Rabbi Joe Black
March 2, 2018
Temple Emanuel, Denver, CO
Our torah portion for this Shabbat, Ki Tissa: sets up a powerful paradigm – a “split
screen” of action which shows us, on the one hand, Moses and God engaged in an intense
dialogue on the top of Mt Sinai. Moses begs to see God’s face - to understand and commune with the
Divine. And all of this happens at the
same moment that the Israelites are building the Golden Calf and violating the
very intimacy and connectivity that Moses so desperately seeks.
In our text, as Moses and Joshua are coming down the mountain
to hear the people reveling after the creation of the Golden Calf we read the
following:
Exodus 32: 17-18
When Joshua heard the sound of the
people in their celebrations, he said to Moses:
“There is the sound of songs of war in the camp!” And Moses said: “This is not the sound of songs of bravery;
this is not the sound of songs of weakness, this is the sound of (just) songs ….. that I hear.”
It’s a strange passage – there seems
to be something missing in Moses’ reply. It’s not a complete sentence. Joshua hears the sound of the revelers celebrating
the Golden Calf – he hears the intensity of their voices – and yet, he can’t
quite pinpoint exactly what they are singing about. Moses seems to be teaching Joshua that it is
not the message of the song that they are hearing that is disturbing – rather,
the sound of the singers is chilling to his ear because instead of glorifying
God, its purpose was to amplify the sin that was being committed. It was not a song of bravery or weakness – it
was merely the people reveling in the sound of their own voices.
To set the scene – Moses has just
returned from an intense communion with God just moments before he and Joshua
hear the commotion in the camp below. He
is still glowing from the experience of talking with God and receiving the
Torah – the blueprint for life’s meaning and purpose. To be transported from this level of
intensity, spiritual depth and communion with all that is holy to an encounter with
the most base, profane and idolatrous sounds of the Israelites must have been incredibly
difficult for Moses. And yet, he not
only immediately comprehends what is going on, he also had the presence of mind
to argue with God who wanted to destroy the His people. Moses challenges God saying (and I paraphrase…):
“Why, O God, should Your anger flare up against Your people whom You have
taken out of the land of Egypt, with great power and a strong hand? Why should the Egyptians say that You removed
them from bondage so that You could destroy them in the wilderness? ….Step back from Your wrath and reconsider
Your anger against Your people!” (Genesis 32:11-13)
God relents and Moses’ logic
prevails, but the contrast between the revelatory experience of Moses and the
baseness and meaningless display of ID in which the Israelites are engaged is
both profound and telling.
Today, we, all too often, can find
ourselves caught up in this gap between the holy and the empty, the sacred and
the profane. How often do we – as individuals
and as a nation, engage in pointless sniping and griping? We delight in empty
news that is tailored to our own predilections. In a world of instant messaging, the search
for “gotcha” moments is increasingly becoming a compulsion.
I am as guilty as anyone. I regularly check my Twitter feed to see what
new morsels of outrage those with whom I am ideologically opposed have committed. The need to feed our hunger for juicy tidbits
of scandal is paramount, exhausting and all consuming.
Yes – much of this comes from a White
House and Congress that thrives on chaos, name calling and confusion, but it is
wrong to place the entire blame on our leadership. To do so is to deflect us
from the real problem at hand. Our elected officials represent our values – as individuals
and as a nation. After all, Aaron built
the Golden Calf in response to the people’s call – not out of any desire to
rule.
The anger and emptiness our mindless
sniping inspires can also be tragic and deadly.
I am convinced that one of the reasons that we are seeing so many acts
of violence occurring around us – such as the Parkland tragedy of last week
and that of Central Michigan University that took place today – is because we have
allowed ourselves to be seduced by the soul-draining emptiness of our national
discourse.
If you, like me, are tired of the
sound of empty singing – of mindless criticism and sniping, then we all must
not allow ourselves to be drawn into the trap of appeasing our basest
selves. One of the most important
antidotes to emptiness is in the communal search for holiness that we, as a
kehillah kedosha – a sacred congregation – are engaged. The more we shun the temptation to give in to our own weakness and move towards creating and celebrating the holy and good in our
lives, the better we will be.
This is not an easy task. I do not have an answer to the multiplicity
of problems that we face. I do, believe,
however, that if we come together as a sacred community, we have a better
chance of drowning out the noise of mindlessness and finding meaning and
purpose in our traditions. Let our
singing bring us closer, our prayers make us stronger, and our values shine a
light on the path on which we need to walk.
Ken Yehi Ratzon.
