Parsha Themes Archive

Over the past few weeks, we have been dealing with the “Mishkan Unit,” the second half of Sefer Shemot. To very briefly recap:

Parashat Ki Tisa raises so many questions: what are Bnei Yisrael really looking for in creating and worshipping the egel -- another God, or another Moshe? How do we understand Aharon’s role in facilitating the egel fiasco? But we will leave these questions for another time. In this week’s shiur, we will focus on the truly complex process of forgiveness for the crime of the egel (golden calf); next week, we will continue with the same topic (since next week’s parasha, V-Yak’hel, repeats Parashat Teruma for the most part). I know that this is somewhat inconvenient, so if you’d prefer to receive Part II this week, email me at emayer@ymail.yu.edu and I will send it to you ASAP. Be warned, though, that it’s a lot of material.

The process of forgiveness takes place in two different arenas: 1) Interaction between Hashem and Moshe, and 2) interaction between Moshe and the people.

The conversations in our parasha between Hashem and Moshe comprise a process of negotiation and bargaining through which Moshe successfully ‘convinces’ Hashem to forgive the people for worshipping the egel. These conversations are exceedingly complex and require very thorough unpacking. Often, when we encounter negotiations in the Torah, it seems unclear what is at issue and what each party is arguing. This tendency is especially pronounced in Ki Tisa, where a superficial read shows Moshe simply repeating the same “Forgive the people” request again and again, and Hashem responding indirectly and, often, obscurely. Hopefully, a more careful look will shed light on the substance of the negotiations:

Moshe’s relationship with the people through this crisis is also complex and subtle: Is his role to represent the people and achieve forgiveness for them, or to represent Hashem and punish the people -- or both?

We pick up as the Torah reports that the people make the egel and worship it:

The people saw that Moshe was delayed in descending the mountain. They gathered upon Aharon and said to him, “Arise and make us a god to go before us, for this Moshe, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we have no idea what has happened to him . . . . They made a plated calf (“egel”) and said, “This is your god, Yisrael, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”

At first, the people credit Moshe credit with “bringing us up from the land of Egypt.” But once they have created the egel, the people transfer this credit to the idol: “This is your god, Yisrael, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Who indeed brought the people up from the land of Egypt? To us it seems clear that it is Moshe and not the golden calf who deserves credit, but when we turn to the conversation between Hashem and Moshe, it is apparent that they, too, debate this question: Who brought Bnei Yisrael up from the land of Egypt? This question, a recurring theme in the struggle between Hashem and Moshe, will assume tremendous importance as we continue.

The Torah now ‘switches cameras’ from the scene of the egel-worship to the scene at the top of Har Sinai, as Hashem reports to Moshe what the people have been up to in his absence. As you read the section (reproduced below), think about the following questions:

Hashem said to Moshe, “Go down [the mountain], for YOUR NATION has become corrupt, whom YOU BROUGHT UP from the land of Egypt. They have turned aside quickly from the way which I commanded them; they have made for themselves a plated calf and have bowed down to it, sacrificed to it, and said, “This is your god, Yisrael, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”

Hashem said to Moshe, “I have seen this nation, and it is a stiff-necked nation. Now, let Me alone, so My anger may burn against them and I will consume them, and I will make you into a great nation.”

Moshe beseeched Hashem, his God, and said, “Why, God, let Your anger burn against YOUR NATION, whom YOU BROUGHT out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should Egypt say, ‘Evilly did He take them out, to kill them in the mountains and wipe them off the face of the Earth’? Return from Your burning anger, and retract the evil [decree] for Your nation! Remember Avraham, Yitzhak, and Ya’akov, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your name, saying, ‘I shall increase your descendants as the stars of the sky, and all of this land which I have mentioned, I shall give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.” God retracted the evil He had said He would do to His nation.

Hashem claims that this nation is “amkha,” your (Moshe’s) nation. He distances Himself from the people at the same time as He makes Moshe responsible for them and their actions. This is the first hint Hashem drops that Moshe is supposed to rise to the people’s defense.

But Moshe shoots back that the nation is Hashem’s nation, insisting that He ‘must’ acknowledge His connection to them. This is one of the major themes which will control much of what Moshe says in Ki Tisa in attempting to regain Hashem’s favor for the people.

Hashem claims that it is Moshe who brought the people out of Egypt. This is yet another way of making Moshe responsible for the people, and therefore a hint to him that he is supposed to defend them. It also distances Him from the people, weakening the covenantal relationship as it sarcastically echoes the idolatrous people’s claim: The people first gave Moshe credit for taking them out of Egypt, and then transferred this credit to the egel; Hashem does the same thing, first giving credit to Moshe and then quoting the people giving credit to the egel. The subtext: “What chutzpah! First they give you credit, then they give the idol credit, when it was I who took them out of Egypt! Not just idol-worshippers, but ungrateful idol-worshippers!”

