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Parashat Ki Tissa
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg
Only a few weeks ago, at the foot of Mount Sinai, the Israelites entered into a covenant with God, a marriage of sorts. God delivered the ketubah (wedding contract) to Moses in the form of two stone tablets, inscribed on both sides with the terms of the covenant. This is how we will affirm and re-affirm our love, our devotion to God – by keeping the terms of this covenant. A couple of lines down on the first side of the first tablet, we find the prohibition against worshipping any concrete image.
This week’s Torah portion opens with God completing the inscription on the tablets. Moses is about to descend the mountain, in his hands, the two “stone tablets inscribed with the finger of God.” The Hebrew verb used for God’s “finishing” of this inscription is “kalloto.” The Midrash connects this word to the Hebrew word for “his bride,” or “kallato,” suggesting that the tablets represent the solemnizing of the marriage between God and the Israelites, represented by Moses.
In that moment of completion, God tells Moses to hurry down, because the people have made themselves a molten calf and bowed low to it and sacrificed to it, saying: “This is your god, O Israel. . .” It didn’t take long for the people to go from wedding to betrayal.
As we know, Moses sees the pagan celebration at the foot of the mountain, and he smashes the tablets. He also sends the Levites among the people to slay thousands of people. Then he makes his way back up the mountain, hoping to “win forgiveness” for the Israelites’ sin. God does not forgive everyone. God sends a plague to kill those who are guilty of the idol worship, but God does not wipe everyone out. God then declares that God will no longer walk in the midst of the people.
As I read the parasha this year, what amazed me most is that Moses manages to persuade God to change God’s mind and to continue to walk with the people. My question for all of us this week is, why?
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