Mar 10/07 — Parashat Ki Tisa: The Learning Curve

Commentary by Rabbi Lawrence Pinsker

Today’s Torah portion presents us with Moses’ finest hour, his best qualities on display. He reprimands Aaron for his weakness, admonishes the rebel Israelites for their idolatry and acts against them, and, at the same time, defends the entire people before God, saving them from destruction.

Moses thereby becomes the model for all subsequent prophets of Israel. Like Moses, they will speak the word of God to the people and also speak on behalf of the people to God. The same Jeremiah who castigates the people for their immorality and warns of their coming destruction is also the one who pleads for them before God—and must ultimately deliver words of comfort when they cannot change the course of events.

When God declares His intention to destroy the Israelites and offers to make a new nation consisting solely of Moses and Tzippora’s descendants (Exodus 32:10), Moses responds unhesitatingly by pleading for God to “renounce the plan to punish Your People” (Ex.32:12). Moses does not consider God’s offer to make him into a “New Abraham” for even a moment. Nor does Moses entertain the notion that the people who have been so terribly troublesome both to him and to God deserve to be destroyed. Instead, he appeals for God’s compassion with a list of compelling reasons for God to forgive them.

1. God’s glory will dim if the Egyptians see Israel destroyed and everyone thinks God is evil.

2. God cannot break a sacred promise made to the Patriarchs and Matriarchs to increase their children and grant them their own land.

3. Perhaps most compellingly, Moses reminds God that, when all is said and done, Israel is not Moses’ people—as God says in Exodus 32:7—but rather God’s people (“Your people” in Ex. 32:12).

Although Moses breaks the tablets from Mt. Sinai upon entering the Israelite camp, ancient rabbinic commentaries say Moses’ response is not anger, but rather proof of the depth of Moses’ love. The rabbis say that in destroying the “tablets of testimony,” Moses was “tearing up the contract” between God and the Israelites so that God could not hold them responsible for breaking it.

Moses is also unhappy when God forgives the people, but refuses to personally accompany them into the Promised Land (Exodus 32:34 and 33:3). Moses (correctly) understands this is a breach in the relationship with Israel and seeks to restore the relationship that existed before the Golden Calf episode. For his effort, Moses succeeds in having God reveal His qualities of mercy and forgiveness, a text we recite frequently in our prayers to remind us of God’s essential character. These “Thirteen Attributes of God” (in Exodus 34:6-7), describe God as compassionate and gracious. In the end, the covenant is restored (Ex. 34:10) and another set of the tablets is given to the people.

A good leader defends his or her people, but also corrects their failings, coming to their help, but not glossing over their faults. That is Moses’ character as well. It is the Jewish leadership model in every generation.

Peter F. Drucker, one of the great thinkers on the theory and practice of organizational management, once said, “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” In today’s Torah portion the distinction between the two cannot be overlooked or dismissed. Aaron, Moses’ brother, knows how to do things right—he does a great job meeting the Israelites’ desperate need for a material representation of a god to lead them. He fashions a golden calf and thereby establishes for all time that he is deservedly not a model of leadership for the Israelites; he exhibits neither courage nor vision by yielding to the fears of the frightened and panicky Israelites.

We venerate Moses because he knows the right things to do and demands the people do the right things in keeping with God’s hopes and expectations. At our portion’s end, the Golden Calf takes its place as a symbol of all the challenges to individual and collective integrity that tempt us to abandon our principles and our ideals in favour of some shallow solution to our troubles. The rabbis see quick fixes as useless. The Torah aims at instilling wisdom and helping us to learn to master our responses to events.

When it comes to being human, the learning curve, it seems, has never been an easy climb.

Shabbat Shalom.