But Moshe claims that it was Hashem who took the people out of Egypt. Moshe is once again reminding Hashem of His relationship with and responsibility for Bnei Yisrael.

Hashem, furious with the people for worshipping the idol, echoes their claim that for them, the egel is god. Moshe does not try to argue with Hashem on this score; it would be tough to make the case that the people remain devoted to Hashem while they idolatrously cavort around the work of their own hands at the foot of the mountain. Reflecting the fact that at this point, it is Moshe alone who remains faithful to Hashem, the “narrator” of the Torah refers to Hashem as Moshe’s God alone: Moshe beseeches “the Lord, HIGod.”

Moshe marshals sevarguments to convince Hashem not to kill Bnei Yisrael on the spot:

Moshe succeeds in saving the people from immediate, utter destruction, but there is still a lot left to do:

First, the Torah says that Moshe turns to go down to ‘take care’ of the people. But then, strangely, the Torah pauses for a detailed description of the Luhot and how specially they were formed; one senses that the Torah treats us to this detailed description of the divinely carved character of the Luhot because they are about to be smashed.

When he approached the camp and saw the egel and the dancing, Moshe’s anger burned. He cast the Luhot from his hands and shattered them at the base of the mountain. He took the egel they had made, burned it in fire, ground it up fine, spread it over the surface of the water, and made Bnei Yisrael drink.

The Torah’s account of Moshe’s approach to the camp makes it sound like seeing the egel and the dancing is what arouses his anger. But we know that Moshe already knows what is ahead even before he sees it -- after all, Hashem himself has told Moshe how they have been keeping busy while he is gone -- and in fact, Moshe tells Yehoshua what is ahead as they descend the mountain! Why does the Torah make it sound as if the sight of the egel and the dancing arouses Moshe’s anger? Why is he angry only now, and not since all the way back when he heard about the egel? Furthermore, while the Torah makes Moshe’s smashing of the Luhot sounds like a spontaneous reaction to spontaneous anger, since we know that Moshe has known about the egel the whole way down the mountain, it seems logical that he brings the Luhot with him for the express purpose of smashing them. How do we look at the smashing of the Luhot -- as a calculated demonstrative act or a spontaneous expression of fury?

Note also the irony connected with Moshe’s anger: while we just heard him beg Hashem, “Al ye-khereh apekha,” “Do not let Your anger burn,” now we see him doing exactly that himself: “Va-yi-khar af Moshe”! Note also the irony in that despite his begging Hashem not to kill the people, he is about to turn around and do exactly that himself! Yes, Hashem had wanted to kill everyone and Moshe had “only” 3,000 people killed, but it is still highly ironic that the defender turns into the accuser! Moshe has us coming and going -- is he with us or against us?

Moshe’s job is to heal the relationship between Hashem and Bnei Yisrael. This means he has to play both ends. When Moshe faces Hashem and Hashem tells him to stand aside so that He can blast the people with a lightning bolt (so to speak), Moshe knows that even in His anger, Hashem is hinting that Moshe should defend the people -- Hashem wants to be appeased. (If He did not mean to hint to Moshe to stand his ground and defend, He would just blast the people without warning Moshe). Moshe plays the role of appeaser, reminding Hashem of all the reasons He shouldn’t destroy the people. Moshe’s role in the face of Hashem’s anger is to hold his own anger completely in check for if he, too, becomes angry, how will he be able to save the people?

But when Moshe faces the people, he allows his anger to blossom. The people have been attacked by a virulent form of spiritual cancer, and to survive they need radical surgery. If, without knowing the context, you watched a surgeon amputate a limb, you might think the surgeon a cruel torturer. But the truth is that he or she is a healer; without the amputation, the patient would die. Moshe seems full of cruelty and anger, but the truth is that he comes as a healer. The people need an amputation to avoid the greater threat, so that Hashem will be satisfied that justice has been done. Also, in order to be rehabilitated back into relationship with Hashem, the people need to experience punishment and guilt. They need to understand what they have done, deeply regret it, and deeply desire to return to Hashem. So when Moshe faces the egel and the dancing, he gives free reign to the anger he choked back before.

The mefarshim pick up on various themes which hint that part of Moshe’s strategy is to induce in the people an awareness of what they have done and a sense of guilt. Seforno addresses the question of Moshe’s use of the Luhot to teach the people a lesson:

“With the two tablets in his hand”: He [Moshe] reasoned that when he returned, they would repent, and if not, he would smash them [the Tablets] right in front of them to shock them into repentance.

