Ki Sisa 3
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Ki Sisa 3 |
Direct Communication Parshas Ki Sisa Contact Rabbi Spero at 862-9546 or jsohr1@juno.com If you are interested in receiving
Rabbi Spero's Dvar Torah in your email each week, please contact him at jsohr1@juno.com.
In this week’s portion, the Jews
commit the grievous sin of the golden calf. How could it be that a mere forty
days after having heard G-d’s voice at Sinai, the Jews were willing to
betray Him? This becomes even more inexplicable when we take into
consideration that three months earlier, they had seen with their own eyes the
ten plagues and the splitting of the sea. Furthermore, why does G-d tell Moshe
"on the day of My accounting, I shall reckon their sin (of the golden
calf) against them" (Ch.32 v.34)? This implies that this sin will forever
be held against the Jewish nation. Why?
It is crucial for us to understand that
the sin committed by the Jews was not a sin replacing G-d with an idol. After
all they had seen this would have been, at the very least, unpractical of
them. Which idol could split the sea and have killed all the firstborn of an
enemy nation? The Jews considered building the golden calf when, due to their
miscalculation, they thought Moshe was late coming down from the mountain.
When they saw he was not coming, they thought they needed a new intermediary
between them and G-d. They saw themselves as being unable to have a direct
communication with G-d. This was a serious error.
Maimonides, in his thirteen principles
of belief, explains this concept: "I believe that the Creator knows all
the deeds of human beings and their thoughts", as it is said in Psalms
(Ch.33 v.15), "He understands all their actions". And as it says in
principal five: "To Him alone is it proper to pray and not to any
other". These two principles taken together are telling us that G-d deals
directly with man, and man deals directly with G-d!
The reason why G-d will always remember
this ancient sin is that, unfortunately, it has always been one of our
greatest stumbling blocks. We are loath to accept upon ourselves this awesome
responsibility of a personal relationship with G-d. This has been human nature
for thousands of years, the basic human need to seek an intermediary; there
are Jewish groups today who have gone so far as to choose a dead person as an
intermediary between them and G-d! Whenever the Jews felt the urge to deify a
human being, to make a false messiah (the two go hand in hand), the situation
has always ended in catastrophe.
While at Sinai, the Jews heard only the
first two commandments from G-d Himself. They then complained to Moshe:
"If we continue to hear the voice of G-d we shall die!" (Deut. Ch.5
v.22). Some of the commentators criticize the Jews for this, saying that the
Jews were scared of the increased responsibility which would have come as a
result of them hearing it directly from G-d!
May we learn from this to appreciate the
awesome and lofty souls we have, and to know we can always communicate
directly with G-d.
Rabbi Jay Spero is the rabbi of the Saranac Synagogue in Buffalo. |
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