The shattered and the whole....

Oh that golden calf... Part 1


Several things differentiate Judaism from other religions. The first that immediately comes to my mind is Purim, wherein we actually poke fun at our own religion. How many other religions have a specific holiday for that? It’s a healthy way to release tension, plus it’s yet one more way we Jews are instructed to question question question e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. Not too many religions can boast that. While some might be okay with some questions, what other religion takes our questioning and pushing back against every concept and notion as the highest form of learning there is? Go on, I’ll wait....

A second thing that differentiates Judaism from other religions is how devastatingly human the characters are in its stories. We have no saints. We have incredibly flawed human beings who misstep and fail and flail at every turn. Never once did we “get it” and move on. Millennia later, we’re still trying to “get it.” We don’t have final and pat answers; we have a fluid, flexible, constantly evolving, unfolding, questioning, system of ideas played out by admittedly flawed human beings who hung their dirty laundry for all to read in this cobbled together Torah. How much more human does it get? We have no saints, no savior, no perfect human(s), not even a perfect G!d.

For some, this is discomfiting. I find it refreshingly different and something with which I can resonate. Perfection is not so perfect, and perfect is rather boring.

Yet I have to admit, some of the human foibles in the Torah disturb me. Some more deeply than others. One event which is twice recorded in the Torah has been beyond my ability to fully understand until this morning. It is the two stories of the golden calf. And if the story is important enough to tell twice in the Torah, it is I.M.P.O.R.T.A.N.T.

Furthermore, not only does it occur twice in our Torah, but this story is retold a total of THIRTEEN times throughout the year in our annual cycle of Torah readings! Thirteen times! Not only do we hang out our dirty laundry very publicly, but we call our attention back to it thirteen times every single year. It is the most frequently read story in the Torah in our synagogues in the course of a year.

In addition to the two Shabbats assigned this story in their parashot, Ki Tisa and Ekev, sections of it are read on the four “minor” fast days both in the shacharit (morning) and mincha (afternoon) services and on Tisha B’av during the mincha service. Additionally, the ending of the story is read on Shabbat Sukkot and Pesach. Further yet, one of our greatest sages, Rashi, connected the story to Yom Kippur.

As mentioned, there are two versions of the story told in our Torah. In Exodus chapter 32, the story is told through the voice of an unknown “omniscient” narrator, and then the story is repeated again in Deuteronomy 9-10 in the voice of Moses. There are, of course, nuanced and not-so-nuanced differences between the two tellings. The second version is in Moses’ voice, and presents the Israelites as the sole offenders and offers them no mitigating circumstances: Moses did not tarry overly long; Aaron did not lead the people astray; the Levites didn’t act any differently, which is the story we get in Exodus.

In the final analysis, these differences are not haphazard, but reflect two internally consistent stories, each told from a particular perspective. The two versions of the story reflect two different understandings, by different authors, of the wilderness experience.

My note today, however, is not about the stories’ differences. It is about the story itself, no matter which version of it we wish to read. My note here is not about who was most at fault in the story.

When Moses comes down from the mountain with the first set of tablets, upon seeing the people worshiping the golden calf, he shatters the tablets as a sign of the spiritual brokenness in the relationship between the Hebrews worshiping a golden calf and G!d who adamantly requires no images.

As a Jew, I question everything, so I ask, “But what became of those broken stones from the shattered tablet? Were they left lying, scattered about the desert floor at the foot of the mountain?” For an answer, I find one in our Talmud which tells us, “Rabbi Joshua ben Levi said to his sons: Have care for an old person who has forgotten his/her learning. For we say: Both the whole tablets and the shattered tablets lie in the Ark. (Talmud Bavli, Berakhot 8b)”

In the ark of the covenant, one of our holiest objects, we place right next to the second set of new, whole tablets that first set of tablets which are broken. Smashed to smithereens. The holy ark, itself kept inside the mishkan, the dwelling-place for G!d in the wilderness, carries both sets of tablets: a new, whole set and the original shattered set. Think about that.

In our own lives, what is our holy ark of the covenant? Not only the Ark in the synagogue which houses the sacred sefer Torah (Torah scroll), we also each have our own ark––the ark of our bodies which houses our souls. And the tablets inside the ark? Our hearts. Everyday we carry our hearts in the ark of our bodies; our hearts, which are not just the organs that move life-giving blood throughout our bodies, but the organ to which we have assigned our deepest emotions. And yes, we carry within our hearts both the wholeness of who we are and the brokenness of who we are. We carry the emotions of joy right beside our deepest moments of despair and loss of hope and our most profound disappointments.

This is what it means to be human. Our greatest hopes live right next to our darkest pain and grief. We are called to be holy, and yet, more of our moments are not-so-holy than holy. We are called to be spiritual giants in a land of Liliputians, and yet we are not. For every victory and triumph we may experience, there are at least an equal number of failings and thwarted efforts.

Why do we remind ourselves so often of one of our moments of deepest spiritual failings as a people? Not just once, but thirteen times every year? Because, like “an old person who has forgotten his/her learning,” we, too, must be constantly reminded to be gentle with ourselves and with everyone else. Every single one of us carries the whole right next to the shattered in our hearts.

We must be gentle with the times we are most whole, because this is not the entire story. The second set of whole tablets only came after the shattering.

And we must be gentle with the times we are fragmented and broken, for it is also not the entire story. After the shattering came the wholeness.

And as it is for each of us, so it is for everyone else.

I have more to relate about the story of the golden calf that will come in Part 2.