This week’s Torah portion is Ki Tisa, which relates the episode of the Golden Calf, which the Israelites create in a panic at Moses’ absence on Mount Sinai. There is a very interesting analysis by biblical scholar Jacob Milgrom of what he calls the “Hexateuch,” the 6 books from Genesis through the book of Joshua (Joshua is the book immediately following Deuteronomy, the last of the “five books of Moses,” in the Hebrew Bible). By diagramming the themes of the 6 books, beginning with the stories of the ancestors in chapter 12 and the promise of the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants, and ending with the entry into the land in the book of Joshua, Milgrom plots out a diagram in which the very center of the story occurs in this week’s portion—the relevation to Moses of God’s essence after the episode of the Golden Calf.
In chapters 33 and 34 of the book of Exodus, Moses goes back up Mount Sinai to repair the damage done by the Israelites’ turn to idolatry. In this scene, he begs to see God’s presence. The reply is that a human cannot see God and live, but Moses will have an experience of God’s “goodness.” What is revealed is not a sight, but a sound: a Voice proclaiming God’s nature as “compassionate and merciful, patient, filled with love and truth.” This litany became known as the “13 attributes,” and we chant them on holidays and the High Holydays especially: “Adonai, Adonai, El rachum v’chanun, erekh apayim, v’rav chesed v’emet…”
In Milgrom’s analysis, this revelation stands at the exact center of the story of the Israelite people. It comes at a moment of crisis, of broken covenant and covenant renewed, after Moses has smashed the first set of tablets, and awaits instructions to inscribe a new set.
In our own moment of brokenness, amidst all the pain and violence and fear in our world, this Torah story comes to remind us that there is an ultimate Source of Compassion in the universe that is accessible to us. It is Something that moves within us and around us. It is the ultimate Name of the divine, of the true nature of things. As we enter into this Shabbat, may we invite compassion and mercy, patience and lovingkindness, into our homes and into our hearts, and may we send those some qualities out into the world to all who are suffering. May the shattering be healed, may wholeness one day be restored.
