Artwork by Sefira Lightstone
A WEEKLY TORAH THOUGHT FROM RABBI MORDY
This week’s Parsha, Ki Sissa, should really be pronounced Ki Seesaw for all of its ups and downs. Let’s give a little background. The Jewish people overcame a superpower in fleeing slavery in Egypt. Moses leads them through a miraculously split sea and, after winning a war along the way, they arrive at Mt. Sinai and receive the Torah. All throughout this period they’ve spent time refining themselves and becoming better, more complete, free people. G-d Himself speaks to them at Mt. Sinai and Moses then ascends the mountain to have some alone time with G-d where he can learn the Torah and be prepared to teach it. As Moses descends, forty days later, he finds the Jewish people have committed a grave sin. One of the first commands in the Ten Commandments is not to worship idols, and that’s literally what a large group of the people are doing with the Golden Calf. Moses breaks the “Tablets” containing the Ten Commandments and the repentance begins, hoping that the Jewish people can get back in G-d’s good graces. How can it be that a nation of people who witnessed G-d taking them out of Egypt and giving them the Torah get it so wrong so soon? How do they fall so rapidly? There is an explanation that they miscounted and, in their minds, Moses was not returning at the moment he should have but still; their faith is that fickle!?
How often do we see situations where something is “too big to fail,” or someone else “untouchable?” And fail is exactly what happens next. Because the moment people themselves that way, their downfall becomes inevitable. How many billionaires or powerful people do we need to hear about self-imploding because they believed their own PR? A core tenet in Judaism and in a functioning society is humility. The Jewish people did a bang up job rising from slavery to the top of the world—but that’s exactly where the greatest risk lies. They got to a place where they thought of themselves as a rising star, and subsequently burned themselves. I once heard a comment about the Lubavitcher Rebbe, our mentor and the one who served as the inspiration behind establishing The Friendship Circle, that he was “incorruptible.” Why? Because he always saw himself as corruptible. He never believed his own PR. The moment we see ourselves as incorruptible or even just above the ordinary folk, we are on a slippery slope. The good news is that we can learn from our mistakes. As a result of this week’s Parsha, we received a new set of the Ten Commandments with many advantages over the first; so much more stood to be gained once the Jewish people had this healthy dose of humility. Humble pie is food for the soul, truly delicious! Good Shabbos!