent prohibition on anything resembling the worship of other deities. After the Israelites build the idol of gold, God reminds them in no uncertain terms that they must not make physical representations of Divinity.

DRASH

In its context, our verse makes perfect sense: God is irate about the Golden Calf, and warns the Israelites not to try it again. However, as we’ve noted before in this [cyber]-space, building statues of the sea-deity isn’t on most people’s agendas these days. Thus the famous Hassidic rabbi Menahem Mendel from Kotzk, also known as the Kotzker, used this verse to point out that creating a limiting representation of the Source of All doesn’t necessarily mean building something physical:

“Do not make for yourself any molten gods” – do not make for yourself a god that is fixed in form [i.e., “molten” into one form], with unchanging routines. (Source: Itturei Torah, translation mine.)

I suspect that the Kotzker is making a pointed comment about the religious life of his day, but his insight continues to be relevant. Our experience of spirituality and religion must grow and change over time- if we have the same conception of God at 50 that we did at 15, then we’ve missed something important. Thus the traditional commentaries insist that the commandment of Torah study lasts until one’s dying day- perhaps not only because the way one understands Torah will change as we age, but the way we view our lives and world can change if we never stop viewing it through the prism of sacred texts.

The Torah itself hints at this flowing and dynamic model of spirituality, just a few verses before, by enumerating 13 different “attributes” of the Holy One (verses. 6-7) when Moshe asks to see God’s “face.” Moshe may have wanted the same thing that the Israelites did when they made the Calf: a palpable, visible, imaginable, conceivable Deity. To me, the great genius of Judaism is its insistence that we never stop striving for holiness and spiritual growth- there’s no way to “grasp” the God of Israel entirely, no ending point in out quest for insight. God is not limited by denominational ideologies (though they are valuable learning tools), political inclinations, or intellectual paradigms- rather, authentic spirituality breaks through our easy answers and forces us to admit that there is learning yet to do.

A famous pop psychology book from the early 80’s put captured this insight into its title: “If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!” I’m no expert on Buddhism, but I understand this to mean that as soon as you think you’ve found the endpoint, “met the Buddha,” you’re in trouble. If I were writing a similar book, I’d take my title from the Kotzker’s understanding of this verse: “If Your God is Routine and Comfortable, You’ve Made a Molten Idol!” It probably wouldn’t be a bestseller, but it might impart an important truth about the hard work of Jewish growth.