The smashing of the Luhot is not a completely spontaneous reaction to Moshe’s own anger; it is something he plans while he makes his way down the mountain. His anger at seeing the egel and the dancing -- anger which he purposely lets loose at this point -- adds authentic passion to the gesture of smashing the Luhot in front of the people.

Ramban adds to the picture with his explanation of why Moshe has the people drink the dust of the egel. Other mefarshim say that eating the dust reveals who has participated in the worship: just as the waters drunk by the sota [woman accused of adultery] show whether a woman has been unfaithful, these waters will show if the people have been unfaithful to Hashem. But the Ramban adds a different suggestion, a psychological one:

. . . He wanted to show contempt for what they had made, so he ground up their god and put it into their bellies so that they should excrete it in their excre, as it says, “Cast them [your idols] out like an outcast, tell them, ‘Get out!’” (Isaiah 30:22).According to our rabbis, he also meant to test them like a sota, so that “their belly would swell and their thigh fall away,” and that is the truth.

Before they can do teshuva, Bnei Yisrael need to understand what they have done and develop a sense of revulsion for it. They need to feel a powerful sense of harata [regret], an integral part of teshuva. One way of making the people feel this revulsion is to transform the egel, the object of their worship, into something palpably disgusting; in addition, Moshe’s action forces the people to demonstrate (literally) their rejection of the egel, also a basic element of teshuva.

Moshe’s next task is to respond to the demands of justice by wiping out the chief participants in the worship of the egel. Last week we developed the picture of the Kohen as a person who relinquishes his personhood, his individuality, in order to function as a proper conduit between Hashem and the people. If this Kohenic character is shared to some degree by the rest of Shevet Levi, it fits that specifically Levi volunteers to mete out punishment in Hashem’s place, ignoring the bonds of love and friendship in representing Hashem’s justice to the people -- in carrying out in microcosm the destruction Hashem had wanted to carry out in macrocosm.

The next day, Moshe said to the people, “You have sinned greatly; now I shall ascend to Hashem -- perhaps I will be able to atone for your sin.” Moshe returned to Hashem and said, “O, this people have sinned greatly and made for themselves a golden god. Now, if You will forgive them, [good,] but if not, erase me from the book You have written!” Hashem said to Moshe, “Whomever has sinned against Me, him will I erase from My book! Now go and lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you; My angel shall go before you. But on the day I choose, I will recall their sin upon them!”

Moshe saved the people’s lives with his first tefilla, but now he must find a way to convince Hashem to forgive them and reestablish relationship with them. He adopts a very aggressive strategy: “Erase me from the book You have written!” Many of us know Rashi’s interpretation: “Erase me from the Torah.” But most other mefarshim disagree and say that “the book You have written” is not the Torah, it is the Book of Life, or the book of merits and sins which is before Hashem. In other words, “If You will not forgive them, then kill me!” (Rashbam and others).

On the surface of things, Hashem seems to brush Moshe off and refuse his request -- “I will erase the sinners, not you. Now go back to your job and lead the people.” But buried in this refusal is something quite new: “Take them to Israel” (!) Not only will Hashem not destroy Bnei Yisrael, but in fact they will still be traveling to Eretz Yisrael to inherit the land promised to them. This subtle shift -- subtle because it seems buried within a context of refusal of Moshe’s bold demand -- is a pattern which spans the parasha: Moshe demands complete forgiveness in different ways, and Hashem, seeming to refuse, actually grants the request in part. The cumulative result is that Hashem edges closer and closer to completely forgiving the people, until, close to the end of the parasha (as we will see next week), He forgives them completely and returns His Presence to them.

This pattern raises our awareness of a fascinating aspect of these conversations: Hashem seems angry and vengeful, threatening to destroy the people, refusing to forgive, turning Moshe down again and again. But along the way, Hashem continues to drop hints to Moshe that he is doing the right thing by defending Bnei Yisrael and challenging Hashem’s decrees. If not for these hints, it would be difficult to understand why Hashem does not simply blast Moshe to dust for his chutzpah and stubbornness [who is more “keshei oref” than Moshe himself?] in refusing His commands: “Leave Me, so that I may destroy them!” Moshe refuses to budge, and instead launches into a tefila to save Bnei Yisrael -- a successful tefila. Moshe understands that by telling him to “stand aside” so that he can destroy the people, Hashem is really saying, “Don’t stand aside! Play the defender!” Hashem certainly does not need Moshe to stand aside to strike at Bnei Yisrael, so when Hashem asks Moshe to make way, Moshe reads, “I [Hashem] am so angry that I am about to destroy the people. The only thing ‘in the way’ is you, Moshe -- the only thing that can stop Me is your interceding for the people. If you stand aside, if you do not pray for them, I will destroy them.”

Moshe then takes the initiative, demanding forgiveness or death (reminding all of us Americans, of course, of Patrick Henry). While the exoteric formulation of Hashem’s response is a refusal, it is actually a partial accession to Moshe’s request. As we will see, this pattern is one that will continue. [You may recall that Avraham displays similar ‘chutzpah’ in challenging Hashem’s plan to destroy Sedom and Amora. Avraham knows that he is expected to challenge; if not, God would have had no need to tell him of His plans for Sedom.]

Hashem does not want to destroy the people; He wants to forgive them. He communicates this to Moshe in subtle ways, but on the surface He remains angry and distant. In a sense, Hashem and Moshe are partners in a conspiracy of mercy, an under-the-table effort to forgive the people. Moshe immediately senses this and plays the role of audacious defender, while Hashem continues to play the role of vengeful and angry prosecutor and punisher. Hashem helps Moshe, as we will see, by supplying Him with the strategy which will allow him to achieve the goal desired by both of them: the return of Hashem’s Presence to the people.

This ‘conspiracy,’ and the fact that Hashem is implicitly instructing Moshe to play the defender’s role, is noted by Hazal in a midrash quoted by Rashi (33:11). Moshe has moved the “Ohel Mo’ed” outside the camp, a move interpreted by Hazal as Moshe’s understanding that just as Hashem has withdrawn from the Bnei Yisrael, so should His faithful servant, Moshe, withdraw from them. But Hashem tells Moshe that he is wrong:

Hashem told Moshe to return to the camp. He said to him, “If I am angry, and you are angry, who will draw the Bnei Yisrael close?!”

Despite His anger, Hashem wants to forgive the people, and He communicates this to Moshe, although perhaps with subtler hints than the conversation imagined by the midrash to express this idea.

Getting back to the scene above, although Hashem promises to punish the people at some point, it seems that they are basically “back on track” to go to Eretz Yisrael and inherit the land. If so, however, then the parasha should end here; the reason it does not is also ‘buried’ in this section: “My angel shall go before you.” Hashem Himself will not be coming with the people (=no Mishkan, as we have discussed at length). Moshe notices this, and does not respond -- but he also does not carry out Hashem’s orders! So Hashem gives the orders again. Usually, when the word “va-yomer” appears to tell us that someone says something, and then “va-yomer” appears again to introduce another statement by the same person, the implication is that the other party to the conversation has not responded to the first statement; the first party has paused, waiting for a response, but when it does not come, he begins again, so the Torah gives us another “va-yomer,” as it does here:

HASHEM SAID [”va-yomer” again] to Moshe, “Go, arise from here, you and the nation you brought up from Egypt, to the land I promised to Avraham, to Yitzhak, and to Ya’akov, saying, ‘To your descendants shall I give it.’ I will send an angel before you, and I shall drive out the Kena’ani, Emori, Hiti, Perizi, Hivi, and Yevusi. [Go to] the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go up with you, fyou are a stiff-necked nation, and I might destroy you on the way.” The people heard this evil thing and mourned. No one put on decorative ornaments. Hashem said to Moshe, “Tell the Bnei Yisrael, ‘Your are a stiff-necked people; if I accompany you for even a second, I will destroy you. Now remove your decorations, and I will decide what to do to you.”

Hashem repeats to Moshe the command to lead the people to Eretz Yisrael (since Moshe has not budged so far), repeats that He will send an angel before them, and makes even clearer than before that He Himself will not be making the trip with them. It seems that there is no progress in the forgiveness effort. But a second look shows that Moshe’s silent refusal to budge has quite effectively ‘changed’ Hashem’s mind on several scores:

The Torah tells us that the people hear this and mourn, understanding that their behavior has caused the departure of the Shekhina. But then, puzzlingly, Hashem commands Moshe to deliver this message again. Also puzzling is Hashem’s command to the people to remove their ornaments, despite the fact that the Torah tells us that the people, in their mourning, had already removed their ornaments on their own, caught up in sadness and guilt. Why command what has already been done?

Hashem’s command to Moshe to repeat to the people that He will not accompany them fits perfectly into the pattern we have noted of Hashem’s external anger but internal mercy and desire to forgive. Hashem is trying to emphasize to the people that the withdrawal of His Presence is not a punishment, but a merciful recognition that the people cannot handle the demands of faithful obedience implied by Hashem’s immediate personal Presence. And the command to remove the already-removed decorations reinforces the impression that Hashem is only externally angry -- He decrees a non-decree, prescribing mourning that the people have already performed independently. He purposely adds nothing substantive to the people’s mourning or sadness, only preserving the outward facade of His unforgiving, blaming posture.

We will continue next week with the final scenes of the ‘conspiracy to forgive.’

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